Replace 10-23 James Harden with 85-98 Michael Jordan, how much more success?

[RSCD3_]

The following years you've got

2010 OKC with 85 Jordan
2011 OKC with 86 Jordan
2012 OKC with 87 Jordan
2013 HOU with 88 Jordan
2014 HOU with 89 Jordan
2015 HOU with 90 Jordan
2016 HOU with 91 Jordan
2017 HOU with 92 Jordan
2018 HOU with 93 Jordan
2020 HOU with 95 Jordan
2021 BRK with 96 Jordan
2022 PHI with 97 Jordan
2023 PHI with 98 Jordan

All injuries from jordan's career and Harden's teams remain the same
I think they definitely win at least one championship but im wondering how many more he'd be likely to get

[RSCD3_]

I think 12, 18 and 21 are lokcs personally but some of the earlier houston teams, the philly teams and 2011 might be pretty close

[TheGOATRises007]

I think they easily win in 2012 and 2021. I think they win in 2018, but less confident compared to 2012 and 2021.

I think 2022, 2023 and 2015 is arguable either way.

[Silvie Lysandra]

2010: Maybe, he's such a questionable fit with Russ even then though. But the gap between rookie MJ and rookie Harden is immense. Medium confidence.
2011: I forgot this was a foot, not a knee, and he does come back for the end of the season. This is the Thunder that faced the Heat in the Finals and Harden was more of a super 6th man than an all-star. Easy lock.
2012: Lock, easy.
2013: Nope, not enough help.
2014: Yes, with high confidence but not lock. People don't realize how bad that 89 Bulls team was outside MJ - Pippen wasn't quite there as a 2nd option, and Dwight was probably as impactful as he was defensively at minimum (C vs wing, etc). MJ is in another tier offensively and the defensive upgrade is massive as well. That Spurs team was really good though.
2015: I think MJ wins again here but the supporting cast is slightly worse and Harden is a bit closer offensively. High confidence.
2016: Nope
2017: Remember how the consensus is that the Spurs would have been competitive against the Warriors if they had Kawhi? 92 Jordan is quite a bit better than Kawhi. Low confidence.
2018: I think Jordan is better enough than Harden (especially as a playoff closer) to bring it home against GSW, but this is also where the gap between them is the narrowest. I say high confidence.
2020: No way, even if MJ plays the entire season.
2021: Easy ring, 70+ game contender ngl. That's pretending that MJ isn't keeping Durant and Kyrie in line leadership-wise as well.
2022: High confidence here, MJ is still not too far off peak at this point.
2023: High confidence, 1998 MJ is way, way better than this version of Harden and Embiid is already bonkers good. Embiid is basically as good as most versions of Pippen he's played with, and the supporting cast is quite solid too.

So 3 100% locks, 5 high confidence (2014, 2015, 2018, 2022, 2023, like over 75% chance), 3 medium confidence (50:50). 2014 is closer to a 90% for me. I think 3-4 rings is the reasonable floor here, 6-7 is a solid median, and he has a ceiling of 10, and that's presuming he has no other effects on the teams outside his on-court production.

[f4p]

2012 seems like a lock as those finals were fairly close for a 5 game series and the gulf between the players is fairly huge (harden also wasn't the point guard orchestrating the whole offense, which would be the only real area later in his career where he would have a discernible skill gap over jordan)

2021 was seemingly a lock for harden if he just stayed healthy and 1996 jordan did stay healthy so this is a lock. the nets would certainly miss harden's orchestration (29-7 with him, 19-17 without him) but they would just iso teams to death and win anyway.

I think 12, 18 and 21 are lokcs personally but some of the earlier houston teams, the philly teams and 2011 might be pretty close

i'm not really sure on 2018. the 2018 rockets were about as good as can be with harden (44-5 when harden and cp3 played). but more importantly, even if you think they'd be better with 1993 jordan, it all comes down to the warriors series. jordan has no history of taking on a behemoth like this and coming out on top. and there are only 2 flippable losses in the series for the rockets. game 1, where harden played well and scored 40 and the rockets still lost by 13 (though only down 5 with about 5 minutes left) and game 7, where jordan would be 1 on 4 in terms of hall of famers. again, he has no history of winning in this scenario. harden put up 32/6/6 with adam silver rigging it against him so maybe moneymaker jordan gets the calls necessary to win but he still needs 10 more points to win game 7 by just 1 point. against an elite playoff defense, not the 1993 phoenix suns. a very tall order.

2010 - no way
2011 - they got to the WCF and 1986 jordan is much better but is he enough to flip the mavs series? certainly possible. i'll say 40%.
2012 - lock
2013 - no way
2014 - if it works out right, this could be a 60 win team and would have a good chance. do they face the 1st round spurs who almost lost to the mavs or the finals spurs who rolled the heat because that's going to make a huge difference. is chandler parsons, jeremy lin, beverley, and terrence jones really enough to win it all with jordan and not-quite-prime dwight? 45%.
2015 - again, maybe he makes the rockets better, but it comes down to the warriors series. everyone remembers harden's 12 turnover game against the warriors, but what about the 4 games before that? harden put up 32/8/7 on 66 TS%. against the best defense in the league. basically as good as anything we've seen from jordan. with some sort of ridiculous on/off like +40 per 100. and he was down 3-1 in the series for his efforts. the one bad game he played, the rockets lost by 35. in other words, unless jordan hits the buzzer beater in game 2 that harden didn't (and jordan would need to put up 38/10/9 on 70+ TS% to even get to that point), i'm not sure what games he's flipping to turn a 4-1 series into a win. 10% chance.
2016 - nah. good luck passing to corey brewer after february.
2017 - he's getting ryan anderson and eric gordon over the 2017 warriors? nah.
2018 - see above. 20% just on the off-chance he goes off in game 7.
2019 - retired and either way, 2019 is arguably harden's best series against the warriors (35/7/5) so it's a tough hill to climb even if he's in top form in 1994.
2020 - nah
2021 - lock
2022 - harden's worst playoffs and 1997 jordan is still an mvp so obviously some room for improvement. is embiid actually going to be healthy all playoffs or is he going to find a way to miss more games like he did already in the 2nd round? fairly wide open field. let's go with 50% chance.
2023 - they got to game 7 against the celtics with harden, but that also included 2 40 point games (with game winners) from harden and a surprise road win without embiid. considering harden had a higher game score than embiid, jordan is going to have to overcome a serious playoff decrease from embiid. however, the east is wide open and embiid does seem to like playing jokic, so i could see it. 50/50.

so exactly 4.15 championships. guaranteed.

[Silvie Lysandra]

again, maybe he makes the rockets better, but it comes down to the warriors series. everyone remembers harden's 12 turnover game against the warriors, but what about the 4 games before that? harden put up 32/8/7 on 66 TS%. against the best defense in the league. basically as good as anything we've seen from jordan. with some sort of ridiculous on/off like +40 per 100.

I think the defensive gap is what makes the difference here. If MJ can match Harden's production while slowing down Steph defensively, that imo flips the series entirely.

Also, the one thing MJ never had was an elite rim-protecting big to back up his gambling style. Some of his defensive impact was neutered by the fact that sometimes he'd gamble and lose. Also he was a monster at getting around screens, obviously a big part of GSW's game. Is he going to *stop* Curry? Probably not. Slow him down? Very likely.

see above. 20% just on the off-chance he goes off in game 7.

Harden got them to a game 7, and imo the defensive gap and ability to close might be justttttttt enough.

I did forget how many games Embiid missed though, but I still think 97 and 98 Jordan is so much better than those versions of Harden that it more than makes up for it. To put in perspective, I'd take 98 Jordan over every non-peak Harden season, comfortably.

[NbaAllDay]

People are just assuming importing Jordan into the same Houston set up would yield better results but I'd argue the team worked extremely well with Hardens type of play and I am not confident that any player in history c9uod have that same set up and do it better.

Jordan is obviously a superior player but the idea that he just makes a bunch of these teams instant locks is wild to me.

[Silvie Lysandra]

People are just assuming importing Jordan into the same Houston set up would yield better results but I'd argue the team worked extremely well with Hardens type of play and I am not confident that any player in history c9uod have that same set up and do it better.

Jordan is obviously a superior player but the idea that he just makes a bunch of these teams instant locks is wild to me.

The gap is *really* massive outside 2016-2020. Jordan was basically a strong MVP-level player from 1986-1997 (and straight up lost multiple MVPs to voter fatigue), and a week MVP level player as a rookie and in 1998. Harden basically only had 4 MVP-level years, and then that's not getting into the gap on defense, as well as the issues with Harden's playoff portability. And this is just assuming a stat for stat comparison, as opposed to projecting Jordan's skillset into a modern era that would very likely favor him.

[AdagioPace]

So 2 100% locks, 5 high confidence (2014, 2015, 2018, 2022, 2023, like over 75% chance), 3 medium confidence (50:50). 2014 is closer to a 90% for me. I think 4 rings is the reasonable floor here, 6-7 is a solid median, and he has a ceiling of 10, and that's presuming he has no other effects on the teams outside his on-court production.

I laugh at the suggestion that the 2014 Rockets, Jordan and a bunch of pilgrims, would have 75%+ chance over the GOAT Spurs team.
This is basically the Jordan mythos machine in a nutshell.

[AEnigma]

So 2 100% locks, 5 high confidence (2014, 2015, 2018, 2022, 2023, like over 75% chance), 3 medium confidence (50:50). 2014 is closer to a 90% for me. I think 4 rings is the reasonable floor here, 6-7 is a solid median, and he has a ceiling of 10, and that's presuming he has no other effects on the teams outside his on-court production.

I laugh at the suggestion that the 2014 Rockets, Jordan and a bunch of pilgrims, would have 75%+ chance over the GOAT Spurs team.
This is basically the Jordan mythos machine in a nutshell.

Man who never won a playoff game against a team as good as the 2014 Spurs / 2015 Warriors would be a 75% favourite with substantially worse support than what he had for any of his titles.

[Djoker]

2012, 2018 and 2021 are virtual locks with 2011, 2015, 2022, 2023 strongly in play. So somewhere in the range of 3-7 rings.

[Silvie Lysandra]

So 2 100% locks, 5 high confidence (2014, 2015, 2018, 2022, 2023, like over 75% chance), 3 medium confidence (50:50). 2014 is closer to a 90% for me. I think 4 rings is the reasonable floor here, 6-7 is a solid median, and he has a ceiling of 10, and that's presuming he has no other effects on the teams outside his on-court production.

I laugh at the suggestion that the 2014 Rockets, Jordan and a bunch of pilgrims, would have 75%+ chance over the GOAT Spurs team.
This is basically the Jordan mythos machine in a nutshell.

Man who never won a playoff game against a team as good as the 2014 Spurs / 2015 Warriors would be a 75% favourite with substantially worse support than what he had for any of his titles.

Pippen and Grant were not their later versions in 1988-1990 by any stretch. Howard was slightly post-prime but still all-star level, and his defense moved the needle more than Pippen's simply by the nature of his position, and his offensive shortcomings weren't any worse than those of Pippen's. Both Parsons and Jones were probably better than Grant at this point. And while the Pistons in that era weren't quite the 2004 Spurs, they were more dominant in the playoffs.

Jordan is considerably better than Harden in 2014 and 2015, and his supporting cast is deeper, more versatile and just overall better.

[AEnigma]

1988 he did not come close to threatening a sub-peak Pistons (rough equivalent to the 2012 Spurs). The 1990 Bulls were very much a solid supporting cast and still could not manage. Your entire case comes to 1989 because he managed to grab a 2-1 lead over the Pistons and I guess the Mavericks did the same / better to the 2014 Spurs so actually that means Jordan wins a title. Brilliant stuff.

[Silvie Lysandra]

1988 he did not come close to threatening a sub-peak Pistons (rough equivalent to the 2012 Spurs). The 1990 Bulls were very much a solid supporting cast and still could not manage. Your entire case comes to 1989 because he managed to grab a 2-1 lead over the Pistons and I guess the Mavericks did the same / better to the 2014 Spurs so actually that means Jordan wins a title. Brilliant stuff.

Again, people are *seriously* overrating that supporting cast in 1989 and 1990. Pippen and Grant were closer to "solid starters" than "elite supporting cast" at that point, and their depth was horrid. And Pippen was incredibly bad in 1989 that series, and choked Game 7 away in 1990. And in both those years, it was basically replacement level guys after Grant.

Just looking at VORP, Grant would have been the 4th best non Jordan/Harden player on that Rockets team. Pippen had a higher VORP than Howard, but I think positional value makes up the difference.

[lessthanjake]

There’s three seasons in there that are basically locks, alongside a handful of years that wouldn’t be locks but where his team would be a major contender. The median outcome is probably somewhere around the number of titles Jordan got with the Bulls.

The biggest thing to remember here IMO is that the recent years would yield some really good chances for Jordan’s teams. 2021 is one of the virtual-lock years. And I think 2022 and 2023 are pretty high probability too. The champions those two seasons each had an all-time great, but they were not stacked teams, and we’re putting late-prime Jordan on teams with another all-time great at his peak (Embiid) as well as a borderline all-star level young guy (Maxey) and some solid supporting pieces. Those teams would’ve been the easy favorites IMO, even if not necessarily a lock (in part because of concerns over Embiid’s playoff performance and durability). It’s fairly easy to imagine a scenario where Jordan gets 2012, 2018, and 2021-2023, and nabs another title or two in some other year (without thinking about it much, I don’t think they’d be the favorite any other year, but a lot of years as a contender-but-not-favorite can easily lead to a title or two).

[AEnigma]

1988 he did not come close to threatening a sub-peak Pistons (rough equivalent to the 2012 Spurs). The 1990 Bulls were very much a solid supporting cast and still could not manage. Your entire case comes to 1989 because he managed to grab a 2-1 lead over the Pistons and I guess the Mavericks did the same / better to the 2014 Spurs so actually that means Jordan wins a title. Brilliant stuff.

Again, people are *seriously* overrating that supporting cast in 1989 and 1990. Pippen and Grant were closer to "solid starters" than "elite supporting cast" at that point, and their depth was horrid. And Pippen was incredibly bad in 1989 that series, and choked Game 7 away in 1990. And in both those years, it was basically replacement level guys after Grant.

Pippen was an all-star in 1990, and if you think he was unreliable in a 30-point blowout game 7 against the Pistons, hate to break it to you what you should come to expect from those Rockets. One quarter where the Rockets’ depth suddenly showed up to win a game does not make them reliable or impressive as a general rule, and if you want to play a game of names and depth, then your case against the Spurs and Warriors is going to drop even more rapidly.

Just looking at VORP, Grant would have been the 4th best non Jordan/Harden player on that Rockets team. Pippen had a higher VORP than Howard, but I think positional value makes up the difference.

Tell you what, how about you add the gap of Jordan’s VORP to Harden’s and then see how close that team is to being a 75% favourite against the collective Spurs/Warriors.

[Silvie Lysandra]

Pippen was an all-star in 1990, and if you think he was unreliable in a 30-point blowout game 7 against the Pistons, hate to break it to you what you should come to expect from those Rockets. One quarter where the Rockets’ depth suddenly showed up to win a game does not make them reliable or impressive as a general rule, and if you want to play a game of names and depth, then your case against the Spurs and Warriors is going to drop even more rapidly.

Pippen was a fringe all-star in 1990 (14th in overall voting, 5th at his own position), who was an elite defender but very flawed offensively at that point.

Also it was a total team collapse in that game, but it underscores the fact that Pippen just wasn't ready at that point (and it's telling that Grant took 17 shots in that game), and that Jordan was lacking in offensive help (given that no other Bulls player scored 20 in a single game).

Tell you what, how about you add the gap of Jordan’s VORP to Harden’s and then see how close that team is to being a 75% favourite against the collective Spurs/Warriors.

Having that year's Michael Jordan in 2014 instead of 2014 Harden is essentially like having a second James Harden level player to go with your first James Harden. Having 1990 Michael Jordan over Harden in 2015 is essentially like adding an extra all-star to your team. I'm also not sure how much VORP captures the fairly enormous defensive gap (Harden has positive DBPM ratings in his Houston years) - it may actually be helping his case here.

[AEnigma]

The Bulls probably beat the Pistons if they have two Hardens providing constant scoring and playmaking. What the hell are we doing here.

[rk2023]

They win 12, because Jordan never let anybody eat in his era - which would be all the more true in a no defense era

[NbaAllDay]

They win 12, because Jordan never let anybody eat in his era - which would be all the more true in a no defense era

Except all the years they ate from 85 to 90, 94/95 and when he was on the Wizards.