How the hell did the 93-94 Bulls manage to go 55-27 after losing MJ?

[OdomFan]

So dumb

They also like to ignore that Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen joined the Bulls from the 87 draft at the same time. Pippen being traded for, and Grant drafted. Pippen didn't just come in and single handled turn that Bulls squad into a leader.

They also ignore that the Bulls went through 3 coaching changes from 85-87. A new coach back to back until Doug Collins was the one that stuck around after Pippens rookie season. Lasting 3 seasons himself with the squad before Phil Jackson took over. They just want to act like Pippen saved the day and that the team improving was a bad thing.

Pippen teaching Jordan that he can't be a coach killer and that continuity matters shouldn't be used to prop Jordan up...

From what I read all 3 of those firings had to do with the GM Jerry Krause having issues with them for 1 reason or another. Mike didn't get taught by rookie Pippen anything of the kind..I was agreeing with you in my original reply to you. No idea how you went in this direction unless you're making some sort of sarcastic joke.

[NZB2323]

1. They should have won more games in 93. They won 67 in 1992. They were a championship team, like the 2001 Lakers that weren’t super motivated during the regular season.

2. They added Kukoc, Kerr, and Longley. They were the deepest team of the 90s Bulls, possibly the deepest in the league, and depth can help you win regular season games.

3. They won a bunch of close games based on game winners by Kukoc. The 93 Bulls were 2nd in Net Rtg and the 94 Bulls were 11th.

4. Everyone on the Bulls was motivated and had something to prove.

It’s not the only Bulls team that exceeded expectations during the regular season with hustle and teamwork. In 2005 we won 47 games, in 2007 we won 49 games, in 2011 we won 62 games, in 2013 we won 45 games without Derrick Rose, and in 2014 we won 48 games without Derrick Rose or Luol Deng.

The 2019 Raptors won less regular season games with Kawhi.

The 2017 Warriors won less regular season games with Durant.

[lessthanjake]

Jordan’s departure from the Bulls after 1993 was pretty abnormal in terms of superstar players leaving teams. There’s a few major factors here that led to them doing pretty well:

1. When a superstar leaves a team, it is usually when the team is on the downswing and their cycle as a good team is coming to an end. We have seen that very clearly when LeBron left teams, but he’s just one of many examples. Superstar players don’t tend to leave great teams that are in the peak of their powers. But Jordan actually did. When Jordan left, the core of the team—guys like Pippen, Grant, and BJ Armstrong—were in their peak years. This makes it a situation that is very hard to compare to situations in which other superstars left teams. We don’t really know how virtually any other great team at the peak of their powers would’ve done without their superstar, because that has virtually never happened.

2. The Bulls were built in a way that wasn’t overly reliant on Jordan. This mostly comes down to the triangle. To paraphrase Phil Jackson, the triangle was not implemented to help Jordan, but rather to help the rest of the guys make good decisions and produce shots for each other. In contrast to a lot of other superstars, Jordan played within a system designed to maximize the supporting cast, rather than the supporting cast playing within a system designed to maximize Jordan. This made a huge difference when Jordan left. The team could keep playing the same offense they were very used to playing and have that still maximize the team’s talents. In contrast, when other superstars leave teams that have an offensive system designed to maximize their talents, it often leaves a fundamental void in the offensive system that the personnel on the team is not equipped to fill, so they either have to run an offense that no longer suits the team or try to change the system in a way that takes away continuity they had offensively from their prior successful years. It’s fairly unique to see a superstar leave a team that actually ran an offense designed primarily to maximize the supporting cast.

3. Very related to the above point, teams make personnel decisions based on the system they are running. If you run a system designed to maximize the superstar, then you will often have a really unbalanced roster when that superstar leaves. On the other hand, if you run a system primarily designed to maximize the supporting cast, you will still have a pretty balanced roster when the superstar leaves. Of course, the Bulls weren’t perfectly balanced without Jordan—the raw shotmaking Jordan provided them was definitely missed. But the fact is that the roster was designed around the system they ran, rather than being designed to play around Jordan, so it functioned better when Jordan left than other teams have functioned when a player the roster was designed to play around left the team.

4. The 1993-94 Bulls did actually meaningfully improve their roster, outside of the obvious of losing Jordan. In particular, they added Toni Kukoc, who was a really good player. He wasn’t a star, but he was a top-tier role player (whose additional shotmaking was definitely very welcome). They also upgraded themselves at center, adding Longley and Wennington. Neither of those guys were great, but giving them minutes instead of an aging Cartwright was a real plus. Meanwhile, they also added Steve Kerr, who was one of the very best shooters in the league and at that point was definitely an upgrade over an aging Paxson. None of these upgrades were complete game-changers by themselves, but when you combine them all, you end up with a substantially deeper team than the Bulls had had before.

5. It is notable that the Bulls simply were not tanking. Of course, surely the reason they didn’t tank is primarily because they were still a pretty good team. But I do think we need to keep this in mind when comparing how teams did when other superstars left their teams. A team tanking can really exaggerate how bad the team actually was.

6. Related to point #5, I think Phil Jackson was a big help in keeping this together. He was a fantastic motivator, and I think having Phil Jackson really helped the team not just mentally collapse with the loss of Jordan. With other coaches, I can see the team collapsing quickly and potentially going into tank mode. Even with Jackson, there was still some drama—without Jordan, it was not the most mentally resilient group of players, but Phil Jackson largely kept them focused. I don’t think that was a certain outcome.

7. When we look at the 1994 Bulls and try to compare to the 1993 Bulls, we should always keep in mind that the 1993 Bulls coasted a good bit in the regular season. That doesn’t make the 1994 Bulls success any lesser, but it should be kept in mind when trying to make a comparison. Obviously the Jordan Bulls in other years were much better in the regular season than they were in 1993, and when it came time for the playoffs the 1993 Bulls won the title fairly easily.

8. Relatedly, we should keep in mind that the 1994 Bulls’ win total overstates how good they were by SRS. At the same time, the 1995 Bulls win total without Jordan understates how good they were by SRS, so it eventually evened out, but if we are just focused on the 1994 Bulls, they probably weren’t quite as good as their win total would suggest. They played more like a 50-win team than a 55-win team.

[NZB2323]

People always like to gloss over the fact that Michael was a loser before Pippen showed him how to win.

Obviously Michael made them better, but the Bulls won 6 championships together, it was never just MJ - like everyone else in the history of the sport he could never have accomplished what he did in his own.

Yeah, Jordan was such a loser who averaged 44, 6, and 6 against the Celtics, 58.4 TS%, 30.6 GmSc against the 86 Celtics in the playoffs.

He only became a winner once he had Pippen on his team as he averaged 45, 5, and 5, 63.2 TS%, 34 GmSc and hit the series winning shot against the 87 Cavs. The Bulls only won that series because Pippen gave them 11, 5, and 2, 49.4 TS%, 7.3 GmSc.

Jordan was such a loser before that, having hit the game winning shot in the NCAA tournament and being the best player on the olympic team in 84. He never achieved all the winning that Pippen did playing at University of Central Arksansas which played in the NAIA.

[lessthanjake]

1. They should have won more games in 93. They won 67 in 1992. They were a championship team, like the 2001 Lakers that weren’t super motivated during the regular season.

2. They added Kukoc, Kerr, and Longley. They were the deepest team of the 90s Bulls, possibly the deepest in the league, and depth can help you win regular season games.

3. They won a bunch of close games based on game winners by Kukoc. The 93 Bulls were 2nd in Net Rtg and the 94 Bulls were 11th.

4. Everyone on the Bulls was motivated and had something to prove.

It’s not the only Bulls team that exceeded expectations during the regular season with hustle and teamwork. In 2005 we won 47 games, in 2007 we won 49 games, in 2011 we won 62 games, in 2013 we won 45 games without Derrick Rose, and in 2014 we won 48 games without Derrick Rose or Luol Deng.

The 2019 Raptors won less regular season games with Kawhi.

The 2017 Warriors won less regular season games with Durant.

I think the Kawhi Raptors is actually a really good example. That’s actually one of the only other examples I can think of where a superstar left a championship team that was basically at the peak of its powers. It is also another example of a team that didn’t really have a roster or offensive system specifically designed around maximizing its superstar as much as one designed to enable its supporting cast. Even this is not quite the perfect example, because the 2020 Raptors actually lost Danny Green, rather than gaining a guy like Kukoc, so there’s probably a good argument that the 2020 Raptors were a weaker roster than the 2019 roster was minus Kawhi, whereas the opposite is true for the 1994 Bulls. But overall it’s actually a very close parallel to the 1994 Bulls. And the 2020 Raptors actually got better in terms of both regular season winning percentage and SRS from what they’d done in 2019 (and were better than the 1994 Bulls too). They weren’t a better team without Kawhi come playoff time, but I think the lack of drop-off in the regular season goes to show the effect of many of the things I talked about in my above post.

[Djoker]

Jordan’s departure from the Bulls after 1993 was pretty abnormal in terms of superstar players leaving teams. There’s a few major factors here that led to them doing pretty well:

1. When a superstar leaves a team, it is usually when the team is on the downswing and their cycle as a good team is coming to an end. We have seen that very clearly when LeBron left teams, but he’s just one of many examples. Superstar players don’t tend to leave great teams that are in the peak of their powers. But Jordan actually did. When Jordan left, the core of the team—guys like Pippen, Grant, and BJ Armstrong—were in their peak years. This makes it a situation that is very hard to compare to situations in which other superstars left teams. We don’t really know how virtually any other great team at the peak of their powers would’ve done without their superstar, because that has virtually never happened.

2. The Bulls were built in a way that wasn’t overly reliant on Jordan. This mostly comes down to the triangle. To paraphrase Phil Jackson, the triangle was not implemented to help Jordan, but rather to help the rest of the guys make good decisions and produce shots for each other. In contrast to a lot of other superstars, Jordan played within a system designed to maximize the supporting cast, rather than the supporting cast playing within a system designed to maximize Jordan. This made a huge difference when Jordan left. The team could keep playing the same offense they were very used to playing and have that still maximize the team’s talents. In contrast, when other superstars leave teams that have an offensive system designed to maximize their talents, it often leaves a fundamental void in the offensive system that the personnel on the team is not equipped to fill, so they either have to run an offense that no longer suits the team or try to change the system in a way that takes away continuity they had offensively from their prior successful years. It’s fairly unique to see a superstar leave a team that actually ran an offense designed primarily to maximize the supporting cast.

3. Very related to the above point, teams make personnel decisions based on the system they are running. If you run a system designed to maximize the superstar, then you will often have a really unbalanced roster when that superstar leaves. On the other hand, if you run a system primarily designed to maximize the supporting cast, you will still have a pretty balanced roster when the superstar leaves. Of course, the Bulls weren’t perfectly balanced without Jordan—the raw shotmaking Jordan provided them was definitely missed. But the fact is that the roster was designed around the system they ran, rather than being designed to play around Jordan, so it functioned better when Jordan left than other teams have functioned when a player the roster was designed to play around left the team.

4. The 1993-94 Bulls did actually meaningfully improve their roster, outside of the obvious of losing Jordan. In particular, they added Toni Kukoc, who was a really good player. He wasn’t a star, but he was a top-tier role player (whose additional shotmaking was definitely very welcome). They also upgraded themselves at center, adding Longley and Wennington. Neither of those guys were great, but giving them minutes instead of an aging Cartwright was a real plus. Meanwhile, they also added Steve Kerr, who was one of the very best shooters in the league and at that point was definitely an upgrade over an aging Paxson. None of these upgrades were complete game-changers by themselves, but when you combine them all, you end up with a substantially deeper team than the Bulls had had before.

5. It is notable that the Bulls simply were not tanking. Of course, surely the reason they didn’t tank is primarily because they were still a pretty good team. But I do think we need to keep this in mind when comparing how teams did when other superstars left their teams. A team tanking can really exaggerate how bad the team actually was.

6. Related to point #5, I think Phil Jackson was a big help in keeping this together. He was a fantastic motivator, and I think having Phil Jackson really helped the team not just mentally collapse with the loss of Jordan. With other coaches, I can see the team collapsing quickly and potentially going into tank mode. Even with Jackson, there was still some drama—without Jordan, it was not the most mentally resilient group of players, but Phil Jackson largely kept them focused. I don’t think that was a certain outcome.

7. When we look at the 1994 Bulls and try to compare to the 1993 Bulls, we should always keep in mind that the 1993 Bulls coasted a good bit in the regular season. That doesn’t make the 1994 Bulls success any lesser, but it should be kept in mind when trying to make a comparison. Obviously the Jordan Bulls in other years were much better in the regular season than they were in 1993, and when it came time for the playoffs the 1993 Bulls won the title fairly easily.

8. Relatedly, we should keep in mind that the 1994 Bulls’ win total overstates how good they were by SRS. At the same time, the 1995 Bulls win total understates how good they were by SRS, so it eventually evened out, but if we are just focused on the 1994 Bulls, they probably weren’t quite as good as their win total would suggest. They played more like a 50-win team than a 55-win team.

Fantastic breakdown!

The only thing I could add is that Pippen/Grant were in great form in 1992, worse form in 1993, and then again in great form in 1994. Both Pippen/Grant having down years in 1993 led to the team's underperformance that season and thus in many ways a 1992 v. 1994 comparison is more apt.

Either way if we take the entire 1991-1998 stretch which includes all the Bulls championship core years to increase the sample, we see that Jordan's presence was worth about 15 wins. That doesn't seem like ground-breaking impact until you realize just how amazingly dominant they were with him; +9.20 SRS and 65-win pace is no joke over a single season (only 12 teams in history had >9 SRS) and with Jordan they maintained that average for over 6 seasons' worth of games and of course won 6 championships. Because they ran a good proper system, they still played like a 50-win team without him which is borderline top 10 in the league level. Not quite championship contenders but good teams that will make the second round often. Most of the decline without Jordan was on the offensive end.

1991-1998 Bulls
With Jordan (503 games): +9.20 SRS, 65 Pythagorean Wins; +6.1 rORtg, -4.1 rDRtg, +10.2 Net
Without Jordan (153 games): +3.09 SRS, 50 Pythagorean Wins; +0.3 rORtg, -3.4 rDRtg, +3.7 Net

[Myth]

I can’t remember the details of the regular seasons in details for a couple reasons (I was pretty young, not every Bulls game was nationally televised, the internet wasn’t really a thing yet, etc), but I wouldn’t be surprised if by 92-93 it was a situation of a championship team waiting until the playoffs to flip a switch (which they were successful if they did do this), while the 93-94 team without Jordan was a team trying harder the whole time to prove themselves without him (which they did as a regular season team but not as a championship team).

[NZB2323]

1. They should have won more games in 93. They won 67 in 1992. They were a championship team, like the 2001 Lakers that weren’t super motivated during the regular season.

2. They added Kukoc, Kerr, and Longley. They were the deepest team of the 90s Bulls, possibly the deepest in the league, and depth can help you win regular season games.

3. They won a bunch of close games based on game winners by Kukoc. The 93 Bulls were 2nd in Net Rtg and the 94 Bulls were 11th.

4. Everyone on the Bulls was motivated and had something to prove.

It’s not the only Bulls team that exceeded expectations during the regular season with hustle and teamwork. In 2005 we won 47 games, in 2007 we won 49 games, in 2011 we won 62 games, in 2013 we won 45 games without Derrick Rose, and in 2014 we won 48 games without Derrick Rose or Luol Deng.

The 2019 Raptors won less regular season games with Kawhi.

The 2017 Warriors won less regular season games with Durant.

I think the Kawhi Raptors is actually a really good example. That’s actually one of the only other examples I can think of where a superstar left a championship team that was basically at the peak of its powers. It is also another example of a team that didn’t really have a roster or offensive system specifically designed around maximizing its superstar as much as one designed to enable its supporting cast. Even this is not quite the perfect example, because the 2020 Raptors actually lost Danny Green, rather than gaining a guy like Kukoc, so there’s probably a good argument that the 2020 Raptors were a weaker roster than the 2019 roster was minus Kawhi, whereas the opposite is true for the 1994 Bulls. But overall it’s actually a very close parallel to the 1994 Bulls. And the 2020 Raptors actually got better in terms of both regular season winning percentage and SRS from what they’d done in 2019 (and were better than the 1994 Bulls too). They weren’t a better team without Kawhi come playoff time, but I think the lack of drop-off in the regular season goes to show the effect of many of the things I talked about in my above post.

I was actually talking about the 2018 Raptors, not the 2020 Raptors, but I guess both examples work.

2018 Derozan is about as good as 1994 Kukoc + Kerr + Longley + Meyers.

[ryguy613]

...because they were a solid team and Pippen was a superstar in his own right. I think a lot of that info has been eroded over time by people who need to mythologize MJ

[Tor_Raps]

Hes not a bulls fan, this is just an angle shot at MJ as usual from this guy.

Undercover LeBron stan trying to infiltrate? Lol

[Roger Murdock]

1. The 93 Bulls were a very strong team outside of MJ
2. The Bulls added nice players to their roster in the 93 offseason
3. Some players including Pippen were ready to take on a larger role

Its really that simple. We had similar posts on here. 'How did the 2020 Raptors win more games after losing Kawhi'

In terms of being contenders, they took a major step back. Being the best is much harder than being the 5th best team.

[Karate Diop]

People always like to gloss over the fact that Michael was a loser before Pippen showed him how to win.

Obviously Michael made them better, but the Bulls won 6 championships together, it was never just MJ - like everyone else in the history of the sport he could never have accomplished what he did in his own.

Yeah, Jordan was such a loser who averaged 44, 6, and 6 against the Celtics, 58.4 TS%, 30.6 GmSc against the 86 Celtics in the playoffs.

He only became a winner once he had Pippen on his team as he averaged 45, 5, and 5, 63.2 TS%, 34 GmSc and hit the series winning shot against the 87 Cavs. The Bulls only won that series because Pippen gave them 11, 5, and 2, 49.4 TS%, 7.3 GmSc.

Jordan was such a loser before that, having hit the game winning shot in the NCAA tournament and being the best player on the olympic team in 84. He never achieved all the winning that Pippen did playing at University of Central Arksansas which played in the NAIA.

How many times did he get out of the first round without Pippen?

[bledredwine]

Damn. I thought that this was another desperate excuses in the GOAT debate thread, and it probably is, but there have been some really insightful and intelligent replies as of late. Glad it was made.

[NZB2323]

People always like to gloss over the fact that Michael was a loser before Pippen showed him how to win.

Obviously Michael made them better, but the Bulls won 6 championships together, it was never just MJ - like everyone else in the history of the sport he could never have accomplished what he did in his own.

Yeah, Jordan was such a loser who averaged 44, 6, and 6 against the Celtics, 58.4 TS%, 30.6 GmSc against the 86 Celtics in the playoffs.

He only became a winner once he had Pippen on his team as he averaged 45, 5, and 5, 63.2 TS%, 34 GmSc and hit the series winning shot against the 87 Cavs. The Bulls only won that series because Pippen gave them 11, 5, and 2, 49.4 TS%, 7.3 GmSc.

Jordan was such a loser before that, having hit the game winning shot in the NCAA tournament and being the best player on the olympic team in 84. He never achieved all the winning that Pippen did playing at University of Central Arksansas which played in the NAIA.

How many times did he get out of the first round without Pippen?

How many times did Curry get out of the first round without Green? Did he teach Curry how to be a winner?

How many times did Jokic get out of the first round without Murray? Did he teach Jokic how to be a winner?

How many times did Giannis get out of the first round without Brook Lopez? Did he teach Giannis how to be a winner?

[The Big O]

Interesting to note that Jordan was essentially replaced by Pete Myers as the starting 2 guard and they managed to win 55 games and SHOULD have gone to the ECF (Hugh Hollins) where they had a very good shot at reaching the Finals. Imagine if Jordan was replaced with an all-star or even above-average 2 guard.

[TheGOATRises007]

People always like to gloss over the fact that Michael was a loser before Pippen showed him how to win.

Obviously Michael made them better, but the Bulls won 6 championships together, it was never just MJ - like everyone else in the history of the sport he could never have accomplished what he did in his own.

Yeah, Jordan was such a loser who averaged 44, 6, and 6 against the Celtics, 58.4 TS%, 30.6 GmSc against the 86 Celtics in the playoffs.

He only became a winner once he had Pippen on his team as he averaged 45, 5, and 5, 63.2 TS%, 34 GmSc and hit the series winning shot against the 87 Cavs. The Bulls only won that series because Pippen gave them 11, 5, and 2, 49.4 TS%, 7.3 GmSc.

Jordan was such a loser before that, having hit the game winning shot in the NCAA tournament and being the best player on the olympic team in 84. He never achieved all the winning that Pippen did playing at University of Central Arksansas which played in the NAIA.

How many times did he get out of the first round without Pippen?

This is such a stupid argument. Like honestly.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1988-nba-eastern-conference-first-round-cavaliers-vs-bulls.html

Look at Pippen's numbers in that series.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1989-nba-eastern-conference-first-round-bulls-vs-cavaliers.html

His numbers slightly improved the next year.

It wasn't until 1990 where Pippen took a real stride in his play.

[Special_Puppy]

Their SRS was worse than what the raw win total would suggest, but they were still a 50+ win pace team when MJ was playing baseball. Jordan had a very good supporting cast

[Pharmcat]

Pippen was pretty great.

jordan needed pippen to win a playoff series

pippen won a playoff series without jordan

Jordan needed Pippen more than Pippen needed Jordan

[TheGOATRises007]

They were an impressive team even without Jordan.

Not quite GSW without Durant level. More like Celtics without Jaylen Brown.

That doesn't make sense at all.

You word it like Pippen was the driving force behind the success.

Celtics without Tatum is more applicable(even though Tatum/Brown are closer than Jordan/Pippen).

I don't think Celtics without Tatum is as good as Bulls without Jordan.

[NBA4Lyfe]

Because they were sick of MJ so everyone had a bigger role and great chemistry for a season. Until Pippen bowed out of a playoff game that is.

Jordan was authentic

and didnt need a "magnetball" like BronBron