People who don't have Jordan as GOAT: What metric(s) would make you change your mind?

[Stalwart]

Why does Pippen have better passing and vision than MJ? Im not saying he doesn't but curious why its being stated as a given..

[falcolombardi]

So are we denying how easy it is to score in todays game? You guys have a problem with reality. Always trying to twist it.

Today as in 2018-2022? Sure

But the league from 85-98 had lower pace and efficiency than the league from 2004-2017

For the most part of his prime lebron played in a slower and less efficient league where zone defense made it harder to score rules-wise.

Is only aftee the late 2010's spacing explosion that the league catched up (and passed by) jordan era scoring ease wise

The league started moving towards small ball, fast pace and more 3 point shooting since early 2010's and LeBron's Miami super team played a major part in that. Since 2016 it went extreme towards the 3 point shooting. The rules howewer, changed much earlier, since mid 2000's, when the league made an agenda to make the scoring easier and they changed the rules like hand checking, and they let offensive players get away with more violations, like LBJ or D Wade.

Since like 2004-2005, offenisve game has progressively been getting easier and easier. It's not a coincidence that it was at the start of LBJ's career, because he was built up to be the new Jordan, a new face of the league.

The 90's and 80's were so tough to score than....they scored more than in the 2000's?

Use occam razor here, what is more likely.

A)Everyone was so much more skilled and talented pre 2000's that the league as a whole could score more easily in a harder to score league.

B)The league was not harder to score in the 80's/90's compared to the 2000's

If you answer A, then i just could say "well, modern 2020's league is not easier to score on, is just the players are so much better than 90's ones that they score more against tougher defense"

[falcolombardi]

Elite scorers had it so tough under illegal defence rules.

Many of you keep parroting "illegal defence, illegale defence"... just look at the spacing back then compared to now. All the attention now is on the 3 point line, and that makes it much easier to get to the paint. Not to mention soft rules in today's game.

Then follow your own advice and argue with people arguments instead of just "parroting" the usual buzzwords like soft league or handcheck

[AEnigma]

Why does Pippen have better passing and vision than MJ? Im not saying he doesn't but curious why its being stated as a given..

Watching him? If you mean literally, height plus practice plus mentality plus innate ability, I guess? Like I said, I think Jordan probably could have developed more as a passer than he did — although he never had an innate knack for it, so there would be a ceiling somewhere — but Jackson saw Pippen’s potential and how that could fit with Jordan’s strengths in that era and rightly nurtured it.

People love talking about the point Jordan experiment, right? Nearly averaged a triple double over nineteen games. Basically put up 31/10/12. Crazy stuff… but did that kickstart the offence? Was that really helping everyone else score better? Now, say hypothetically you stick with that. Definitely hurts Pippen’s development, but for this exercise all we want to do is maximise Jordan’s output. Our baseline is 31/12. That is around the assist totals you might see from Magic Johnson. Who was the better offensive player that year? I would say Magic, and I hope most people would agree, so then the question becomes how much can we improve Jordan’s passing to reduce that gap, and is it ultimately ever going to be worth it? Because if we could get Jordan’s scoring with Magic’s passing, oof, there really is no debate. But that is not how it works, is it?

Instead, Phil Jackson goes with the triangle. Immense success. He sticks with the triangle for the Lakers. Still a lot of success, although starting to see diminishing returns. And now the triangle is dead. Has been for years. However, its closest modern analogue is probably in Golden State, which of course has seen massive success too. Guys like Iguodala and Draymond fulfill that sort of Pippen role. Steph was a truer point guard under Mark Jackson; he did a good job, and he could have improved his passing more quickly had he stayed in that role, but Kerr came in and took away some primacy from him, and that was clearly for the best.

But none of Jordan nor Steph nor Kobe were ever going to be elite passers. Yeah, maybe they could have juiced their assist totals. Kyle Lowry finished second in assists per game in 2019, but it is not as if that year he suddenly became a better passer than Lebron and Chris Paul and Harden. Rondo has led the league in assists several times, but no one has ever seen him as a Magic or Nash level passer. Simply generating assists in the box score is not a team’s goal. So, take Lebron. Not as good a scorer as Jordan. Much better passer, and has been at every equivalent age of his career. Could he have done well in a triangle system, or some equivalent? Maybe; there are some suggestions of that with the 2012-14 Heat and the 2017 Cavaliers, despite your claims to the contrary. But there you are more clearly sacrificing some value than you are by moving Jordan or Kobe or Steph offball. Same is true for Magic; coexisted with Norm Nixon reasonably well, and Norm Nixon was a respectable enough passer in his own right, but that offence took off when Magic was given primacy. The Lakers needed to give him control to maximise their ceiling — but the Bulls were unlikely to hit theirs with Jordan in the same role (as with the Warriors and Curry).

Maybe with development Jordan could have been a better passer than an underdeveloped Pippen, just as Curry could have been better passer than an underdeveloped Draymond. However, their coaches saw the potential in those secondary creators, and saw the limits in their lead creators, and they made the shift. With better lead creators, you can do something similar, but then everyone can see that one player is being limited, as with Nixon and Magic, or as when Kyrie wanted some extra control during the 2017 regular season. It works, but it is not maximised. The reverse was true with Jordan. He can be your lead if necessary, but he is not a good enough passer to maximise the team that way. Give some primacy to Pippen, and suddenly both players are more clearly being maximised and are reaching your team’s true offensive ceiling. I can move Magic and Lebron off-ball a bit, but they are too good at passing for that to make sense in most postseason situations. I can ask Jordan to be my point guard, but ideally I should just have a better passer work with him. And if I force Jordan into that role while having a higher potential passer playing next to him, well, then I am just kneecapping my offence for no good reason.

[Stalwart]

So how are you determining which assists help the team and which ones don't? You're making a lot of grand assertions with no real explanation for those assertions.

[falcolombardi]

So how are you determining which assists help the team and which ones don't? You're making a lot of grand assertions with no real explanation for those assertions.

By watching them play

Also is not "which ones help"

all assists help, even the most easy/basic ones. Ones just generate more value than others in a gradient

[AEnigma]

Watching the games, man; I honestly have no idea how you expect me to convey that passing ability and quality is more than the total assists given. Like, it is just an obvious element of the game. Michael Jordan generating 12 assists a game is not giving you better offence than Magic doing the same, even when Jordan is scoring more while matching those assist totals. I guess that confusion does not surprise me given your usual approach — e.g. “all steals are always good and impactful, no need to look at the approach leading to those steals” — but it really does kill any discussion on the spot when one side wants to pretend that is how the sport works. These are core realities, not “grand assertions”.

American football again seems like a pretty obvious analogy here: imagine if the only way we assessed quarterbacks was by counting up completed passes. That is essentially what is happening by just counting assist totals (or “potential assist totals”) and stopping.

[penbeast0]

So how are you determining which assists help the team and which ones don't? You're making a lot of grand assertions with no real explanation for those assertions.

One way is to look at the team's offensive rating. When you see a team be best in the league or close to it year after year, then you look for the outliers. If the big outlier for your team is high assist totals for your PG like Oscar, Magic, or Steve Nash, you can be pretty sure their assist totals are genuinely helping their team's offense.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. If you see a team loaded with offensive talent do slightly better than a team with several weak links, the lesser Ortg might be even more helped by great playmaking like a Stockton dealing with offensive zeros like Mark Eaton, Felton Spencer, and Mark Olberding at center and other weak spots like David Benoit or Byron Russell. Or the offense could be more dependent on one player drawing a lot of attention and giving other players good shots with his gravity even if the assist totals aren't high, like prime Shaq, Dirk, or Curry.

But team Ortg is a good place to start your analysis.

[falcolombardi]

So how are you determining which assists help the team and which ones don't? You're making a lot of grand assertions with no real explanation for those assertions.

One way is to look at the team's offensive rating. When you see a team be best in the league or close to it year after year, then you look for the outliers. If the big outlier for your team is high assist totals for your PG like Oscar, Magic, or Steve Nash, you can be pretty sure their assist totals are genuinely helping their team's offense.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. If you see a team loaded with offensive talent do slightly better than a team with several weak links, the lesser Ortg might be even more helped by great playmaking like a Stockton dealing with offensive zeros like Mark Eaton, Felton Spencer, and Mark Olberding at center and other weak spots like David Benoit or Byron Russell. Or the offense could be more dependent on one player drawing a lot of attention and giving other players good shots with his gravity even if the assist totals aren't high, like prime Shaq, Dirk, or Curry.

But team Ortg is a good place to start your analysis.

But if we start judging players offensive impact hollistically and with team results in mind and not by who has the highest numbers then stuff like ranking jordan offense over other offense all timers (magic,lebron, etc) because of highest ppg loses a lot of its appeal/s

[capfan33]

On the passing point, Bird only averaged about 1 more assist per game for his career compared to MJ and is one of the 3-4 best passers ever, that's probably the easiest way to demonstrate this point. Raw assists are a very crude way to try and measure playmaking/passing ability.

[mysticOscar]

Today as in 2018-2022? Sure

But the league from 85-98 had lower pace and efficiency than the league from 2004-2017

For the most part of his prime lebron played in a slower and less efficient league where zone defense made it harder to score rules-wise.

Is only aftee the late 2010's spacing explosion that the league catched up (and passed by) jordan era scoring ease wise

The league started moving towards small ball, fast pace and more 3 point shooting since early 2010's and LeBron's Miami super team played a major part in that. Since 2016 it went extreme towards the 3 point shooting. The rules howewer, changed much earlier, since mid 2000's, when the league made an agenda to make the scoring easier and they changed the rules like hand checking, and they let offensive players get away with more violations, like LBJ or D Wade.

Since like 2004-2005, offenisve game has progressively been getting easier and easier. It's not a coincidence that it was at the start of LBJ's career, because he was built up to be the new Jordan, a new face of the league.

The 90's and 80's were so tough to score than....they scored more than in the 2000's?

Use occam razor here, what is more likely.

A)Everyone was so much more skilled and talented pre 2000's that the league as a whole could score more easily in a harder to score league.

B)The league was not harder to score in the 80's/90's compared to the 2000's

If you answer A, then i just could say "well, modern 2020's league is not easier to score on, is just the players are so much better than 90's ones that they score more against tougher defense"

I suggest you start with TS%. The current true shooting % has been so high in 2010s but really started to climb up from mid 2000s.

This is the kicker, the TS has been extremely high even tho the overall free throw rate and offensive rebounds have been extremely low.

In the 80s and 90s the rules were a lot friendlier for big men post players and tougher for perimeter players

You then had the Jordan impact and saw a lot of teams emulate the Bulls and move the mammary scoring to the perimeter which saw the scoring and TS% in the league dropped...and it kept dropping until the league stepped in the mid 2000s.

Now I could just be making this up, but then the league did actually come out and stated they introduced rules in mid 2000s that to open up the game for perimeter players.

MJ would have an easier time driving to the lanes today, its no question.

It would be like LeBron but with an exceptional jumpshot. I just can't see how he would be guarded today.

[homecourtloss]

The league started moving towards small ball, fast pace and more 3 point shooting since early 2010's and LeBron's Miami super team played a major part in that. Since 2016 it went extreme towards the 3 point shooting. The rules howewer, changed much earlier, since mid 2000's, when the league made an agenda to make the scoring easier and they changed the rules like hand checking, and they let offensive players get away with more violations, like LBJ or D Wade.

Since like 2004-2005, offenisve game has progressively been getting easier and easier. It's not a coincidence that it was at the start of LBJ's career, because he was built up to be the new Jordan, a new face of the league.

The 90's and 80's were so tough to score than....they scored more than in the 2000's?

Use occam razor here, what is more likely.

A)Everyone was so much more skilled and talented pre 2000's that the league as a whole could score more easily in a harder to score league.

B)The league was not harder to score in the 80's/90's compared to the 2000's

If you answer A, then i just could say "well, modern 2020's league is not easier to score on, is just the players are so much better than 90's ones that they score more against tougher defense"

I suggest you start with TS%. The current true shooting % has been so high in 2010s but really started to climb up from mid 2000s.

Not really.

League TS% during Jordan’s 13 seasons in Chicago: 53.6%
League TS% during LeBron’s 11 seasons in Cleveland: 53.9%
League TS% during LeBron’s 4 seasons in Miami; 53.6%

League TS% from 1985 to 2022

1985: 54.3%
1986: 54.1%
1987: 53.8%
1988: 53.8%
1989: 53.7%
1990: 53.7%
1991: 53.4%
1992: 53.1%
1993: 53.6%
1994: 52.8%
1995: 54.3%
1996: 54.1%
1997: 53.6%
1998: 52.4%
1999: 51.1%
2000: 52.3%
2001: 51.8%
2002: 52.0%
2003: 51.9%
2004: 51.6%
2005: 52.9%
2006: 53.6%
2007: 54.1%
2008: 54.0%
2009: 54.4%
2010: 54.3%
2011: 54.1%
2012: 52.7%
2013: 53.5%
2014: 54.1%
2015: 53.5%
2016: 54.1%
2017: 55.2%
2018: 55.6%
2019: 56.0%
2020: 56.5%
2021: 57.2%
2022: 56.6%

[Gooner]

Elite scorers had it so tough under illegal defence rules.

Many of you keep parroting "illegal defence, illegale defence"... just look at the spacing back then compared to now. All the attention now is on the 3 point line, and that makes it much easier to get to the paint. Not to mention soft rules in today's game.

Spacing has certainly evolved with time, although 2009-14 Lebron was not exactly seeing perpetually open driving lanes. Again though we come back to player weaknesses and team structure. If Jordan could be given complete defensive attention with aggressive and active help, does he have the passing vision to take proper advantage? Would he sacrifice his shots, or would he try to take them anyway? Possibly. But the more that makes him look like Kobe, the more his mystique dies down…

If anyone was given the full attention with agressive and active help, it was Jordan. And yes, Jordan had an elite passing vision. Elite.
The most underrated part of his game is playmaking. He is underrated beacuase of his APG, and today you have players getting triple doubles on regular basis so his assist numbers look unimpressive.

It has to be remembered though that he was not a point guard or a point forward. He played for the most part in a triangle system which is based on multiple players making plays for each other and it doesn't have a traditional playmaker who runs everything. It was the same thing in LA with Phil Jackson, Derek Fisher was their point guard.

When Jordan played in a system where everything went through him, he was getting triple doubles aswell. It's not like he was not capable of playing like that, but he was willing to be coached and to play in a team system in order to achieve something bigger.

[mysticOscar]

The 90's and 80's were so tough to score than....they scored more than in the 2000's?

Use occam razor here, what is more likely.

A)Everyone was so much more skilled and talented pre 2000's that the league as a whole could score more easily in a harder to score league.

B)The league was not harder to score in the 80's/90's compared to the 2000's

If you answer A, then i just could say "well, modern 2020's league is not easier to score on, is just the players are so much better than 90's ones that they score more against tougher defense"

I suggest you start with TS%. The current true shooting % has been so high in 2010s but really started to climb up from mid 2000s.

Not really.

League TS% during Jordan’s 13 seasons in Chicago: 53.6%
League TS% during LeBron’s 11 seasons in Cleveland: 53.9%
League TS% during LeBron’s 4 seasons in Miami; 53.6%

League TS% from 1985 to 2022

TS%

1985: 54.3%
1986: 54.1%
1987: 53.8%
1988: 53.8%
1989: 53.7%
1990: 53.7%
1991: 53.4%
1992: 53.1%
1993: 53.6%
1994: 52.8%
1995: 54.3%
1996: 54.1%
1997: 53.6%
1998: 52.4%
1999: 51.1%
2000: 52.3%
2001: 51.8%
2002: 52.0%
2003: 51.9%
2004: 51.6%
2005: 52.9%
2006: 53.6%
2007: 54.1%
2008: 54.0%
2009: 54.4%
2010: 54.3%
2011: 54.1%
2012: 52.7%
2013: 53.5%
2014: 54.1%
2015: 53.5%
2016: 54.1%
2017: 55.2%
2018: 55.6%
2019: 56.0%
2020: 56.5%
2021: 57.2%
2022: 56.6%

Why didn't you include the rest of my post? It provides the context for that snippet you taken

[AEnigma]

Many of you keep parroting "illegal defence, illegale defence"... just look at the spacing back then compared to now. All the attention now is on the 3 point line, and that makes it much easier to get to the paint. Not to mention soft rules in today's game.

Spacing has certainly evolved with time, although 2009-14 Lebron was not exactly seeing perpetually open driving lanes. Again though we come back to player weaknesses and team structure. If Jordan could be given complete defensive attention with aggressive and active help, does he have the passing vision to take proper advantage? Would he sacrifice his shots, or would he try to take them anyway? Possibly. But the more that makes him look like Kobe, the more his mystique dies down…

If anyone was given the full attention with agressive and active help, it was Jordan. And yes, Jordan had an elite passing vision. Elite.
The most underrated part of his game is playmaking. He is underrated beacuase of his APG, and today you have players getting triple doubles on regular basis so his assist numbers look unimpressive.

It has to be remembered though that he was not a point guard or a point forward. He played for the most part in a triangle system which is based on multiple players making plays for each other and it doesn't have a traditional playmaker who runs everything. It was the same thing in LA with Phil Jackson, Derek Fisher was their point guard.

When Jordan played in a system where everything went through him, he was getting triple doubles aswell. It's not like he was not capable of playing like that, but he was willing to be coached and to play in a team system in order to achieve something bigger.

Either you have a low bar for “elite” passing or you need to watch more point guards. Jordan could make basic reads and in the triangle he did that extremely well. If he had the ball put in his hands, he could do that at volume, and putting the ball in his hands at least gives you a fair bit of stability, but without the vision and creativity of actually elite passers, you are hitting your ceiling a lot more quickly. I know it is popular for the stans to just extrapolate him as a better Westbrook or Harden, because the myth of Jordan needs him to be infallible to maintain itself at all, but as a passer he was never close to either, and even Kobe showcased more passing acumen and better vision and creativity than he did.

[Mazter]

I suggest you start with TS%. The current true shooting % has been so high in 2010s but really started to climb up from mid 2000s.

In 1998 53.5% of shot were taken 10 feet away from the basket. In 2022 this was 56.4%, actually higher, so much for the lanes are open, scoring is easier theory. Then because of the higher 3Pr, efficiency on those shots rose from 43.2 eFG% in 1998 to 49.8 eFG% last season. Basically the quality of shooting just went up and took the TS% with them. It doesn't mean that 1 person can score 5-10 points more just because "scoring is easier".

MJ would have an easier time driving to the lanes today, its no question.

I really don't want to go too deep into this, as it is not a "Jordan in today's era" topic. But you said that correct, drive TO the lane. The league was averaging 45.1 drives a game, everybody is driving to the lane. It's driving to the RIM that counts. And that's where it gets tricky. Drives led to only 22.6 TS attempts, a 50% succes rate. They were completed at a 54.7 TS%, way below the league average. Besides that, driving is energy consuming, you can't do it endlessly. The highes amount of drives in a game I have found is 36 by Gilgeous-Alexander who also set a record with 23.9 drives per game last season. The most points was 31 by Ja Morant, who also set a record of 14.8 ppg from drives. Things are much more complicated than just "lanes are open", I mean, those defenders camping between the corner and the lane are not just there for decoration. They are just 10-15 feet away from intervention, a drive to the rim is 20-25 feet.

Your being very deceptive with your use of stats here. Most of there losses without Pippen happened earlier in the '98 season having to adjust without Pippen and motivation after coming back after successful back to back chips.

Case in point, the Bulls were on like a 12-2 run before Pippen came back.

To get back to your previous reply on me, I don't even know if this makes it better or worse for Jordan. Basically they then started 12-9, the team having the 25th offense lead by Jordan...because of Pippen's absence. All that time I thought Jordan was carrying that mediocre bunch around him and didn't need Pippen. The Bulls then literally had to sacrifice defense to cater Jordan's offense and turn things around. As a result they had the 4th best offense during the 12-2 run. But their defense plummeted from 4th in the league to 16th. It worked on the short term for sure, but doubt it would be sustainable. It wasn't until Pippen was back that balance between offense and defense was restored.

[homecourtloss]

I suggest you start with TS%. The current true shooting % has been so high in 2010s but really started to climb up from mid 2000s.

Not really.

League TS% during Jordan’s 13 seasons in Chicago: 53.6%
League TS% during LeBron’s 11 seasons in Cleveland: 53.9%
League TS% during LeBron’s 4 seasons in Miami; 53.6%

League TS% from 1985 to 2022

TS%

1985: 54.3%
1986: 54.1%
1987: 53.8%
1988: 53.8%
1989: 53.7%
1990: 53.7%
1991: 53.4%
1992: 53.1%
1993: 53.6%
1994: 52.8%
1995: 54.3%
1996: 54.1%
1997: 53.6%
1998: 52.4%
1999: 51.1%
2000: 52.3%
2001: 51.8%
2002: 52.0%
2003: 51.9%
2004: 51.6%
2005: 52.9%
2006: 53.6%
2007: 54.1%
2008: 54.0%
2009: 54.4%
2010: 54.3%
2011: 54.1%
2012: 52.7%
2013: 53.5%
2014: 54.1%
2015: 53.5%
2016: 54.1%
2017: 55.2%
2018: 55.6%
2019: 56.0%
2020: 56.5%
2021: 57.2%
2022: 56.6%

Why didn't you include the rest of my post? It provides the context for that snippet you taken

Because what you posted was incorrect; if the rest of the post “provides context” for something that’s incorrect to begin with, then I’m not interested in replying to it.

[tone wone]

You then had the Jordan impact and saw a lot of teams emulate the Bulls and move the mammary scoring to the perimeter which saw the scoring and TS% in the league dropped...and it kept dropping until the league stepped in the mid 2000s.

Who the hell emulated the Bulls in the 90s or early 00s??? Go look at the all-nba teams of the late 90s, there werent many superstar wings nor teams led by high scoring wings/guards. This changed in 00s as a great crop of young wings became stars but NO ONE was emulating the Bulls. The ease in which you MJ guys make up things

Now I could just be making this up, but then the league did actually come out and stated they introduced rules in mid 2000s that to open up the game for perimeter players.

This did happen. After that god awful 2004 season where the whole just forgot how to score. It took 3yrs but 2004 was when teams league wide fully took advantage of the elimination of illegal defense (eliminated in 2002). Zoning up the strong side, thus making it much harder to just post up or iso on the wings. The league wanted more ball movement. Thats how the NBA became a pick n roll league after being almost exclusively a post up/iso league forever.

It would be like LeBron but with an exceptional jumpshot. I just can't see how he would be guarded today.

But with a busted 3pt shot

[Mazter]

When Jordan played in a system where everything went through him, he was getting triple doubles aswell. It's not like he was not capable of playing like that, but he was willing to be coached and to play in a team system in order to achieve something bigger.

Hmmm yeah, about that...

Jordan wasn't a fan of that at first, going as far as to say, "Everybody has an opportunity to touch the ball, but I didn't want Bill Cartwright to have the ball with five seconds left. That's not equal-opportunity offense, that's f--king bulls--t."

Doesn't sound willing to me, more like he was force fed. But hey, whatever you want to believe...

[Stalwart]

When Jordan played in a system where everything went through him, he was getting triple doubles aswell. It's not like he was not capable of playing like that, but he was willing to be coached and to play in a team system in order to achieve something bigger.

Hmmm yeah, about that...

Jordan wasn't a fan of that at first, going as far as to say, "Everybody has an opportunity to touch the ball, but I didn't want Bill Cartwright to have the ball with five seconds left. That's not equal-opportunity offense, that's f--king bulls--t."

Doesn't sound willing to me, more like he was force fed. But hey, whatever you want to believe...

Why would you dump the ball into Bill Cartwright with 5 seconds left? Thats setting him and your team up for failure. Is that being an unwilling passer or having situational awareness?