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???
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.