Jordan and Pippen Plus/Minus Numbers in the 90s

[lessthanjake]

you said most goat candidates and said it supports mj as the goat...

im guessin it also doesnt really help vs bron, but idk how ppl find that so i guess ill leave it to the batmans ur tryna avoid

LeBron James never had a +15 net rating in even one single season when on the court with Wade, with Davis, with Kyrie, with Bosh, or with Kevin Love. Michael Jordan was simply better as a force multiplier with other great players, and this is yet more evidence of it.

so basically ur arguin port again but coz you know no one here takes that seriously you tried to put it with a bunch of other stuff to make it look better than it is

obviously better than most goat candidates was cap, but bron wasnt enough ig

I have no idea what this means.

[MrLurker]

I'd be hesitant to call the '91 data an RAPM, but I didn't mean to say Rodman was bad or anything, just that he was well off MJ/Pippen and more comparable to Kukoc. Being (probably) the #3 on a GOAT tier team is no shame or anything. KD was still pretty good afterall.

You aren't kidding, are you?

I meant to get back to this.

Not really kidding I guess, though I mostly said KD instead of Dray for dramatic effect. I have Dray/KD pretty close for '17-'19, leaning Dray due to the playoff injuries for KD. In terms of quality when each played I'm not sure which way I'd go off the top (both clearly behind Steph).

This is an interesting take. I could see there being numbers supporting this but even there I don't think one should dismiss KD being more proven outside of the Warriors or their playoff improvement with Durant's arrival.

[MrLurker]

Yeah, we don’t have those numbers for Russell or Kareem (besides some numbers for older Lakers Kareem), but I was more just making a point in relation to the person this board placed #1, without saying his name specifically because that’d raise a bat signal for people, which was something I didn’t feel like dealing with.

you said most goat candidates and said it supports mj as the goat...

im guessin it also doesnt really help vs bron, but idk how ppl find that so i guess ill leave it to the batmans ur tryna avoid

LeBron James never had a +15 net rating in even one single season when on the court with Wade, with Davis, with Kyrie, with Bosh, or with Kevin Love. Michael Jordan was simply better as a force multiplier with other great players, and this is yet more evidence of it.

And I said it supports MJ’s GOAT candidacy because a +15 net rating with a player’s best teammate is “not something most GOAT candidates achieved as far as we know.” If you want to say MJ, LeBron, Kareem, and Russell are GOAT candidates, then we know LeBron hasn’t achieved it, and we do actually have at least some data for Kareem with Magic and I don’t *think* it gets that high either (though I know it is very good, and someone can correct me if I’m wrong). So I’d say that is supportive of the idea that “most” GOAT candidates haven’t achieved it “as far as we know.”

I’d also note that it’s highly implausible Russell achieved this, given that the teams’ total net rating was never *super* high (highest ever was +7.0) and Russell played incredibly high minutes so he was out there almost all the time. It’s technically *possible* but what would’ve had to happen for this to be the case for Russell is that the Celtics were incredibly good with Russell and his 2nd best teammate on the court while also actually being genuinely bad with Russell on and that 2nd teammate off. For instance, let’s take that year where they had their highest ever net rating—the 1961-1962 season with a +7.0 net rating. Let’s say Cousy was the 2nd best player on the team (debatable at that point, but he did finish the highest of the teammates in MVP voting). Russell played 45.2 minutes a game (out of the team’s total 48.24 minutes a game). Cousy played 28.2 minutes a game. If the Celtics were +15.0 with Russell+Cousy and we assume that essentially all of Cousy’s minutes were with Russell (a pretty reasonable assumption, since Russell basically played all but garbage time), they’d have to have had a -4.26 net rating with Cousy off the court for the team’s overall net rating to come out to +7.0. Even if we assume that the Celtics had something horrible like a -10.0 net rating in the small number of no-Russell-no-Cousy minutes, they’d still have to be -3.23 with Russell on and Cousy off for it to be possible for them to have also been +15.0 with Russell and Cousy both on. And that’s in the Celtics’s highest net rating year. There’s a bit of leeway in the numbers there, since it’s possible that Cousy had a very small number of minutes with Russell off. But basically, given the Celtics’ overall net ratings and the number of minutes Russell played, it’s not really mathematically possible for Russell to have ever had a +15.0 net rating with his 2nd best teammate on the court, unless it was also the case that the Celtics were genuinely bad with Russell on and the 2nd best teammate off. And that is both implausible and also definitely wouldn’t support Russell for GOAT (and, in fact, wouldn’t necessarily even support Russell as that era’s Celtics best player!).

So yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with the assertion I made. The only thing I'll note is that my guess is Kareem + Oscar put up similar net ratings in their best couple years and that it seems plausible to me that Kareem + Magic might’ve done it at some point if we had fuller data.

If I am reading this right, the reason you seem to take this as supportive of Jordan against Lebron can be boiled down to "Jordan played on a better team". If simple team-success is what you are looking for here - then I do think Jordan over Lebron is supported.

The disparity being a reflection of Lebron being worse as an individual WAR-generator however appears like a reach to me.
As does weaponizing what is effectively team-success against an 11-time champion on the assumption that the net-rating totals wouldn't match.

I think using this as a sign - though maybe not the strongest one - of Jordan having a place at the table - at least in terms of modern nba history - is pretty reasonable. Saying it supports him as the best seems irresponsible.

[70sFan]

im guessin it also doesnt really help vs bron, but idk how ppl find that so i guess ill leave it to the batmans ur tryna avoid

Seriously? Is this how you react to new information? Just ignore it because someone said something to keep you at your comfortable position?

why dont you keep this energy for when information that goes against mj or for lebron comes? or maybe youre just comfortable pretending theyre the same...

idk why im getting flack for not taking random numbers tossed with bs attached.

how did most goat candidates turn into bron? and why didnt you check if those numbers were actually better than bron's? all lessthan is doin here is pushin port again. that aint new information, that's the same old same old and you wanna be in the middle so you pretended it was something special

I don't care who you support or why. If you ignore numbers because they don't support your view, even though you can't understand what they show, then the problem is in you, no matter whether it's really supportive of "Jordan GOAT" narrative or not.

[lessthanjake]

you said most goat candidates and said it supports mj as the goat...

im guessin it also doesnt really help vs bron, but idk how ppl find that so i guess ill leave it to the batmans ur tryna avoid

LeBron James never had a +15 net rating in even one single season when on the court with Wade, with Davis, with Kyrie, with Bosh, or with Kevin Love. Michael Jordan was simply better as a force multiplier with other great players, and this is yet more evidence of it.

And I said it supports MJ’s GOAT candidacy because a +15 net rating with a player’s best teammate is “not something most GOAT candidates achieved as far as we know.” If you want to say MJ, LeBron, Kareem, and Russell are GOAT candidates, then we know LeBron hasn’t achieved it, and we do actually have at least some data for Kareem with Magic and I don’t *think* it gets that high either (though I know it is very good, and someone can correct me if I’m wrong). So I’d say that is supportive of the idea that “most” GOAT candidates haven’t achieved it “as far as we know.”

I’d also note that it’s highly implausible Russell achieved this, given that the teams’ total net rating was never *super* high (highest ever was +7.0) and Russell played incredibly high minutes so he was out there almost all the time. It’s technically *possible* but what would’ve had to happen for this to be the case for Russell is that the Celtics were incredibly good with Russell and his 2nd best teammate on the court while also actually being genuinely bad with Russell on and that 2nd teammate off. For instance, let’s take that year where they had their highest ever net rating—the 1961-1962 season with a +7.0 net rating. Let’s say Cousy was the 2nd best player on the team (debatable at that point, but he did finish the highest of the teammates in MVP voting). Russell played 45.2 minutes a game (out of the team’s total 48.24 minutes a game). Cousy played 28.2 minutes a game. If the Celtics were +15.0 with Russell+Cousy and we assume that essentially all of Cousy’s minutes were with Russell (a pretty reasonable assumption, since Russell basically played all but garbage time), they’d have to have had a -4.26 net rating with Cousy off the court for the team’s overall net rating to come out to +7.0. Even if we assume that the Celtics had something horrible like a -10.0 net rating in the small number of no-Russell-no-Cousy minutes, they’d still have to be -3.23 with Russell on and Cousy off for it to be possible for them to have also been +15.0 with Russell and Cousy both on. And that’s in the Celtics’s highest net rating year. There’s a bit of leeway in the numbers there, since it’s possible that Cousy had a very small number of minutes with Russell off. But basically, given the Celtics’ overall net ratings and the number of minutes Russell played, it’s not really mathematically possible for Russell to have ever had a +15.0 net rating with his 2nd best teammate on the court, unless it was also the case that the Celtics were genuinely bad with Russell on and the 2nd best teammate off. And that is both implausible and also definitely wouldn’t support Russell for GOAT (and, in fact, wouldn’t necessarily even support Russell as that era’s Celtics best player!).

So yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with the assertion I made. The only thing I'll note is that my guess is Kareem + Oscar put up similar net ratings in their best couple years and that it seems plausible to me that Kareem + Magic might’ve done it at some point if we had fuller data.

If I am reading this right, the reason you seem to take this as supportive of Jordan against Lebron can be boiled down to "Jordan played on a better team". If simple team-success is what you are looking for here - then I do think Jordan over Lebron is supported.

The disparity being a reflection of Lebron being worse as an individual WAR-generator however appears like a reach to me.
As does weaponizing what is effectively team-success against an 11-time champion on the assumption that the net-rating totals wouldn't match.

I think using this as a sign - though maybe not the strongest one - of Jordan having a place at the table - at least in terms of modern nba history - is pretty reasonable. Saying it supports him as the best seems irresponsible.

I’m not sure I understand the point you’re making. I think being a force multiplier with other great players is incredibly important to being a great player, since it is tremendously important to success at the highest levels of the NBA. This data shows Jordan absolutely being an incredible force multiplier—with his net rating with Pippen being extremely high. And this data in no way “can be boiled down to ‘Jordan played on a better team’” since it actually shows Jordan’s team not being very good at all without him—including even when Pippen was on the court, or even when Pippen + Grant/Rodman was on the court. In this data, the Bulls were outscored with Pippen and no MJ, even when Grant/Rodman were on the court with Pippen. But then you add MJ to the mix with Pippen and the net rating skyrockets to extremely high levels—a net rating that LeBron James never reached in even a single season when on the court with Wade, Davis, Kyrie, Love, or Bosh. This is obviously extremely impressive and I don’t see how one could see this data and think it just shows Jordan simply had a better team. That’s just not a fair reading of this data! For instance, LeBron + Wade never had a +15 net rating together in a season, but also the Wade-on-LeBron-off minutes were never as bad as these Pippen-on-Jordan-off minutes.

I don’t really understand the gymnastics people are doing to say that this data isn’t supportive of Jordan’s GOAT case. As I said in my initial post about this, it’s not conclusive evidence since it’s just one data point that isn’t a full sample, but it is still definitely evidence that supports his case.

[MrLurker]

Seriously? Is this how you react to new information? Just ignore it because someone said something to keep you at your comfortable position?

why dont you keep this energy for when information that goes against mj or for lebron comes? or maybe youre just comfortable pretending theyre the same...

idk why im getting flack for not taking random numbers tossed with bs attached.

how did most goat candidates turn into bron? and why didnt you check if those numbers were actually better than bron's? all lessthan is doin here is pushin port again. that aint new information, that's the same old same old and you wanna be in the middle so you pretended it was something special

I don't care who you support or why. If you ignore numbers because they don't support your view, even though you can't understand what they show, then the problem is in you, no matter whether it's really supportive of "Jordan GOAT" narrative or not.

I think their might be a misunderstanding here. If I read Shaqattac correctly - and feel free to clarify - Shaq is not ignoring the numbers, but rather the interpretation of the numbers Lessthanjake offered.

In fact if you go back to the first page, Shaq pointed out that the source of these numbers was an nba source - thereby defending the validity of these numbers.

Challenging interpretations is fair is it not? I think it would be very hard to get Jordan above Lebron with WAR-type-analysis if we didn't allow for challenges to the most optimistic interpretations.

[70sFan]

LeBron James never had a +15 net rating in even one single season when on the court with Wade, with Davis, with Kyrie, with Bosh, or with Kevin Love. Michael Jordan was simply better as a force multiplier with other great players, and this is yet more evidence of it.

And I said it supports MJ’s GOAT candidacy because a +15 net rating with a player’s best teammate is “not something most GOAT candidates achieved as far as we know.” If you want to say MJ, LeBron, Kareem, and Russell are GOAT candidates, then we know LeBron hasn’t achieved it, and we do actually have at least some data for Kareem with Magic and I don’t *think* it gets that high either (though I know it is very good, and someone can correct me if I’m wrong). So I’d say that is supportive of the idea that “most” GOAT candidates haven’t achieved it “as far as we know.”

I’d also note that it’s highly implausible Russell achieved this, given that the teams’ total net rating was never *super* high (highest ever was +7.0) and Russell played incredibly high minutes so he was out there almost all the time. It’s technically *possible* but what would’ve had to happen for this to be the case for Russell is that the Celtics were incredibly good with Russell and his 2nd best teammate on the court while also actually being genuinely bad with Russell on and that 2nd teammate off. For instance, let’s take that year where they had their highest ever net rating—the 1961-1962 season with a +7.0 net rating. Let’s say Cousy was the 2nd best player on the team (debatable at that point, but he did finish the highest of the teammates in MVP voting). Russell played 45.2 minutes a game (out of the team’s total 48.24 minutes a game). Cousy played 28.2 minutes a game. If the Celtics were +15.0 with Russell+Cousy and we assume that essentially all of Cousy’s minutes were with Russell (a pretty reasonable assumption, since Russell basically played all but garbage time), they’d have to have had a -4.26 net rating with Cousy off the court for the team’s overall net rating to come out to +7.0. Even if we assume that the Celtics had something horrible like a -10.0 net rating in the small number of no-Russell-no-Cousy minutes, they’d still have to be -3.23 with Russell on and Cousy off for it to be possible for them to have also been +15.0 with Russell and Cousy both on. And that’s in the Celtics’s highest net rating year. There’s a bit of leeway in the numbers there, since it’s possible that Cousy had a very small number of minutes with Russell off. But basically, given the Celtics’ overall net ratings and the number of minutes Russell played, it’s not really mathematically possible for Russell to have ever had a +15.0 net rating with his 2nd best teammate on the court, unless it was also the case that the Celtics were genuinely bad with Russell on and the 2nd best teammate off. And that is both implausible and also definitely wouldn’t support Russell for GOAT (and, in fact, wouldn’t necessarily even support Russell as that era’s Celtics best player!).

So yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with the assertion I made. The only thing I'll note is that my guess is Kareem + Oscar put up similar net ratings in their best couple years and that it seems plausible to me that Kareem + Magic might’ve done it at some point if we had fuller data.

If I am reading this right, the reason you seem to take this as supportive of Jordan against Lebron can be boiled down to "Jordan played on a better team". If simple team-success is what you are looking for here - then I do think Jordan over Lebron is supported.

The disparity being a reflection of Lebron being worse as an individual WAR-generator however appears like a reach to me.
As does weaponizing what is effectively team-success against an 11-time champion on the assumption that the net-rating totals wouldn't match.

I think using this as a sign - though maybe not the strongest one - of Jordan having a place at the table - at least in terms of modern nba history - is pretty reasonable. Saying it supports him as the best seems irresponsible.

I’m not sure I understand the point you’re making. I think being a force multiplier with other great players is incredibly important to being a great player, since it is tremendously important to success at the highest levels of the NBA. This data shows Jordan absolutely being an incredible force multiplier—with his net rating with Pippen being extremely high. And this data in no way “can be boiled down to ‘Jordan played on a better team’” since it actually shows Jordan’s team not being very good at all without him—including even when Pippen was on the court, or even when Pippen + Grant/Rodman was on the court. In this data, the Bulls were outscored with Pippen and no MJ, even when Grant/Rodman were on the court with Pippen. But then you add MJ to the mix with Pippen and the net rating skyrockets to extremely high levels—a net rating that LeBron James never reached in even a single season when on the court with Wade, Davis, Kyrie, Love, or Bosh. This is obviously extremely impressive and I don’t see how one could see this data and think it just shows Jordan simply had a better team. That’s just not a fair reading of this data! For instance, LeBron + Wade never had a +15 net rating together in a season, but also the Wade-on-LeBron-off minutes were never as bad as these Pippen-on-Jordan-off minutes.

I don’t really understand the gymnastics people are doing to say that this data isn’t supportive of Jordan’s GOAT case. As I said in my initial post about this, it’s not conclusive evidence since it’s just one data point that isn’t a full sample, but it is still definitely evidence that supports his case.

For what it's worth, we do have more reliable samples showing that Bulls were very good without Jordan.

[70sFan]

why dont you keep this energy for when information that goes against mj or for lebron comes? or maybe youre just comfortable pretending theyre the same...

idk why im getting flack for not taking random numbers tossed with bs attached.

how did most goat candidates turn into bron? and why didnt you check if those numbers were actually better than bron's? all lessthan is doin here is pushin port again. that aint new information, that's the same old same old and you wanna be in the middle so you pretended it was something special

I don't care who you support or why. If you ignore numbers because they don't support your view, even though you can't understand what they show, then the problem is in you, no matter whether it's really supportive of "Jordan GOAT" narrative or not.

I think their might be a misunderstanding here. If I read Shaqattac correctly - and feel free to clarify - Shaq is not ignoring the numbers, but rather the interpretation of the numbers Lessthanjake offered.

In fact if you go back to the first page, Shaq pointed out that the source of these numbers was an nba source - thereby defending the validity of these numbers.

Challenging interpretations is fair is it not? I think it would be very hard to get Jordan above Lebron with WAR-type-analysis if we didn't allow for challenges to the most optimistic interpretations.

That's his quote:

"im guessin it also doesnt really help vs bron, but idk how ppl find that so i guess ill leave it to the batmans ur tryna avoid"

How do you interpret that quote?

[MrLurker]

I don't care who you support or why. If you ignore numbers because they don't support your view, even though you can't understand what they show, then the problem is in you, no matter whether it's really supportive of "Jordan GOAT" narrative or not.

I think their might be a misunderstanding here. If I read Shaqattac correctly - and feel free to clarify - Shaq is not ignoring the numbers, but rather the interpretation of the numbers Lessthanjake offered.

In fact if you go back to the first page, Shaq pointed out that the source of these numbers was an nba source - thereby defending the validity of these numbers.

Challenging interpretations is fair is it not? I think it would be very hard to get Jordan above Lebron with WAR-type-analysis if we didn't allow for challenges to the most optimistic interpretations.

That's his quote:

"im guessin it also doesnt really help vs bron, but idk how ppl find that so i guess ill leave it to the batmans ur tryna avoid"

How do you interpret that quote?

The numbers might not support jordan being a better player than Lebron?

If it's really just the +15 then I think that's fair enough. Certainly did not need to be so aggressive - but that is another matter

[70sFan]

I think their might be a misunderstanding here. If I read Shaqattac correctly - and feel free to clarify - Shaq is not ignoring the numbers, but rather the interpretation of the numbers Lessthanjake offered.

In fact if you go back to the first page, Shaq pointed out that the source of these numbers was an nba source - thereby defending the validity of these numbers.

Challenging interpretations is fair is it not? I think it would be very hard to get Jordan above Lebron with WAR-type-analysis if we didn't allow for challenges to the most optimistic interpretations.

That's his quote:

"im guessin it also doesnt really help vs bron, but idk how ppl find that so i guess ill leave it to the batmans ur tryna avoid"

How do you interpret that quote?

The numbers might not support jordan being a better player than Lebron?

If it's really just the +15 then I think that's fair enough. Certainly did not need to be so aggressive - but that is another matter

Yeah, it might not support it but ShaqAttac just stated that he don't know if it does or not, but he'll wait for others to show him they don't. At least that's how I view it and considering a recent community shift to attack every pro-Jordan argument by posters who often don't understand the argument itself, I find it disturbing.

Before someone says it - I think many of Jordan criticism on this board is fair and I'm not Jordan fan. I also don't support Jordan for GOAT conversation. I just dislike it when I see that some people have clear agenda without trying to confront it with new information.

[JLei]

Does this really change this really change the Lebron/ Jordan discourse and are people really surprised here?

Jordan was awesome and probably the best peak in NBA history. Pippen's skill set is not exactly perfectly complementary to Jordan's at least offensively. It worked because of the Illegal Defense rules which also benefited Jordan as it gave him space in a game with no spacing.

I think defensive on-off is still so noisy. There's some signal here but I'm more convinced of the fact that Bulls maintained a top flight defense in 94 and 95 without Jordan which I can attribute more to Phil Jackson then any of the players individually. Also the fact that they drop to a mediocre offensive team shows Jordan's GOAT level offensive signal quite well. Jordan's retirement gives a nice easy WOWY for the same team.

If you have Lebron as your GOAT it's probably due to career value and he's going to or just about wins every argument on that front.

[Djoker]

Jake's point that the data in the OP demonstrates that Jordan is an incredible ceiling raiser is valid. +15 with Pippen is indeed as he claimed, a level that Lebron never reached with any star teammate.

In addition, what is low key being understated is Jordan's impact without Pippen. +7.4 without Pippen is very impressive and shows that the Bulls very much still played like a contender even without Pippen. In addition, the 1997 Bulls were a whopping +13.3 without Pippen and the 1998 Bulls were +7.3 without Pippen when Jordan played.

This is also corroborated by the WOWY data below for those teams over a sample of 8 straight seasons. Given the Bulls pace in those seasons, the +6.47 MOV without Pippen works out to about +7-7.5 per 100 possessions.

WOWY Combinations 1991-1998 Bulls

With Jordan 400-103 W-L -- 65-win pace +9.38 MOV
Without Jordan 90-63 W-L -- 48-win pace +3.38 MOV

With Jordan With Pippen 367-91 W-L -- 66-win pace +9.67 MOV
With Jordan Without Pippen 33-12 W-L -- 60-win pace +6.47 MOV
Without Jordan With Pippen 86-55 W-L -- 50-win pace +3.79 MOV
Without Jordan Without Pippen 4-8 W-L -- 27-win pace -1.42 MOV

People always complain about Jordan's floor raising but when Pippen wasn't on the court either sitting on the bench or outright missing games, the Bulls were less dominant but still a title contender with Jordan surrounded by a team of role players.

And when Jordan was missing you'd never hear me say those teams were bad. They were actually quite good but definitively not title contenders. The lineup data in the OP shows that the Bulls were -5.7 with Pippen but without Jordan. Now, I would trust WOWY way more as it's a bigger sample. Jordan's baseball stint gave us a large sample without him. +3.79 MOV with Pippen is quite solid but those that claim that Bulls were a contender without MJ is a ridiculous claim. +3.79 MOV is far from a title contender. More like a borderline top 10 team in the league as it works to about 52 Pythagorean Wins.

Also one thing I never hear anyone bring up is the Bulls' enormous collapse in 1999. You'd of course be correct to point out that Jordan, Pippen and Rodman all left but that team went all the way down to a -10.7. Do you realize how bad that is? Knowing that the Bulls played at +6 without Pippen in 1998 for half a season, that would mean that Jordan and Rodman leaving was responsible for a massive 16.7-point Net Rtg drop. And it's pretty likely that the lion's share of that is Jordan.

The whole "Jordan myth busting" always revolves around bringing up his weakest signals without context (i.e. the 1993 to 1994 drop) but ignoring all of the other insanely strong signals that we have suggesting that he was a colossal impact player.

In summary:

1) The Bulls with Jordan and Pippen were GOAT caliber historically great, a level that Lebron's teams never reached.

2) The Bulls with Jordan without Pippen were still playing like championship contenders. And honestly the sample isn't at all small at this point. We have lineup data from 157 games in 91/93/96 plus full season lineup data from 97/98 plus WOWY data with Pippen missing 45 games. All of these samples show that the team played at around +7 to +7.5 NetRtg without Pippen.

3) The Bulls with Pippen without Jordan were good but not playing like championship contenders. And again we have a large sample here thanks to his baseball retirement. Jordan's presence thus lifted fringe top 10 teams in the league to historic heights.

4) The Bulls without both Jordan and Pippen were putrid.

[lessthanjake]

Jake's point that the data in the OP demonstrates that Jordan is an incredible ceiling raiser is valid. +15 with Pippen is indeed as he claimed, a level that Lebron never reached with any star teammate.

In addition, what is low key being understated is Jordan's impact without Pippen. +7.4 without Pippen is very impressive and shows that the Bulls very much still played like a contender even without Pippen. In addition, the 1997 Bulls were a whopping +13.3 without Pippen and the 1998 Bulls were +7.3 without Pippen when Jordan played.

This is also corroborated by the WOWY data below for those teams over a sample of 8 straight seasons. Given the Bulls pace in those seasons, the +6.47 MOV without Pippen works out to about +7-7.5 per 100 possessions.

WOWY Combinations 1991-1998 Bulls

With Jordan 400-103 W-L -- 65-win pace +9.38 MOV
Without Jordan 90-63 W-L -- 48-win pace +3.38 MOV

With Jordan With Pippen 367-91 W-L -- 66-win pace +9.67 MOV
With Jordan Without Pippen 33-12 W-L -- 60-win pace +6.47 MOV
Without Jordan With Pippen 86-55 W-L -- 50-win pace +3.79 MOV
Without Jordan Without Pippen 4-8 W-L -- 27-win pace -1.42 MOV

People always complain about Jordan's floor raising but when Pippen wasn't on the court either sitting on the bench or outright missing games, the Bulls were less dominant but still a title contender with Jordan surrounded by a team of role players.

And when Jordan was missing you'd never hear me say those teams were bad. They were actually quite good but definitively not title contenders. The lineup data in the OP shows that the Bulls were -5.7 with Pippen but without Jordan. Now, I would trust WOWY way more as it's a bigger sample. Jordan's baseball stint gave us a large sample without him. +3.79 MOV with Pippen is quite solid but those that claim that Bulls were a contender without MJ is a ridiculous claim. +3.79 MOV is far from a title contender. More like a borderline top 10 team in the league as it works to about 52 Pythagorean Wins.

Also one thing I never hear anyone bring up is the Bulls' enormous collapse in 1999. You'd of course be correct to point out that Jordan, Pippen and Rodman all left but that team went all the way down to a -10.7. Do you realize how bad that is? Knowing that the Bulls played at +6 without Pippen in 1998 for half a season, that would mean that Jordan and Rodman leaving was responsible for a massive 16.7-point Net Rtg drop. And it's pretty likely that the lion's share of that is Jordan.

The whole "Jordan myth busting" always revolves around bringing up his weakest signals without context (i.e. the 1993 to 1994 drop) but ignoring all of the other insanely strong signals that we have suggesting that he was a colossal impact player.

In summary:

1) The Bulls with Jordan and Pippen were GOAT caliber historically great, a level that Lebron's teams never reached.

2) The Bulls with Jordan without Pippen were still playing like championship contenders. And honestly the sample isn't at all small at this point. We have lineup data from 157 games in 91/93/96 plus full season lineup data from 97/98 plus WOWY data with Pippen missing 45 games. All of these samples show that the team played at around +7 to +7.5 NetRtg without Pippen.

3) The Bulls with Pippen without Jordan were good but not playing like championship contenders. And again we have a large sample here thanks to his baseball retirement. Jordan's presence thus lifted fringe top 10 teams in the league to historic heights.

4) The Bulls without both Jordan and Pippen were putrid.

This is a good post!

One caveat I’d note, though, is that I don’t think it’s exactly comparing apples to apples to compare the net rating in Jordan-on-Pippen-off minutes and the net rating of the Bulls overall in the time Jordan was playing baseball. After all, the latter includes minutes that Pippen wasn’t actually on, and if the team were +7.4 with Jordan on and Pippen off then they wouldn’t have been a +7.4 net rating team overall without Pippen because they’d be worse than +7.4 in the minutes Jordan wouldn’t play. As some back of the napkin math, if we do a weighted average of the Jordan-on-Pippen-off minutes and the Jordan-off-Pippen-off minutes in this data, weighted by Jordan’s minutes per game in that era, we’d get an estimate that the Bulls would’ve been around a +5 net rating team overall without Pippen. Which would correspond to a definite contender, but not a *super* strong one. This is probably similar in 1998, where the Bulls were +7.3 with Jordan and no Pippen (I’m not sure exactly what the no-Jordan-no-Pippen minutes were like that season). In 1997, they were +13.3 with Jordan and no Pippen, so that’d definitely suggest they would’ve been an extremely strong contender without Pippen. Basically, I think the evidence indicates that, without Pippen, the Bulls would’ve oscillated between being a solid title contender to being an extremely strong title contender.

__________________

I’d also add one general point, not really directed at you: I think people put a lot of emphasis on the 1994 and 1995 off signals for Jordan, without realizing that there’s important contextual differences between that and other situations. There’s several discretely different types of “off” situations, which I think can lead to very different outcomes.

There’s “off” minutes in games a player played or in missed games in seasons they were present for. That’s one bucket, and often leads to bad “off” outcomes, because the team’s whole strategy is typically built around a certain superstar player and they won’t always adjust well when he’s out (and also there’s garbage time “off” minutes that are usually bad).

Then there’s WOWY samples where a player missed an entire season. That comes when a player changes teams or, in the case of Jordan, retires. At first glance, these may all seem similar, but I think there’s an important difference in these changing-teams-or-retiring scenarios. Typically, a player leaves when the supporting cast is ending its cycle as a really good team. This is definitely what LeBron did. In that case, we expect the team to get worse—indeed, that's usually why the player left in the first place! Not only that, but the team will know its cycle is coming to a close and will likely not even try to contend—instead opting to actively tank for draft picks. This exaggerates the WOWY effect a lot, since you go from a supporting cast that is actually trying to win to a somewhat weakened supporting cast that is actively not trying to win. The scenario is a lot different if a player leaves a team while the supporting cast is at their height. This is essentially what Jordan did—with Pippen and much of the supporting cast actually peaking at the time, rather than being at the end of their cycle. In that scenario, you won't get the rest of the team being naturally worse than the year before and it won't actually make sense for them to try to tank since the rest of the team is at their height. So you'd expect them to do a lot better without their superstar than a team that is at the end of their cycle and trying to lose games. And you'd also generally expect them to do a good bit better than the normal superstar-on-the-bench-or-missing-random-games minutes in a season the superstar plays, because the team will have had time to really focus their planning and training differently. We see an example of that here, where this data tells us the Bulls with Pippen and no Jordan were bad in these seasons surrounding Jordan's first retirement. They did better in the actual retirement years, in part because they had time to gear their team around not having Jordan. It's a very good example of different types of "off" samples being materially different, in terms of context.

Anyways, Jordan is just pretty unique in this regard. Superstar players don't typically leave their team for an entire season during the height of the team's cycle. They typically leave at the end. Leaving at the end naturally creates a much stronger looking signal, because the team is getting worse and immediately stops trying to win. Of course, we saw that with the Bulls in 1999 (where the Bulls were absolutely awful), but the signal is hard to parse because Jordan wasn't the only significant player to leave. That 1999 scenario is much closer to the category of WOWY signals we have for other players when they leave teams—where they leave at the end of a cycle. But people discount it because Jordan wasn't the only one who left. That's fine, I guess, but comparing other players' 1999-like scenario to Jordan's 1994 scenario is really comparing two different things. And I suspect we would’ve seen a much stronger signal for Jordan in 1999 than in 1994, if he'd left in 1999 and Pippen hadn't left at the same time.

[DraymondGold]

Jake's point that the data in the OP demonstrates that Jordan is an incredible ceiling raiser is valid. +15 with Pippen is indeed as he claimed, a level that Lebron never reached with any star teammate.

In addition, what is low key being understated is Jordan's impact without Pippen. +7.4 without Pippen is very impressive and shows that the Bulls very much still played like a contender even without Pippen. In addition, the 1997 Bulls were a whopping +13.3 without Pippen and the 1998 Bulls were +7.3 without Pippen when Jordan played.

This is also corroborated by the WOWY data below for those teams over a sample of 8 straight seasons. Given the Bulls pace in those seasons, the +6.47 MOV without Pippen works out to about +7-7.5 per 100 possessions.

WOWY Combinations 1991-1998 Bulls

With Jordan 400-103 W-L -- 65-win pace +9.38 MOV
Without Jordan 90-63 W-L -- 48-win pace +3.38 MOV

With Jordan With Pippen 367-91 W-L -- 66-win pace +9.67 MOV
With Jordan Without Pippen 33-12 W-L -- 60-win pace +6.47 MOV
Without Jordan With Pippen 86-55 W-L -- 50-win pace +3.79 MOV
Without Jordan Without Pippen 4-8 W-L -- 27-win pace -1.42 MOV

People always complain about Jordan's floor raising but when Pippen wasn't on the court either sitting on the bench or outright missing games, the Bulls were less dominant but still a title contender with Jordan surrounded by a team of role players.

And when Jordan was missing you'd never hear me say those teams were bad. They were actually quite good but definitively not title contenders. The lineup data in the OP shows that the Bulls were -5.7 with Pippen but without Jordan. Now, I would trust WOWY way more as it's a bigger sample. Jordan's baseball stint gave us a large sample without him. +3.79 MOV with Pippen is quite solid but those that claim that Bulls were a contender without MJ is a ridiculous claim. +3.79 MOV is far from a title contender. More like a borderline top 10 team in the league as it works to about 52 Pythagorean Wins.

Also one thing I never hear anyone bring up is the Bulls' enormous collapse in 1999. You'd of course be correct to point out that Jordan, Pippen and Rodman all left but that team went all the way down to a -10.7. Do you realize how bad that is? Knowing that the Bulls played at +6 without Pippen in 1998 for half a season, that would mean that Jordan and Rodman leaving was responsible for a massive 16.7-point Net Rtg drop. And it's pretty likely that the lion's share of that is Jordan.

The whole "Jordan myth busting" always revolves around bringing up his weakest signals without context (i.e. the 1993 to 1994 drop) but ignoring all of the other insanely strong signals that we have suggesting that he was a colossal impact player.

In summary:

1) The Bulls with Jordan and Pippen were GOAT caliber historically great, a level that Lebron's teams never reached.

2) The Bulls with Jordan without Pippen were still playing like championship contenders. And honestly the sample isn't at all small at this point. We have lineup data from 157 games in 91/93/96 plus full season lineup data from 97/98 plus WOWY data with Pippen missing 45 games. All of these samples show that the team played at around +7 to +7.5 NetRtg without Pippen.

3) The Bulls with Pippen without Jordan were good but not playing like championship contenders. And again we have a large sample here thanks to his baseball retirement. Jordan's presence thus lifted fringe top 10 teams in the league to historic heights.

4) The Bulls without both Jordan and Pippen were putrid.

Great stuff! Re: 98–99 drop, I made the Multi-Year WOWY Database a few months back (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2310915). It goes through all the major two-year WOWY samples (30+ games) for the entire careers of the standard Top 15 players. The drop from 1998 to 1999 is the single biggest drop on record.
If you try to do a ballpark contextual adjustment, by subtracting out the WOWY contribution from...
-Pippen (+3.1 WOWY in 1998, based on 44 games with and 38 games without), and from...
-Rodman (+2.75 WOWY the year before in 1997, based on 55 games with and 27 games without, and possibly(?) including the 2 games he missed in 1998)
... then you get a +11.28 WOWY sample from Jordan, which would be the 2nd biggest WOWY sample on record, just after Bird's rookie year. That's higher than any sample from any of the other typical GOAT candidates (Russell/Kareem/LeBron).

Of course, I've always been skeptical on hyper-fixating on single WOWY samples. There's immense noise that WOWY proponents tend to underemphasize for my taste. In the Thinking Basketball single-season WOWY database, a sample size of 1 (e.g. 1 missed game) gives you an uncertainty range of +/- 16.4 WOWY. A sample size of 10 missed games has an uncertainty range of +/- 7.3 WOWTY, 20 missed games has an uncertainty of +/- 4.5, even 30 missed games has an uncertainty of +/- 2.9 WOWY. And there can be systematic errors in WOWY, like other lineup changes mid-sample or coming back from an injury before you're fully healthy/up-to-speed/ready for full minutes (e.g. mid-70s Kareem, 1965 Wilt, 1986 Jordan).
Even when you go to multi-year WOWY, although your sample size increases, the uncertainty for a given sample size increases, as there can be more aging changes to the surrounding players even without other roster changes. I.e., a 30 game sample in 1-year WOWY would have an uncertainty of +/- 2.9 WOWY, while a 30 game sample in 2-year WOWY would likely have an even greater uncertainty.

Still, I do believe there's a signal in the data, and it can be more wholistic and less rotations based than raw plus minus data (although it still is context dependent). To me, it's best to use all of the the best data you have, while remembering uncertainties and limitations of the stats (e.g. raw WOWY doesn't adjust for teammates/opponents, box stats can have blind spots, etc.). That's why I like to look across the board at the different stats we have (box stats, plus minus stats, adjusted plus minus stats, WOWY stats, adjusted WOWY stats, team stats, etc.) and try to weigh them based on their limitations and uncertainties.

Like you say, across all these stats, Jordan has a pretty obvious GOAT case, unless you hyper-fixate on single samples in specific stats (like 1986 raw WOWY while ignoring that Jordan played significantly reduced minutes when he came back, 1993–1994 two-year raw WOWY while ignoring the other lineup/player quality changes that occurred, and while ignoring the other WOWY samples like 1998 and other adjusted WOWY samples and other statistics in general). I don't think any GOAT candidate (e.g. Russell/Kareem/Jordan/LeBron) is so much better that they're out of the uncertainty range of the others, and small criteria changes can also change the order. From a career value perspective (e.g. total value over career), I have LeBron then probably Kareem on top. If you expand career value to include college and high school, Kareem is probably at the top. From a peak perspective and possibly a career goodness perspective (e.g. how good you were when you were playing, mostly in your prime, which cares less about mid-career retirements), I probably have Jordan on top. From a relative-to-era standard deviations style perspective, I probably have Russell on top. They're all great players, and to me, so long as you keep an open mind to new evidence (like this plus minus data for Jordan!) and stay respectful of differing opinions, it's always fun to debate this sort of stuff!

[Djoker]

This is a good post!

One caveat I’d note, though, is that I don’t think it’s exactly comparing apples to apples to compare the net rating in Jordan-on-Pippen-off minutes and the net rating of the Bulls overall in the time Jordan was playing baseball. After all, the latter includes minutes that Pippen wasn’t actually on, and if the team were +7.4 with Jordan on and Pippen off then they wouldn’t have been a +7.4 net rating team overall without Pippen because they’d be worse than +7.4 in the minutes Jordan wouldn’t play. As some back of the napkin math, if we do a weighted average of the Jordan-on-Pippen-off minutes and the Jordan-off-Pippen-off minutes in this data, weighted by Jordan’s minutes per game in that era, we’d get an estimate that the Bulls would’ve been around a +5 net rating team overall without Pippen. Which would correspond to a definite contender, but not a *super* strong one. This is probably similar in 1998, where the Bulls were +7.3 with Jordan and no Pippen (I’m not sure exactly what the no-Jordan-no-Pippen minutes were like that season). In 1997, they were +13.3 with Jordan and no Pippen, so that’d definitely suggest they would’ve been an extremely strong contender without Pippen. Basically, I think the evidence indicates that, without Pippen, the Bulls would’ve oscillated between being a solid title contender to being an extremely strong title contender.

__________________

I’d also add one general point, not really directed at you: I think people put a lot of emphasis on the 1994 and 1995 off signals for Jordan, without realizing that there’s important contextual differences between that and other situations. There’s several discretely different types of “off” situations, which I think can lead to very different outcomes.

There’s “off” minutes in games a player played or in missed games in seasons they were present for. That’s one bucket, and often leads to bad “off” outcomes, because the team’s whole strategy is typically built around a certain superstar player and they won’t always adjust well when he’s out (and also there’s garbage time “off” minutes that are usually bad).

Then there’s WOWY samples where a player missed an entire season. That comes when a player changes teams or, in the case of Jordan, retires. At first glance, these may all seem similar, but I think there’s an important difference in these changing-teams-or-retiring scenarios. Typically, a player leaves when the supporting cast is ending its cycle as a really good team. This is definitely what LeBron did. In that case, we expect the team to get worse—indeed, that's usually why the player left in the first place! Not only that, but the team will know its cycle is coming to a close and will likely not even try to contend—instead opting to actively tank for draft picks. This exaggerates the WOWY effect a lot, since you go from a supporting cast that is actually trying to win to a somewhat weakened supporting cast that is actively not trying to win. The scenario is a lot different if a player leaves a team while the supporting cast is at their height. This is essentially what Jordan did—with Pippen and much of the supporting cast actually peaking at the time, rather than being at the end of their cycle. In that scenario, you won't get the rest of the team being naturally worse than the year before and it won't actually make sense for them to try to tank since the rest of the team is at their height. So you'd expect them to do a lot better without their superstar than a team that is at the end of their cycle and trying to lose games. And you'd also generally expect them to do a good bit better than the normal superstar-on-the-bench-or-missing-random-games minutes in a season the superstar plays, because the team will have had time to really focus their planning and training differently. We see an example of that here, where this data tells us the Bulls with Pippen and no Jordan were bad in these seasons surrounding Jordan's first retirement. They did better in the actual retirement years, in part because they had time to gear their team around not having Jordan. It's a very good example of different types of "off" samples being materially different, in terms of context.

Anyways, Jordan is just pretty unique in this regard. Superstar players don't typically leave their team for an entire season during the height of the team's cycle. They typically leave at the end. Leaving at the end naturally creates a much stronger looking signal, because the team is getting worse and immediately stops trying to win. Of course, we saw that with the Bulls in 1999 (where the Bulls were absolutely awful), but the signal is hard to parse because Jordan wasn't the only significant player to leave. That 1999 scenario is much closer to the category of WOWY signals we have for other players when they leave teams—where they leave at the end of a cycle. But people discount it because Jordan wasn't the only one who left. That's fine, I guess, but comparing other players' 1999-like scenario to Jordan's 1994 scenario is really comparing two different things. And I suspect we would’ve seen a much stronger signal for Jordan in 1999 than in 1994, if he'd left in 1999 and Pippen hadn't left at the same time.

Good post!

I didn't compare WOWY and lineup stats directly and wouldn't for the reasons you stated. You can only compare lineup vs. lineup or WOWY vs. WOWY but not across. Sorry if my post came off differently.

Excellent point that you made which I've also brought forward in the past as well but is worth repeating is that most players (ex. Lebron) leave their teams at the end of the cycle which is then also compounded by those teams tanking to get better draft picks. This greatly inflates their WOWY scores. For this reason I think looking at WOWY scores when players join teams is often more informative than when players leave teams. Although even then there is context like other roster changes, injuries etc. but at least the issue of tanking isn't there which can completely throw everything out of whack.

[MrLurker]

Does this really change this really change the Lebron/ Jordan discourse and are people really surprised here?

Jordan was awesome and probably the best peak in NBA history. Pippen's skill set is not exactly perfectly complementary to Jordan's at least offensively. It worked because of the Illegal Defense rules which also benefited Jordan as it gave him space in a game with no spacing.

I think defensive on-off is still so noisy. There's some signal here but I'm more convinced of the fact that Bulls maintained a top flight defense in 94 and 95 without Jordan which I can attribute more to Phil Jackson then any of the players individually. Also the fact that they drop to a mediocre offensive team shows Jordan's GOAT level offensive signal quite well. Jordan's retirement gives a nice easy WOWY for the same team.

If you have Lebron as your GOAT it's probably due to career value and he's going to or just about wins every argument on that front.

Jordan having the best peak in nba history seems to have come under some fire recently here - largely due to numbers of a similar nature to this - though I'm not sure how much what is being referred to on this thread really offers as a counterpoint.

From what I understand the Bulls drop-off offensively in 94 has been exceeded at different points so I'm not sure a moniker like goat-level is warranted if you are taking those two seasons without Jordan seriously - which I do to a degree

Interesting take on Pippen. I think in the early top 100 threads, a fair bit was said arguing for Pippen being a near perfect fit on both sides of the floor. What would you consider lacking there? I would expect an elite on-ball playmaker with lower shot volume to be a good partner.

[Djoker]

Does this really change this really change the Lebron/ Jordan discourse and are people really surprised here?

Jordan was awesome and probably the best peak in NBA history. Pippen's skill set is not exactly perfectly complementary to Jordan's at least offensively. It worked because of the Illegal Defense rules which also benefited Jordan as it gave him space in a game with no spacing.

I think defensive on-off is still so noisy. There's some signal here but I'm more convinced of the fact that Bulls maintained a top flight defense in 94 and 95 without Jordan which I can attribute more to Phil Jackson then any of the players individually. Also the fact that they drop to a mediocre offensive team shows Jordan's GOAT level offensive signal quite well. Jordan's retirement gives a nice easy WOWY for the same team.

If you have Lebron as your GOAT it's probably due to career value and he's going to or just about wins every argument on that front.

Jordan having the best peak in nba history seems to have come under some fire recently here - largely due to numbers of a similar nature to this - though I'm not sure how much what is being referred to on this thread really offers as a counterpoint.

From what I understand the Bulls drop-off offensively in 94 has been exceeded at different points so I'm not sure a moniker like goat-level is warranted if you are taking those two seasons without Jordan seriously - which I do to a degree

Interesting take on Pippen. I think in the early top 100 threads, a fair bit was said arguing for Pippen being a near perfect fit on both sides of the floor. What would you consider lacking there? I would expect an elite on-ball playmaker with lower shot volume to be a good partner.

Lifting those offenses as much as Jordan did is GOAT-level impact though.

Bulls rORtg

1991: +6.7
1992: +7.3
1993: +4.9
1994: -0.2 (without Jordan)
1995: 1.2 (roughly +0.4 without Jordan in 65 games, +4.2 with Jordan in 17 games)
1996: +7.5
1997: +7.7
1998: +2.6

Also realize how insanely good those 1991/1992/1996/1997 rORtg numbers with Jordan are.

Lebron's best offensive team was the 2013 Heat at +6.5 and then the 2015 Cavs at +5.5. No other team above +5.

Kareem's best offensive team was the 1987 Lakers at +7.3 and then the 1971 Bucks at +6.7. No other team above +6.5 even with Magic leading the show.

His fellow GOAT candidates never produced offenses at the level of the 90's Bulls and that's despite having more offensive talent on their rosters.

[OhayoKD]

Does this really change this really change the Lebron/ Jordan discourse and are people really surprised here?

Jordan was awesome and probably the best peak in NBA history. Pippen's skill set is not exactly perfectly complementary to Jordan's at least offensively. It worked because of the Illegal Defense rules which also benefited Jordan as it gave him space in a game with no spacing.

I think defensive on-off is still so noisy. There's some signal here but I'm more convinced of the fact that Bulls maintained a top flight defense in 94 and 95 without Jordan which I can attribute more to Phil Jackson then any of the players individually. Also the fact that they drop to a mediocre offensive team shows Jordan's GOAT level offensive signal quite well. Jordan's retirement gives a nice easy WOWY for the same team.

If you have Lebron as your GOAT it's probably due to career value and he's going to or just about wins every argument on that front.

Jordan having the best peak in nba history seems to have come under some fire recently here - largely due to numbers of a similar nature to this - though I'm not sure how much what is being referred to on this thread really offers as a counterpoint.

From what I understand the Bulls drop-off offensively in 94 has been exceeded at different points so I'm not sure a moniker like goat-level is warranted if you are taking those two seasons without Jordan seriously - which I do to a degree

Interesting take on Pippen. I think in the early top 100 threads, a fair bit was said arguing for Pippen being a near perfect fit on both sides of the floor. What would you consider lacking there? I would expect an elite on-ball playmaker with lower shot volume to be a good partner.

Lifting those offenses as much as Jordan did is GOAT-level impact though.

Those offenses are not "goat" level and the delta is not "goat" level either assuming we are using the conventional meaning of that term. And that is even if we ignore that the Bulls were actually a +2.2 offense in 1994 in games Pippen and Grant played.

It is a testament to the weakness of Jordan's GOAT case that goat is redefined as "very good" or "greatest of x period of time" whenever one looks to "plainly support" Jordan as the GOAT. And no, I do not think people would be doing this if he actually had a goat-level(or even a greatest of the last 40-years level) peak/prime.

PS:

Being a "batman" isn't hard. Just go to PBPstats.com -> WOWY Combinations -> Select year/years -> Select team -> Select player(in this case Lebron) and have at it. Despite the name that is where you find lineup data.

Actual WOWY/lineup splits can be found by going to statmuse and asking questions like "2015 Cavs net-rating without Lebron" or "1995 Bulls net-rating without Jordan".

Hope that helps(make sure you also check the size of the sample being used)

[Djoker]

Jordan having the best peak in nba history seems to have come under some fire recently here - largely due to numbers of a similar nature to this - though I'm not sure how much what is being referred to on this thread really offers as a counterpoint.

From what I understand the Bulls drop-off offensively in 94 has been exceeded at different points so I'm not sure a moniker like goat-level is warranted if you are taking those two seasons without Jordan seriously - which I do to a degree

Interesting take on Pippen. I think in the early top 100 threads, a fair bit was said arguing for Pippen being a near perfect fit on both sides of the floor. What would you consider lacking there? I would expect an elite on-ball playmaker with lower shot volume to be a good partner.

Lifting those offenses as much as Jordan did is GOAT-level impact though.

Those offenses are not "goat" level and the delta is not "goat" level either assuming we are using the conventional meaning of that term. And that is even if we ignore that the Bulls were actually a +2.2 offense in 1994 in games Pippen and Grant played.

It is a testament to the weakness of Jordan's GOAT case that goat is redefined as "very good" or "greatest of x period of time" whenever one looks to "plainly support" Jordan as the GOAT. And no, I do not think people would be doing this if he actually had a goat-level(or even a greatest of the last 40-years level) peak/prime.

Those offenses are absolutely GOAT level. Ranking the best offenses ever by rORtg, those Bulls teams are 6th (1997), 9th (1996), 13th (1992) and 23rd (1991). Those four teams are better than any Lebron-led offense.

Also worth noting that all of the top 10 best offenses apart from the 1996 Bulls, 1997 Bulls and 2016 Warriors are offensively slanted and weak defensively with positive rDRtg.

When it comes down to it, Jordan's best Bulls teams of course also completely blow away Lebron's best teams in terms of Net Rating which factors in both offense and defense.

You making unsubstantiated statements doesn't make them true.

[The Explorer]

Those offenses are not "goat" level and the delta is not "goat" level either assuming we are using the conventional meaning of that term. And that is even if we ignore that the Bulls were actually a +2.2 offense in 1994 in games Pippen and Grant played.

It is a testament to the weakness of Jordan's GOAT case that goat is redefined as "very good" or "greatest of x period of time" whenever one looks to "plainly support" Jordan as the GOAT. And no, I do not think people would be doing this if he actually had a goat-level(or even a greatest of the last 40-years level) peak/prime.

How do you explain Chicago's drop-off in net rating from +6.8 in 1993 to +3.3 in 1994?