I’ve recently gone down the rabbit hole of Jordan shit tonight and this combo of stats blew my mind.
He’s never been a point guard for an extended time. I know he played point guard at the end of a season and racked up 10 triple doubles out of 11 games. Out of his decently lengthy career he’s barely done it but… he still put up 11+ assists a game in a finals and only 2 other players in history have done this. Both point guards their whole careers(Cousey and Magic).
Then 2 finals later he sets the finals ppg record at 41 points.
Both of these have not been broken since those years 30-32 years ago.
Bonus: he set the playoff scoring total record in the playoffs in the year between those. That hasn’t been broken either
He won all 3 years to support the awesomeness even further
Dafuq was this dude on???
This has been said before but what’s so crazy about Jordan is you can take nearly any given player’s record, award history, statistical streak, or incredible stat line and there’s a really good chance one of the people competing with the player for that unique streak, award, etc. is going to be Jordan. Like there’s all these different players in various lists and then Jordan is just in all of them.
To me is that despite Jordan playing at a time where people didn’t really know about playing efficient basketball, or rather it wasn’t widespread, Jordan was still incredibly efficient and his advantage metrics are still at the top. Pull up any modern advanced stat and who’s at the top or near the top? Jordan.
It’s even more crazy he did it at that time.
The league talent might be better today, but coaching/health and recovery/accommodations in terms of flights/hotels/etc(and yes shit accommodations would lead to more fatigue, especially back in the 60s), and most importantly the rules all were far less favourable back then.
People talk about zone defense a lot because Jordan himself said it would have hindered him, but a lot of the rule changes and changes to the way the game is called(dont call travelling/carrying violations, footwork violations, moving screens) would have all allowed him to be even more dominant offensively.
Same with LeBron
He’s either #1 or 2 in both career regular season AND playoffs WS/48, Box Plus Minus, and PER. He’s the only player in all 3 on both.
That’s absolutely wild. Like how does a player become that much better than everyone else?
Yes, Jordan is effectively #1 all time in those box score aggregated advanced metrics, on a per game basis. Every single one that can be applied to his era. He is the most statistically impactful player of all time.
What’s more impressive though was the rate at which he accumulated awards and accolades. LeBron has won 63 of them in his 20 year career. That’s a lot. In 11 full seasons with the Bulls, Jordan racked up 68. He won more awards than even LeBron James, in nearly half the time. That’s just insane.
The key is to get your ass handed to you by the pistons. Look what it did for both Shaq and Kobe.
The key is to get your ass handed to you by the Pistons. Look what it did for both Shaq and Kobe.
Like Wayne Gretzky