The new crop of Chicago Bulls players have a chance to imprint themselves on this storied franchise. The likes of Zach LaVine, Wendell Carter Jr and Coby White have the potential to be all time great Bulls. Though they may go on to great careers in Chicago there are certain Bulls records that they may never break.
The Chicago Bulls have a bunch of “unbreakable records” that you would figure won’t be touched from the legendary 1990’s teams. Here’s a look at a few of those.
Two point field goals
Bulls all-time record – 10,407
Michael Jeffery Jordan is fifth all time in NBA history when it comes to two point field goals. More importantly he is only the perimeter player in the top five, with a whopping 11,611 two point field goals from his Bulls and Washington Wizards years. Because of the era he played in, Jordan took 93% of his shots from two point range.
For a Bulls player to even break the Bulls record of 10,407, they would need to have a similar shot profile while also attempting 20 plus shots a game. Unless there are significant rule changes and less threes shot its very unlikely that any NBA coach would let a player take 18 plus shots a game from inside the arc. The perimeter oriented game combined with the super-team era of two or three stars playing together makes this a very hard record to break.
Verdict – Highly unlikely
Total Points
Bulls all-time record – 29,277
Jordan scored an amazing 29,277 points in his Bulls career. There are a couple of key points to note when assessing Jordan’s point total. The first is his point per game average of 31.5 with the Bulls. To average this over 12.5 seasons shows just how great Jordan was.
His consistency night in night out was such a big part of what made him the greatest scorer ever. The second point is Jordan’s impeccable health. Bar the season where he broke his foot and when he retired to play baseball, he only missed seven games in eleven seasons.
As a lot of coaches say, availability is one of the best abilities. Though Jordan didn’t play as many seasons as some of the other all-time greats, because he missed so few games with injury his mark of almost 30 thousand points with the Bulls will be very tough to beat.
For example, if LaVine plays another ten years for the Bulls and averages 25 points a game over this stretch, this would only give him another 19 thousand points. Yes he would be a Hall-of-Famer with a career like this, but he wouldn’t be close to cracking 30,000 points.
It’s possible that another hall of fame type player similar to Jordan comes along, but load management and post season priorities mean that playing all 82 games will happen less and less. This one may never be broken.
Verdict – Highly unlikely
Made Free Throws
Bulls all-time record – 6798
Again, Jordan holds this record too. That he is over double the next Bulls player with a total of 6798 to Bob Love’s 2727 shows what a tough record this one is to break. Jordan’s strength and fitness combined with an offensive peak of 13 seasons meant he drew fouls like almost no other player has in NBA history.
Only finishing outside the top five in free throws made in one of his eleven full seasons, Jordan’s ability to get to the line has only been matched consistently by James Harden in the 20 years since he retired.
For a Bulls player to break this record they would also need to have the extraordinary usage that Jordan enjoyed over his Bulls tenure. Jordan led the league in usage eight times and still to this day is the all-time leader in this statistic at 33 percent.
Verdict – Highly unlikely
This Chicago Bulls team has some exciting prospects who could one day be on some all-time leaderboards. For now though it seems that most of Jordan’s records are safe.