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???
I honestly don’t know if that ever happens. I mean, there will probably be a few more “Lebrons” that come along (maybe Wemby ends one of them) that some people will argue is the GOAT, but even as great as Lebron was, he’s not really close when you consider that recency bias is HEAVILY in Lebron’s favor. Let me put it this way. If Lebron played in the 90s and MJ was here today and had his career that he did…there would be zero discussion. Everyone would call MJ the GOAT and people would be arguing Lebron/Wilt/Russell/Kareem/Magic, etc….as very distant possible #2s.
Even when you get past all the stats and accolades…you got the swagger, the trash talking, the LOOK, the air ballet, the SHOES, the NICKNAME, the global presence, the commercials, BE LIKE MIKE, the dunk championships…I mean…that’s like icing on top of icing on top of icing on top of the already GOAT cake.
I have argued that MJ is the Gretzky of basketball in that he’s THAT far from everyone else. Maybe not in pure stats like Gretzky but when you factor in all the other things…it DEFINES greatness.