Michael Jordan Wouldn’t Have Averaged 50 If He Played Today
By Paul Steeno
Michael Jordan is the best NBA player of all time. But to suggest that he would have averaged 50 points per game in today’s NBA seems like a stretch, right?
NBA legend Alonzo Mourning told Fox Sport’s Katie Nolan on the show ‘Garbage Time’ that if Jordan played in the NBA today, his scoring numbers would be significantly higher than his career averages.
Mourning is a former NBA basketball player whose career spanned 15 NBA seasons. He knows a thing or two about good defense; he won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award twice during his career in 1999 and 2000. He was a seven time all-star and won an NBA championship in 2006 with the Miami Heat. In terms of convincing credentials to make such an argument, Mourning definitely meets the standards.
Jordan averaged 30.1 points per game during his career.
Feb 14, 2014; New Orleans, LA, USA; NBA former player Alonzo Mourning during the NBA Hall of Fame Annoucement at New Orleans Hyatt. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
Over the years, NBA contemporaries of Jordan have been quick to shower praise on Michael. Perhaps this stems from an ego-motivated desire to justify their belief that the 80’s and 90’s were the glory days of the NBA. The common argument for the inferiority of the NBA today is that the players are soft and referees blow their whistles and send a player to the free throw line for minor infractions far too often. This argument has been repeated thousands of times, and it provides the structure for Mourning’s arguments as well.
"You wouldn’t be able to touch him on the perimeter, so he could shoot a ton of free throws."
Hand-checking was introduced at the beginning of the 2004-2005 season, and many believe that this rule has reduced the quality of defense in the NBA. As follows is the rule as explained by SportingCharts.com.
"Hand-checking is typically considered a foul if the defender continually uses his hands to impede the progress of any offensive player. As contact is frequent during a game of basketball, officials will not often call a hand-checking foul if the contact between a defender and an offensive player is incidental. Hand-check fouls are mostly called against defenders assigned ball handlers, and therefore usually occur out on the perimeter or at the top of the key."
During his career, Jordan averaged 8.2 free throw attempts per game. Let’s say he is the beneficiary of five more fouls per game, which is a very generous prediction. He was a career 83 percent free throw shooter. This suggests that out of these 10 extra free throws he would make 8, which would bring his career average scoring totals to 38 points per game because of the extra free throws.
For Mourning’s speculative prediction to be accurate, Jordan would have to score 12 more points per night from the field. The duration of the game hasn’t increased. They still last 48 minutes plus any overtime. During his career, Jordan averaged almost 23 shots per game and it is unlikely that this number would have increased significantly enough to warrant an extra 12 points per game. Considering he shot about 50% from the field throughout his career, he would need to take 8 more shots if he is only shooting 3s (four 3-pointers times two because his field goal percentage suggests he needs about 8 more shots to score the extra 12 points). If he only shoots 2-pointers to get the extra 12 points, that is 12 more shots per game (six 2-pointers times two because of his field goal percentage suggests he needs to shoot 12 two point shots to score the extra 12 points). Basically, he would have to take between 31 and 35 shots per game to accomplish this task. To illustrate the absurdity of this proposition, lets look at the career averages of some of the NBA’s most notorious bulk shooters.
Kobe Bryant: 19.6 shots per game over his career
Russell Westbrook: 17.0 shots per game over his career, topping out at 21.4.
Wilt Chamberlain: 22.5 shots per game over his career
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 18.1 shots per game over his career
Unless Jordan became the biggest ball hog the world has ever seen, he wouldn’t have enough opportunities in a regulation length game to consistently score 50+. Maybe Mourning was assuming that all of his games would go into overtime.
Mourning’s claim is based on the assumption that NBA defenses today are significantly worse than defenses in the 80s and 90s. CBS writer Matt Moore refutes this assumption.
"If you go back and watch some of his greatest performances, Jordan wasn’t double-teamed nearly as much as he should have been. There are times, but not nearly as often as he’d see today. Help defense, like the one that Chicago and the Clippers use, are smarter and more aggressive. But the idea of him shooting 20 free throws per game is not crazy to think about, considering his usage and the fact that no guard today could contain him on the perimeter. Anyway, a fun exercise and the rare “MJ was better in every way” that’s backed up with an actual line of thought instead of just throwing it out as an absolute."
Conclusion: Jordan would have found today’s NBA to be far less challenging due to the receding physicality of defenders. He would find himself on the free throw line more often, and would have killed any defender that took possessions off against him on defense. However, to suggest that Jordan would score 20 points per game more than his career average is ludicrous. Predicting that Jordan would have averaged between 35-40 points per game in the modern NBA seems to be more in line with reality. Jordan is the undisputed best player to ever step on the hardwood, however he isn’t God. Tone down your exaggerations next time Alonzo!
So what do you guys think? Do you agree with Alonzo and believe that Jordan would have dropped 50 a night if he played in the NBA today? Or are you on my side and believe Mourning is exaggerating? Comment!