New Yahoo article questioning the validity of ‘88 MJ’s DPOY

[falcolombardi]

I do think its notable that the Bulls defense in 1988 was notable better than the surrounding years. Any ideas of what the cause of that was if not Jordan trying extra hard on defense that year?

Going to hazard a guess and say there was probably some effect to Grant and Pippen being added to the team. Their front court rotation was Brad Sellers (playing down a position) or Pippen at small forward, and then two of Oakley, Corzine, and Grant at power forward and centre. Even with two rookies, that is a stout defensive group.

1988 Bulls were significantly better on defense than the 1989 Bulls too though

89 bulls lost oakley who by all accounts was a defensive leader for them at the time

[homecourtloss]

Not that it matters, but Jordan’s BPM and DBPM were grossly inflated by these inflated stock numbers, with blocks by a non-big weighing quite heavily in DBPM

[Throwawaytheone]

I'm surprised this is some shocking thing to everyone. This has been known for a couple of years and actually got brought up a lot in that JJJ homecooking scandal awhile back. To me, it's pretty objective that in the 1988 season Jordan's blocks/steals counts were a little inflated, entirely because of the DPOY race. These stats damn near decided the award back then, so naturally the scorekeepers had a bit of bias.

The thing is, it really shouldn't matter because we've all known that Jordan wasn't a best-defensive-player-in-the-league type defender ever by virtue of being a guard, he could never accrue the defensive value of someone like Hakeem, and we all know that. If you want to argue that he wouldn't have gotten the DPOY award otherwise, that's not really true. To paraphrase lessthanjake's point, Jordan was very clearly hunting for the award and based on how much stocks used to be valued and the fact that the Bulls had the least scored on defense (the most valued stat back then instead of DRTG), he likely would have won it anyways. Eaton himself averaged a block and a half more at home than on the road in 88, which could have been the result of homecooking as well as a product of the DPOY race, who knows?

I also think it's worth mentioning that this disparity isn't really present in the rest of Jordan's career. Comparing his road stats to his home stats:

To summarize all the stats:
85-87: 0 less BPG on the road, 0.2 less SPG on the road
88: 0.8 less BPG on the road, 1.7 less SPG on the road
89-93: 0.1 less BPG on the road, 0.6 less SPG on the road
96-98: 0.1 more BPG on the road, 0.3 less SPG on the road


This data seems to tell us that there was the natural home-crowd effect empowering his ability to a *natural* degree, only around half a steal more, after 88. That indicates that the pretty crazy disparity in 88 was due to the narratives around the DPOY race influencing scorekeepers, and once that wasn't really present, this effect wasn't either. As he aged and lost his athleticism, his total steals numbers naturally waned and this the disparity accordingly became smaller with the smaller values in play.

I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about the nature of box-score stats as a whole. People view this as some fault of an archaic league, and while that is sort of true (the league has had scorekeeping problems for all of the 50s/60s/70s/80s and even further onwards, let alone the controversies with referees potentially rigging games), it's not a problem we've gotten rid of. These same issues can be seen with guys like Russ blatantly stat-padding rebounds, and while in that case it's not a scorekeeping issue, it's indicative of box score values being completely inaccurate. This can be applied to players who statpad in garbage time, players who hunt triple doubles, etc etc. It's a shame such an important conversation has been thrown to the wayside in favour of another GOAT debate.

[falcolombardi]

> “Michael was better at getting people to do whatever he wanted,” Pippen wrote. “I saw it over and over, from the first training camp in 1987 to the last victory rally in 1998. Here’s how it worked: Say I deflected the ball and tapped it over to him. I should get credit with the steal, right? Nope.

> More often than not, the steal went into his column on the stat sheet, and I could do nothing about it.

> “One night, a scorekeeper came into the locker room after the game to hand the stat sheets to Phil Jackson and the coaching staff. The sheet breaks down the points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, turnovers, and so on for everyone who played the game. I couldn’t believe the look the guy gave Michael: ‘See MJ, we take care of you.’ No wonder in the nine full seasons we played together, he averaged more steals than me in every year except two.”

While pippen is not a unbiased party, it seems like players at the time perceived the score keeping biases in favor of the biggest star

[Throwawaytheone]

> “Michael was better at getting people to do whatever he wanted,” Pippen wrote. “I saw it over and over, from the first training camp in 1987 to the last victory rally in 1998. Here’s how it worked: Say I deflected the ball and tapped it over to him. I should get credit with the steal, right? Nope.

> More often than not, the steal went into his column on the stat sheet, and I could do nothing about it.

> “One night, a scorekeeper came into the locker room after the game to hand the stat sheets to Phil Jackson and the coaching staff. The sheet breaks down the points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, turnovers, and so on for everyone who played the game. I couldn’t believe the look the guy gave Michael: ‘See MJ, we take care of you.’ No wonder in the nine full seasons we played together, he averaged more steals than me in every year except two.”

While pippen is not a unbiased party, it seems like players at the time perceived the score keeping biases in favor of the biggest star

I think it's worth reminding people just how tainted of an anecdote this is, considering Pippen is a scorned ex-teammate that has spent the past 4 years on a media tour ranting against MJ whenever he can. It goes even deeper when you look into the weird relationship drama he's embroiled in, with sons dating ex-wives, really strange stuff. Point is, people should keep that in mind before taking this story as gospel.

[McBubbles]

Lebron's stats are more juiced than anyone's in NBA history, let's be real. Like he had teammates literally guiding rebounds into his hands. So the article is misguided trying to discredit MJ's resume in regards to that debate.

As for MJ's DPOY, it's was deserved. Perimeter defense is vastly underrated since the +/- gurus deemed it not important. MJ was way more impactful on defense than Rudy G has every been in practical terms.

Hopefully AI starts to merge into analytics so we can finally shed real light into actual player impact

None of what you wrote made any sense, what the hell.

I just woke up and had to reread your comment to make sure I wasn't dreaming but no it's just straight nonsense though and through. Maybe you're the AI bot that's trying to pretend it's human lol.

[OhayoKD]

> “Michael was better at getting people to do whatever he wanted,” Pippen wrote. “I saw it over and over, from the first training camp in 1987 to the last victory rally in 1998. Here’s how it worked: Say I deflected the ball and tapped it over to him. I should get credit with the steal, right? Nope.

> More often than not, the steal went into his column on the stat sheet, and I could do nothing about it.

> “One night, a scorekeeper came into the locker room after the game to hand the stat sheets to Phil Jackson and the coaching staff. The sheet breaks down the points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, turnovers, and so on for everyone who played the game. I couldn’t believe the look the guy gave Michael: ‘See MJ, we take care of you.’ No wonder in the nine full seasons we played together, he averaged more steals than me in every year except two.”

While pippen is not a unbiased party, it seems like players at the time perceived the score keeping biases in favor of the biggest star

I think it's worth reminding people just how tainted of an anecdote this is, considering Pippen is a scorned ex-teammate that has spent the past 4 years on a media tour ranting against MJ whenever he can. It goes even deeper when you look into the weird relationship drama he's embroiled in, with sons dating ex-wives, really strange stuff. Point is, people should keep that in mind before taking this story as gospel.

Were these anecdotes tainted too?

Since switching to point guard for the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan has become statistic conscious. He has started checking with statisticians to see how close he is to a triple-double. He had a string of seven consecutive triple-doubles broken Friday night.
"The guys at the scorer's desk let me know what I need," Jordan said.
So, too, do the Bulls' assistant coaches.
"They keep reminding me when I get back to the huddle," Jordan said. "They say, 'You need three more of this. You need four more of that.' "

In general, I tried to give Michael room to figure out how to integrate his personal ambitions with those of the team. “Phil knew that winning the scoring title was important to me,”

According to one official, Hughes was explicitly told by Jordan to get him the ball if he wanted to play. When Hughes began passing it to Stackhouse as much as to Jordan, he was soon benched. Point guard Tyronn Lue, the official said, obliged and began finding Jordan every time he played. ''He was scared to death of what would happen to him in his career if he didn't,'' the player said of Lue. ''He was always looking at the bench at Michael.''

Late last fall, Richard Hamilton and Jordan got into an ugly shouting match. The two officials said it began when Hamilton told Jordan he was tired of being a ''Jordannaire,'' the term used for Jordan's role players in Chicago. ''Rip was a young, brash guy who threatened the idea of Michael being the guy here,'' the official said.

And things were still being run through Michael Jordan. And I think Doug Collins – I love Doug. But I think that was an opportunity for him to make up for some ill moments that they may have had back in Chicago. So, pretty much everything that Michael wanted to do. We got off to a pretty good start, and then I think he didn’t like the way the offense was running, because it was running a little bit more through me. He wanted to get a little more isolations on the post, of course, so we had more isolations for him on the post.

[Colbinii]

> “Michael was better at getting people to do whatever he wanted,” Pippen wrote. “I saw it over and over, from the first training camp in 1987 to the last victory rally in 1998. Here’s how it worked: Say I deflected the ball and tapped it over to him. I should get credit with the steal, right? Nope.

> More often than not, the steal went into his column on the stat sheet, and I could do nothing about it.

> “One night, a scorekeeper came into the locker room after the game to hand the stat sheets to Phil Jackson and the coaching staff. The sheet breaks down the points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, turnovers, and so on for everyone who played the game. I couldn’t believe the look the guy gave Michael: ‘See MJ, we take care of you.’ No wonder in the nine full seasons we played together, he averaged more steals than me in every year except two.”

While pippen is not a unbiased party, it seems like players at the time perceived the score keeping biases in favor of the biggest star

This tracks.

Pippen Steals 1992: 1.9/G
Pippen Steals 1993: 2.1/G
Pippen Steals 1994: 2.9/G
Pippen Steals 1995: 2.9/G
Pippen Steals 1996: 1.7/G

[homecourtloss]

Lebron's stats are more juiced than anyone's in NBA history, let's be real. Like he had teammates literally guiding rebounds into his hands. So the article is misguided trying to discredit MJ's resume in regards to that debate.

As for MJ's DPOY, it's was deserved. Perimeter defense is vastly underrated since the +/- gurus deemed it not important. MJ was way more impactful on defense than Rudy G has every been in practical terms.

Hopefully AI starts to merge into analytics so we can finally shed real light into actual player impact

None of what you wrote made any sense, what the hell.

I just woke up and had to reread your comment to make sure I wasn't dreaming but no it's just straight nonsense though and through. Maybe you're the AI bot that's trying to pretend it's human lol.

Par for the course for the hate induced psychosis a certain player brings about. Here you have what seems like an article that might be cooked up by someone trying to bring light to the shenanigans of myth-making hagiographers, yet it’s actually real life, yet the refrain is “Lebronnn”; you can’t make this up

Also, it’s quite funny that while the term “hagiographers” is thrown around often in jest, you get something like this coming out by big media reputable sources. Lol

[sp6r=underrated]

(aside from Bill Laimbeer apparently!)

Laimbeer is one of the most vile people in NBA history based solely on on-court actions but he was never a stupid man.

And I'm really glad this conversation has devolved into Round 9,000,000,000 of Lebron vs MJ.

[sp6r=underrated]

Very interesting article. The massive home/road statistical split is one thing on its own, but not necessarily conclusive proof of any faulty statkeeping. But the discrepancy between live-ball turnovers and steals is pretty damning.

The incongruent turnover/steal columns presented a glaring red flag. In the other five games we watched, the live-ball turnovers and steals did not add up, either. In the Detroit game, eight Chicago steals on six Detroit live-ball turnovers. In the Denver game, 13 Chicago steals on just seven Denver live-ball turnovers. Again and again, the official steal counts were routinely outpacing the possible number of steal opportunities. Something was amiss.

All in all, by our count, the box score showed 59 steals on 41 live-ball turnovers, resulting in a whopping 18 excess steals.

Who benefited from all those extra steals? We brought our attention to Jordan’s accounting. In the six games, the box scores indicated that Jordan’s total steal count was 28. After comparing our notes from the film study, we each counted 12 steals. An astounding difference of 16 excess steals. Almost every excess steal was being allocated to Jordan.

The article is great. And the section about live-ball turnovers was most convincing. Having watched the NBA for 30 years it doesn't seem possible that one player could get 10 steals in a game, yet alone get ten steals in a game against a team that doesn't turn the ball over. The numbers were juiced.

Only live-ball turnovers — like an intercepted pass or a recovered loose ball — can be assigned to a defensive player for a steal. The more live-ball turnovers in a game, the more steals in a game.

The Bulls having 10 steals on 10 Hawks turnovers meant that none of the Hawks turnovers could have been dead-ball turnovers. No travels. No offensive fouls. No ball tossed out of bounds. No 24-second violations. For an entire game. Could it be?

[Throwawaytheone]

[
Were these anecdotes tainted too?

No, nor did I say they were, so I'm really not sure why you've brought up quotes, among them from Jerry Stackhouse and an anonymous official as if they're some sort of killer bullet that relates to anything I said.

[The Master]

Another case:

Road/home/overall stats (BPG) in 1988/89 season:

Eaton: 3.0/4.7/3.9

Ewing: 3.5/3.5/3.5

Olajuwon: 3.5/3.3/3.4

Eaton won DPOTY over Hakeem by a single vote... I highly doubt he would've won if he hadn't been 2nd best blocker in the league behind Bol. Next year, Hakeem had 5.7 vs 3.5 BPG disparity at home/on road, lol, maybe Rockets' scorekeeper knew he screwed up a year earlier.

[oaktownwarriors87]

I'm open to the idea of stat padding, but teams shoot better, score more and win more at home. SAC (49.8%), NY (48.4%) MIN (48.2%) and CHA (47.8%) are the only teams with a losing record at home since 2003. We should expect player stats to be better.

Major outliers like this are worth looking into, though.

[The Master]

I'm open to the idea of stat padding, but teams shoot better, score more and win more at home. SAC (49.8%), NY (48.4%) MIN (48.2%) and CHA (47.8%) are the only teams with a losing record at home since 2003. We should expect player stats to be better.

Major outliers like this are worth looking into, though.

It's all about a margin, I guess. It needs further analysis as I don't have tools to do so, but:

Steals per game at home vs on road in their careers:

Jordan: 2.6 vs 2.1
A. Robertson: 3.1 vs 2.3

LeBron: 1.5 vs 1.6
Kidd: 1.9 vs 1.9
CP3: 2.1 vs 2.0
Iguodala: 1.4 vs 1.4
Westbrook: 1.6 vs 1.5
Harden: 1.5 vs 1.5
Iverson: 2.2 vs 2.1
Bryant: 1.5 vs 1.4
Garnett: 1.2 vs 1.3
Wade: 1.6 vs 1.4

Especially Robertson's case is very striking, he was 3.1 SPG at home and 2.3 SPG on road, this is insane. Fat Lever was 2.4 SPG at home and 2.3 SPG on road via Statmuse.

It is possible in one season to have some statistical aberrations, but we're talking about ~800 games sample size for Robertson.

[jalengreen]

The interesting thing about this case is that the 1988 Bulls' opponents did not turn the ball over at a noticeably greater rate in Chicago

- In home games for the Bulls, their opponents averaged 15.0 turnovers per game

- In away games for the Bulls, their opponents averaged 14.6 turnovers per game

The difference is that more of those turnovers were counted as steals in Chicago specifically.



At home, 64.6% of the Bulls' opponents turnovers were recorded as steals. That's the 8th highest figure recorded in 1116 team seasons from 1986-2024. On the road, just 52.8% of the Bulls' opponents turnovers were recorded as steals, which is average. Huge difference; in fact, the largest ever.

Possible explanation would be that the Bulls' opponents just happened to commit fewer dead ball turnovers and more live ball turnovers when playing in Chicago. But the sample of video footage analyzed by Tom Haberstroh is supportive of the alternative, less generous hypothesis.

So while home cooking was probably widespread, the 1988 Bulls stand out historically as the most "suspicious" team when you break it down with a focus on steals (blocks, assists are different conversations).

[penbeast0]

I'm open to the idea of stat padding, but teams shoot better, score more and win more at home. SAC (49.8%), NY (48.4%) MIN (48.2%) and CHA (47.8%) are the only teams with a losing record at home since 2003. We should expect player stats to be better.

Major outliers like this are worth looking into, though.

It's all about a margin, I guess. It needs further analysis as I don't have tools to do so, but:

Steals per game at home vs on road in their careers:

Jordan: 2.6 vs 2.1
A. Robertson: 3.1 vs 2.3

LeBron: 1.5 vs 1.6
Kidd: 1.9 vs 1.9
CP3: 2.1 vs 2.0
Iguodala: 1.4 vs 1.4
Westbrook: 1.6 vs 1.5
Harden: 1.5 vs 1.5
Iverson: 2.2 vs 2.1
Bryant: 1.5 vs 1.4
Garnett: 1.2 vs 1.3
Wade: 1.6 vs 1.4

Especially Robertson's case is very striking, he was 3.1 SPG at home and 2.3 SPG on road, this is insane. Fat Lever was 2.4 SPG at home and 2.3 SPG on road via Statmuse.

It is possible in one season to have some statistical aberrations, but we're talking about ~800 games sample size for Robertson.

Stockton 2.2 vs. 2.1 so not a big home stat advantage there

[lessthanjake]

Not that it matters, but Jordan’s BPM and DBPM were grossly inflated by these inflated stock numbers, with blocks by a non-big weighing quite heavily in DBPM

This does likely account for why his 1988 season is his BPM peak. That said, the BPM that season would be super high regardless. Based on some quick calculations using the BPM formula, it seems to me that Jordan’s BPM that season would be roughly 2.0 lower if he’d only had as many “stocks” at home as he did on the road (which may actually be over-adjusting the other way, since it’s quite possible he really had a bit more at home even without number fudging). That’d leave that season in line with the surrounding seasons, rather than being a bit above. And it’d still leave that 1987-1991 period as being the 2nd best five-year BPM ever, behind only Jokic’s last five years (which it’s behind anyways, even without this adjustment).

[An Unbiased Fan]

Hopefully AI starts to merge into analytics so we can finally shed real light into actual player impact

And if AI agrees with many of the current analytic models? Are you going to change your tune, or keep playing the same broken chords?

int main() {
string ai_opinion;

cout << "AI's opinion on LeBron (enter 'good' or 'not good'): ";
cin >> ai_opinion;

if (ai_opinion == "not good") {
cout << "I agree with AI that LeBron isn't that good." << endl;
} else if (ai_opinion == "good") {
cout << "I disagree with AI that LeBron is good." << endl;
} else {
cout << "Invalid opinion. Please enter 'good' or 'not good'." << endl;
}

return 0;
}

That's not how AI works. It's actually close to how +/- des though

[An Unbiased Fan]

Lebron's stats are more juiced than anyone's in NBA history, let's be real. Like he had teammates literally guiding rebounds into his hands. So the article is misguided trying to discredit MJ's resume in regards to that debate.

As for MJ's DPOY, it's was deserved. Perimeter defense is vastly underrated since the +/- gurus deemed it not important. MJ was way more impactful on defense than Rudy G has every been in practical terms.

Hopefully AI starts to merge into analytics so we can finally shed real light into actual player impact

None of what you wrote made any sense, what the hell.

I just woke up and had to reread your comment to make sure I wasn't dreaming but no it's just straight nonsense though and through. Maybe you're the AI bot that's trying to pretend it's human lol.

Par for the course for the hate induced psychosis a certain player brings about. Here you have what seems like an article that might be cooked up by someone trying to bring light to the shenanigans of myth-making hagiographers, yet it’s actually real life, yet the refrain is “Lebronnn”; you can’t make this up

Also, it’s quite funny that while the term “hagiographers” is thrown around often in jest, you get something like this coming out by big media reputable sources. Lol

Weird, Lebron is a Laker, and I'm propping up MJ. But somehow that's hating lol

The agenda to discredit MJ is laughable, I'll always push back on it because I saw him actually play