Michael was asked what the MVP credentials should be after being runner up to Magic for 86-87 NBA MVP
hes trying so hard to be humble but this reporter is asking the most loaded questions
Talking about if MJ has reached his peak in 1987 is fucking wild.
1986-87: 37.1ppg
1987-88: 35ppg, DPOY
1988-89: 32.5/8/8 season
Crazy to think that none of these were his peak
89 season is insane.
He played PG for the 2nd half of the season (nearly had 11 straight triple doubles) and nearly carried a terrible Bulls team to the finals.
They beat the 2nd and 3rd seed and then nearly upset the 63 win Pistons as a 6th seed, they were the only team to win games against the Pistons in the playoffs. The Pistons swept the entire playoffs other than that series.
I wish people knew about that year. It would make things alot more clear about MJ.
During the Bad Boy Pistons back-to-back championship seasons they were 8-5 against the Bulls, 22-2 against everyone else in the playoffs. The only team that was putting up a fight against the Pistons was the Bulls, everybody else got steamrolled.
If they called just a few more fouls against the Pistons for the beatings they were handing out to Jordan than Bulls would’ve won, but if they win Jordan might not have evolved more and the Bulls might’ve taken different routes for their coaching/roster. Really alternate history point in the NBA. If Jordan hadn’t gotten two 3-peats would he be undeniably the GOAT or would he have had questions like LeBron had about losing in the Finals?
Questions, like everyone else
35 a game as the DPOY is insane.
Hakeem was the best defender but people really valued steals at the time. But to be even in the conversation for DPOY at 35/game is insane already.
And people still will argue that LeBron is the goat š
His peak was 88-91. I don’t think the team being worse around him in 88-90 should be a factor, he was phenomenal then and substantially better than he was in the second threepeat.
They were pretty close to 1990-1993, and better than 1996-1998.
88 is probably his peak. He became a better shooter in 89 and 90 and the latest his peak could possibly be is 91
1991 by pretty much every advanced stat is his best. Even Thinking Basketball ranked MJ’s seasons:
Can you share what stats you are talking about?? I don’t really care what a YouTuber says unless you actually show their reasoning. On bbref it seems like a clean sweep in the advanced stats department for 88
CORP%. Go look at his website about his top players all time.
Interesting. Seems to be for patreon subscribers only. Curious how mjs 4 year peak seasons compare or what the methodology is. His shooting efficiency improved by 90 / 91 and I imagine team performance is a big factor
What are these numbers adjusted for current pace?
About the same. Pace didnāt slow down in the NBA until the mid 90s.
A lot of people were calling him the greatest player ever before he won a ring
The āhmm mahomes has to win 8 to pass brady, lebron has to win 7 to pass jordan..ā type of thinking is a modern invention. And very cringe but yk
To be fair, thatās largely literally because of Jordan.
āBut Russell had 11 rings!ā
Right, and in a way (with all the respect to the great Bill Russell, I mean that genuinely) but that was almost a case AGAINST rings. Because people who grew up post Russell, pre MJ, they themselves (not me being a hater) would be the ones saying heās obviously not the best PLAYER of all time, maybe best winner, but according to the eye test, people would legitimately say other players like Wilt, or Jerry West, Kareem, or Oscar Robertson, who only one 1, was the best because he averaged a triple double (before it became more common place).
With MJ, heās someone that passed all the tests. He got the numbers, the accolades, and the hardware. But on top of that, heās passed the eye test. Someone people saw and weāre just like man, this dude is the best I ever seen. AND then he won 6 championships. Which is why if weāre being real, most people view his 6 as above Russellās 11.
But because MJ set the bar so high, thatās why everyone after him is viewed in that lens. Ironically, MJ didnāt have to deal with that aspect as much because it wasnāt really a thingā¦ until HE made it a thing.
This is a really great point. Tbf, they’re doing it with Lebron having less rings than Michael. But I think time will cool that debate a bit, maybe more in MJ’s favor. Unless Wemby takes over of course lol
Russell won 5 MVPs, most against Chamberlain. It wasn’t like he was just the best player on the best team he was in most years the best player overall.
Well if heās your GOAT, then Iām not gonna argue you.
Granted Bobby Knight and Larry Bird, but the narrative was “could he win it all?”
Bryant Gumble is the reporter, pretty famous cat
Sub showing its age
My fucking knees hurt reading “this reporter”
Are we the oldies?
No! It’s the children who are wrong.
Old mfs being surprised that 25 yr olds are on the internet is funny asf
Like yeah? Spend time with ya kids
You either grow old or you die, which one do you want?
If Iām old and still on Reddit Iām keeping that shit to myselfĀ
āThis reporterā ššš
Unbelievable. I read that and thought “Wait a minute… was that not Bryant Gumbel?”
“this reporter”
Oh man, I feel old.
This reporter……BRYANT GUMBEL.
It doesnt seem humbleness to me, he was just being honest.
Tbf, he was fast and away the best player in the league, and everyone knew it. Hell, I’d say he was the best player in the world from when he was at UNC. So do drop such an epic offensive season and not win MVP is kinda wrong. And I’m a Magic fan. But that season was crazy.
40 years later nobody is any closer to knowing what the hell the MVP criteria isĀ
It’s purposeful vague, otherwise it would be picked by a spreadsheet at the end of the season. Goodhart’s law and all that.
Thatās what I donāt like about baseball these days. The MVP just feels like the WAR award
Unless if you are Mike Trout or you are a pitcher lol. They get the short end of the stick.
Being Mike Trout and a pitcher seems to work.
Trout was a victim of voter fatigue. (Plus it didn’t help that his team sucked.) Judge might be a victim this season if he tops the WAR charts again, he almost lost to the power of Raleigh’s narrative last year already. It’s hard for pitchers to win because there is an award exclusively for pitchers.
The Baseball Hall of Fame is definitely the Hall of WAR now.
Every argument boils down to that and if you arenāt above a certain level people will argue you donāt belong in there.
Yep. 50 and youāre in, right?
That says more about how statistically “solved” baseball is.
WAR isn’t perfect but it’s miles better than any other stat like it in other sports.
Exactly. I actually prefer it this way. Thereās more to being the mvp than just stats.
Yeah its so much better now that NBA media can just arbitrarily change their criteria to fit whatever guy they want
The irony is that the MVP is now called ‘the Michael Jordan Trophy’
It’s wins stats and most importantly narrative. That’s always been the case
The criteria is as follows: āfeelingsā
vibes
I think the pattern has been great individual numbers plus team success. Thereās some outlier years with players getting MVPs on lower seed teams but in general it seems to follow a similar pattern.
Also if youāve won too many the award becomes, whoās the most valuable besides the obvious choice.
All I know is they better play at least 65 games or their season means nothing!
Easier to define a balk
I like to think of it as “Player of the Year”
if they wanna keep things simple, they could just give the award to the player with the most total win shares in the season
I feel like we were closer back then
Itās provocative
One of the criteria is narrative, the year Jokic didn’t get voted MVP is the year he finally won the title, and the narrative leading up to that was he could only get conference semis and how can you be MVP without a title.
Also for rookie of the year. Chet said this same thing in his interview with KG I believe and got ridiculed.
“whatever benefits the white man this year”
You skip forward to 2010-2011 when Derrick Rose won MVP, no still donāt know what the criteria is when itās commonly debated if Lebron shouldāve won
Lebron didnāt even finish 2nd in voting that year, Dwight finished 2nd
Dwight Howard was runner-up in 2010-11 to Derrick Rose, not Lebron. It is Lebron stan revisionism to think Lebron would have won MVP if the voters hadn’t given it to Rose
We donāt know who wouldāve won if the Rose 1st place voters had voted differently. The point is that they voted based off of Rose hero narratives rather than actual impact and abilities and if they hadnāt the race wouldāve been between Dwight and LeBron
I get what you are saying but Rose had 113 first place votes.
Dwight had 3 and LeBron had 4 (Kobe was in 4th place with 1)
Rose had 1182 total points (max that year was 1210). Beating Dwight (643) and LeBron (522) combined (1165).
So this is less of a “If they hadn’t voted for Rose who would have won?” and more of a “If Rose wasn’t in the league who would have won?”
Josh Allen in 2023 type beat
jordan’s usage jumped significantly this year (from 17 shots to a career high 27) but ‘88 was really his biggest leap; he shot 53.5%, up from 48% in the year of this clip, led the league in steals, and won dpoy, while leading a team with a somehow worse starting lineup than the one featuring earl cureton to 50 wins.
‘87 was obviously great in its own right, but even though the criteria for mvp have been inconsistent at best this is a pretty bad example. the bulls went 40-42, and only two winners in history (pettit and kareem’s first lakers year) have won it with a losing record. those two scraped past paul arizin and bob mcadoo respectively; i appreciate mj’s perspective but find it really hard to argue against magic’s 65 wins, 12 assists, and title (‘87 was also the first year kareem’s scoring significantly dropped, despite those magic assist numbers), though on the flipside it’s just as impressive that mike was able to take such a leap even from this high level
Awesome analysis
Poor guy, he hated leading the league in scoring and yet fate would have him push that boulder up the hill time after time.
Sisyphus Jordan
One must imagine Michael happy.
im sure he didnt hate it as much as he hated being stereotyped like wilt was in his early career
Goat š
This was only his second full-season by the way (third overall)
And this, folks, was the last we would see of Humble Michael Jordan
He’s not this level of humble, but he’s still pretty humble for how good he is. Doesn’t consider himself the GOAT because it’s era dependent, didn’t want the MVP shaped in his image even though that was the original intention, etc.
He was humble until the first threepeat. But also, he changed after his father was murdered.
I think itās not about humility when it comes to basketball. He just respects the game too much.
you dont become elite or MVP by being humble.
As a wise philosopher said “I tried being humble, but humble gets no respect. Now the first sign of trouble? That’s a hole up in your neck.”
i donāt know man, duncan got asked to start bench or cut kobe, mj, and bron & he was so humble that he offered to start all 3 and cut himself
His priorities lies in championship rather than individual awards.
You can have an ego based on your preferences. I highly doubt he would’ve been as receptive to another goal than to Pop.
He also had Duncan Robinson as a veteran in his early career.
Isn’t it mostly the same energy he generally has stuck to?
Looking like he definitely thinks he is/was the best, but making sure to say the right thing instead?
It’s an interesting perspective. The fact that he has to take 28 shots a night for his team to have a chance means the team isn’t good enough and he doesn’t want to do that. And he’s also conscious of the idea that people think he’s just a scorer at this point of his career.
I do think it fits the idea of Lebron’s proposal for an Offensive Player of the Year award like the NFL.
Do you quarrel, sir? Do you bite your thumb, sir?
I bite my thumb but I do not bite my thumb at you, sir
GOAT! Never once did he say he was. MY EYES told me he was.
He should’ve had his agent create a talk show saying how he deserved it.
He didn’t need that, the media phantasm anointed him the GOAT of the sport even before a single ring. Everybody else had to mirror Michael Jordan’s journey exactly in order to be counted in that tier. Michael never had to face this situation or stacking the narrative odds because basketball media didn’t anoint a consensus GOAT before him. They hated Kareem and thereby you never saw any segments about, “what MJ has to do to beat KAJ?”
Ultimately, because the gatekeepers from that generation(Skip Bayless, Stephen A) who watched him on TV, were nostalgic for that era or played with him(Barkley etc) became massive media personalities capable of driving narratives for a generation that started watching basketball due to Michael Jordan’s commercial appeal, they were now hijacking every NBA discussion desk across every network, telling everyone how it’s impossible for anyone else to be the GOAT if he didn’t exactly mirror Michael Jordan’s life, journey, playing style, right down to how he talked.
Kobe had to copy everything about Michael Jordan in order to be loved in the eyes of these same gatekeepers on TV.
Even while MJ passed the final shot to Steve Kerr in an NBA finals because he was open and it was the right play, nobody sat on TV IN 1998 calling him soft meanwhile Lebron for the entirety of his basketball career, despite having the most playoff buzzer beaters on a much better efficiency was scrutinized, refused to be called clutch and killer by gatekeepers from that generation for not chucking a bad shot while being guarded by 3 people.
Was LeBron the one that nicknamed himself the chosen one and got that tattooed on him?
Nobody falls for the fake humble gimmick of Michael Jordan more than Jordanheads despite the evidence of him burning long time friendships and associations if you didn’t resort to sycophancy around him.
A lot more people eat up the “LeBron’s a saint narrative” than people that eat up the Jordan’s humble though.
you’re thinking too much. stop making so much sense
Were you even alive back then? The debate was MJ or Wilt, nobody brought up Kareem in a GOAT discussion.
And of course nobody brought the Kerr shot up in 1998 because thatās the year Jordan hit a shot to win the Finals.
If you want to bring up Finals memories we can talk about 2011 and 8 points in a Finals game. Otherwise go to bed, kiddo.
The cold part is he got even better. Lol
And he got better. Lots better.
One thing I learned that I never see mentioned muchā¦.
Michael Jordan played 82 games at the age of 39 for a Wizards team that was clearly going nowhere. Just because he could.
Dude loved basketball and was born to play it.
ā*in the sense*ā š
Interesting. So, Jordan didn’t win MVP when he averaged 37, and Harden didn’t win MVP when he averaged 36. I didn’t realize that.
Kinda funny he said he didn’t think he could do 37 a game ever again because he couldn’t and neither could anyone else
He could have. He didn’t, because he shot fewer bad shots. His peak as a scorer started the next season.
A reposted video with horribly incorrect subtitles. Why?
These few years were crazy between the end of Bird’s peak and the beginning of Jordan’s while Magic was in his and winning MVP. Jordan made a huge comeback and jump yet this year yet one could make a legitimate argument Bird could’ve won it again this year as well.
Jordan doing his best not to shout āYou damn well know that Iām the MVP!ā
Cade is the MVP
There are no credentials. It all boils down to if the media likes you or not..
Would you say he…met the criteria?
This is Jaylen brown codedĀ