In addition to being omnipresent in the old YouTube clips weve all been watching, MJ will also take center stage in a 10-part ESPN documentary, The Last Dance, which premieres Sunday.1 The film covers the 1997-98 season, Jordans final year in Chicago, as well as Jordans cultural significance and that of the Bulls dynasty as a whole. Plus his ability to block shots was awesome too. Michael Jordan | Biography, Stats, & Facts | Britannica We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. He led the league in steals and was 14th in blocks -- the only guard in the top 40 that season. Actually, if we took a player that was completely average in every other respect for the 200607 seasonrebounds, free throws, assists, turnovers, etc.and gave him a league-average rate of shots, and all of them were 2-pointers, and he shot 30.4%, he'd end up with a PER of 7.18. The entire playing career for Michael Jordan is displayed below. the official stats partner of the NBA, NHL and MLB. It's you, Reggie and the 100 picks we're going to set for him.'" Michael Jordan Stats and news - NBA stats and news on Chicago Bulls Guard Michael Jordan . F Known as "The Glove," Payton got that nickname after playing superb defense on Suns PG Kevin Johnson. Jordan's defense was huge that year, with advanced stats on his side, as well as the eye test. Consistently. And with apologies to the Human Highlight Film, Jordan was asked to do a lot more on offense for the Bulls than Wilkins was for the Hawks. Only 31 times has a player posted a season efficiency rating over 30.0 (with more than 15 games played in that season), with the highest score being 32.85 (Nikola Joki). MJ was a serviceable deep shooter for his day, particularly for the three seasons when the NBA shortened the 3-point line during the 1990s, but he was no Steph Curry or James Harden. ( At only 29, he is already a 2 x DPOY and 6 x All Defense. ] + S This article will aim to find out who the best defender in NBA history is by comparing some of the greatest defenders to each other using the following categories: Defensive achievements, defensive statistics, defensive impact. Michael Jordan was a 6'6, 195-215lb freak of nature. ) Jordan averaged 28.7 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.7 steals in 82 games during the 1997-98 season, his last with the Bulls. n Jordan posted higher rates of steals, blocks and defensive rebounds than Bryant, and team-based defensive metrics like Dean Oliver's defensive rating consider Jordan far superior (101.1. Defensive impact can be measured by the players versatility on the floor, and the different ways that they effect the game. Hakeem Olajuwon: 9 x NBA All-Defense, 3 x BLK Champion, 2 x DPOY, All-time leader in in blocks (3,830). o + ) Bryant won eight All-First Team Defensive selections and two All-Second Team selections, which adds volume to his great ability to lock down his man. If you combine the 1997 and 1998 Finals, the Jazz failed to score 90 points in 11 of the 12 games they played. Alexander Hassenstein / Bongarts / Getty Images, Apr. R Kawhi may be silent off the court, but his impact on the court is definitely heard. Payton is one of the best defenders Michael Jordan ever played against, as he helped force Jordan to his worst scoring and shooting Finals series (27.3 points on 42 percent from field). S Kobe Bryant vs Michael Jordan: Who is Better? - Sports Articles F He had a nice IQ that he used in order to beat multiple players, and he was a versatile stopper who could switch to defend everything from the 1 to 4 positions. l To end up with a league-average PER of 15.00, the actual break-even mark in this case is 48.5%, which is exactly what the league average is on 2-point shots this season. He finished fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting behind Dikembe Mutombo, Payton and David Robinson -- 10 years after his first and only DPOY award. In the News: . He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009. ( A T T V Jordan was also named to the NBAs All-Defensive Team nine times, winning Defensive Player of the Year in 1988. Yet Jordans numbers have held up to challenges from LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and numerous others in the generations that followed in his footsteps. l e The game is different now than when it was played in the 1980s or even before that". T Porter's 40% forced incompletion rate in 2022 led all Power Five cornerbacks. a PER strives to measure a player's per-minute performance, while adjusting for pace. Defensive Rating since 1973-74, Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Monday, May 1, 7:34PM. Talk about a defender that you'd want on your team. ( Behind Smart, the Celtics led the NBA in defensive rating (106.2) and points allowed per game (104.5) and held opponents to the lowest field goal percentage (43.4) and three-point field goal . He led the league in steals and was 14th in blocks -- the only guard in the top 40 that . [5][6] As the metric is averaged over the length of a player's entire career a decrease in efficiency later in his career means a player can move down in the ranking; Jordan's PER took a big hit in the final two years of his career when he returned to the game with the Washington Wizards, posting 20.7 in his penultimate season and 19.3 in his final season, compared to his career high of 31.7 (Jordan's PER was 29.1 without accounting for his Wizards years). l The formula adds positive stats and subtracts negative ones through a statistical point value system. B ] P O He was also an elite perimeter defender with a RAPTOR plus/minus of +2.2, which ranks fourth among players that Basketball-Reference lists as guards or guard-forwards since 1976-77: Best RAPTOR defensive plus/minus ratings for NBA guards* with at least 15,000 minutes played since 1976-77, including regular season and playoffs. Leonard is currently the best two-way player in the NBA and has been over the last half-decade. G For example, runs batted in is highly dependent upon opportunities created by a player's teammates. Hakeem Olajuwon DBPM: 2.5 (career average), Scottie Pippen DBPM: 1.8 (career average). 15 m He marked the 90's as one of the top defensive players of that era, alongside Hakeem Olajuwon. Once uPER is calculated, it must be adjusted for team pace and normalized to the league to become PER: P "In my mind, Michael was actually a defensive player who also happened to be an exceptionally talented offensive player," says B.J. There you have it. Here are the five NBA players in the conversation for being the best defensive players ever (In no particular order). Scaled to a tempo of 100 possessions per game. + u Using a detailed formula, Hollinger developed a system that rates every player's statistical performance.[1]. Or that Jordan had a strong supporting cast with multiple Hall of Famers (including Jackson as coach) and hyper-efficient role players (Steve Kerr, Horace Grant, etc.). But nearly as impossible was trying to score when Jordan was guarding you. Join our linker program. Payton's cousin told him, "You're holding Kevin Johnson like a baseball in a glove." ) StatMuse has season-level data for defensive rating going back to the 1973-74 season. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. P Michael Jordan and the Greatest Lockdown, Man-To-Man Defenders in NBA L Kawhi Leonard: 6 x All Defense, 1 x STL Champ, 2 x DPOY. 0.2464 m Dave DeBusschere, Walt Frazier, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Willis Reed, Michael Cooper and so on. Full Site Menu. Everyone remembers the drive, pull-up and arguable push-off as Jordan freed himself from Bryon Russell and drained the championship clinching jumper. . 2023 NFL Draft: Grades for all Day 2 picks | NFL Draft | PFF F Michael Jordan Stats, News, Bio | ESPN That is fantastic. Get viral NBA graphics, memes, rumors and trending news delivered right to your inbox with the Clutch Newsletter. Jordans most underrated offensive strength of all might have been his ability to generate high-quality shots (for himself and others) without turning the ball over. 100 is an excellent defensive rating for an NBA players career. V He led the league in . B Biden Is Running For Reelection. "Our rotations got so crazy that our guard, David Wesley, was guarding [7-foot center] Luc Longley under the basket -- and they still wouldn't throw him the ball," Cowens says now. Only two qualified players in NBA history had a career usage rate of at least 30 percent with a turnover percentage under 10 percent Jordan and Dominique Wilkins (rivals in a couple of iconic 1980s dunk contests). D He earned nine All-Defense selections, including six on the first team. And he found a way not only to become a great defensive player, but the best defensive player in the NBA. F He also had good skills and a big body, who put in hard work in every single game. V ( His recovery skills were exceptional. And no one relished that assignment more than Jordan. K Kawhis versatility on defense allows him to defend positions one through four with ease in the NBA. P D In reality, he was most effective defending only centers and power forwards. Michael Jordan (18) [12], Comparing players from different generations using PER presents several problems, this is primarily due to the rule changes and the changes in statistical data collected from different eras (although many other factors could be taken into consideration, even down to the increased sample size as the NBA grew through incorporating more teams). Not Charles, not Clyde [Drexler], not anyone.". m In some ways, as an efficient guard with unstoppable post-up skills, MJ served as a bridge between the NBAs bygone age of dominant big men and todays era of high-usage perimeter creators. Tied for second most ever. Main Index . t G Just like Lebron he is considered one of the most athletic players ever too. + If you had the opportunity to make your ideal NBA defender, it would probably look like Scottie Pippen. I'm sitting there watching Michael, and he was just unbelievable. "I've always thought players who talk trash defensively are far more devastating than the scorers who say stuff," Rivers says. G Jackson warned his Pacers teammates about Jordan's uncommon defensive resolve. Its something of a loaded question, the kind of which has launched a million RealGM forum debates. Jordan came back late in the 1995 season, too late to boost Chicagos offensive ranking any higher than 10th and he played below his usual level of efficiency anyway. LeBron says he wants to be greatest of all time, still "far away from it, Spoelstra: Comparing LeBron to Jordan is impossible because 'game is different now', Rules changes have affected defensive philosophies, An in-depth description of how to calculate PER, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Player_efficiency_rating&oldid=1150174356, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 16 April 2023, at 18:28. Best RAPTOR defensive plus/minus ratings for . Jordan is a 9-time NBA All-Defensive . O Scores from any date in BAA/NBA or ABA history, Frequently Asked Questions about the NBA, WNBA and Basketball, Basketball-Reference.com Blog and Articles, Subscribe to Stathead Basketball: Get your first month FREE. He has played 179 playoff games, scoring 33.4 points per game. [ Michael Jordan - Pro-Football-Reference.com