![]() ![]() More importantly, as competitive as His Airness was, he wasn’t about to let anyone else in the league show him up, and coach Phil Jackson knew it well enough that he’d have designed the Bulls’ offense to get MJ as many shots as it required to put him over the hump to pass whoever won those scoring titles. Jordan won the scoring title every full year he played from 1986-87 through ’97-98. We’ll treat 1994 and ’95 like “typical MJ years” in terms of the level of production he was putting up as he entered his 30s, then look at post-1998 in terms of the trajectory of decline that had already started to show ever-so-slightly in that 1998 season and surprisingly tracks a line through his real-life seasons in Washington in 2001-02 and ’02-03.ĭon’t worry, that will make more sense as we go.įirst, let’s project 1993-94. Everything that actually happened during his career in Chicago when he played full seasons-from 1984-93 and then from 1996-98-stays on the books here. ![]() It’s otherwise irrelevant to the simple question-what would Jordan’s career stat totals have been? Would he have passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the career scoring list? Or John Stockton for career steals? How untouchable would his statistical legacy have become? I’m not going to talk about playoffs other than to project that the Bulls would’ve won eight in a row including the 1994 and ’95 seasons, because that will be important when we talk GOAT legacy. Put simply, what if His Airness had a fairly normal career track for a player of his era and caliber, playing all of the 1993-94 and ’94-95 seasons then sticking around for as long as it took to secure whatever legacy we can assume he’d have gone after given the situation in terms of setting or extending records for him after the 1998 Finals? Michael Jordan stands fifth all-time in scoring in NBA history, third in steals, fifth in Win Shares, and second in VORP.īy any account, the argument for the greatest player ever to play professional basketball is a two-horse race between Jordan and LeBron James.īut what if Jordan-who played in 1,072 career NBA games, 90th all-time-didn’t spend two seasons of his prime trying to play baseball? What if he hadn’t taken three years off before an ill-fated comeback attempt in Washington in 2001 that nearly knocked him out of the top spot for points per game, leaving him in a tie with Wilt Chamberlain that needs to be taken to a second decimal place (30.12 for Jordan, 30.07 for Wilt)? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |