Yahoo Sports: “A closer look at MJ’s 1988 DPOY raises questions about its validity”

[Kaypain]

No other sports goes out of its way to shyt on its past than NBA media and fans. How can y’all root for this shyt show?

This

I'm over NBA debates

 

[The_Sheff]

No other sports goes out of its way to shyt on its past than NBA media and fans. How can y’all root for this shyt show?

When discourse about the sport has devolved into one on one comparisons then all of this is fair game.

Also NBA fans don't allow you to just say it was a different era and move on like they do in the NFL and MLB. Nope, all NBA discussion operates under the false pretense that the performances on the court and numbers transcend time. OK so if that's the case and current players have every single play scrutinized to hell and back then let's go back and do the same shyt to older players and see how well those numbers hold up.

 

[Tha_Mac]

Excerpt 1:

Rucker explained that, from his experience, subjective stats — primarily blocks, steals and assists, and sometimes rebounds — were a way to give star treatment. If a player tried to block a shot and the ball fell short, maybe give him the benefit of the doubt on a 50-50 play — block. If a pass was deflected by one defender and recovered by another, choose wisely as to which defender to award the steal. Assists were a thing of beauty, left to the eye of the beholder. To Rucker, it was an unspoken part of the NBA’s marketing machine, a way to get on “SportsCenter” in front of a national audience and grab attention.

Excerpt 2:

Red flags emerge
The internet isn’t stocked with Michael Jordan games from his marvelous 1987-88 season. However, fans may have stumbled upon a video posted to the NBA’s official channel in August 2022 titled “Michael Jordan’s Got 10 Steals In One Game!”

The four-minute highlight reel showed his brilliance from that record-setting game against the New Jersey Nets — his crown jewel of the 1987-88 season — but the video conspicuously shows only six steals. In the comment section, amid a chorus of Jordan praise, some discerning commenters raised their hands and expressed confusion. One commenter remarked: “Still waiting for the 10 steals.”

The game, it turns out, was played at home in Chicago. This only piqued our interest in finding game tapes. Luckily, Lācis dug up five, all at Chicago, for our review, in addition to one found on YouTube. We dove in. It turns out the puzzling “Jordan 10 Steals” video was only the tip of the iceberg.

The six full games we found tapes for from Jordan’s Defensive Player of the Year campaign:

Atlanta at Chicago: Nov. 20, 1987

Indiana at Chicago: Jan. 5, 1988

Denver at Chicago: Jan. 7, 1988

Detroit at Chicago: Jan. 16, 1988

Atlanta at Chicago: Feb. 15, 1988

Boston at Chicago: Mar. 18, 1988

Lācis and I were most interested in the Feb. 15, 1988, game. The official box score indicates the Atlanta Hawks registered 10 turnovers and the Chicago Bulls tallied 10 steals. That detail immediately grabbed our attention. Turnovers fall into two categories: live-ball turnovers and dead-ball turnovers. By rule, dead-ball turnovers (i.e. traveling, out of bounds, 24-second violation, etc.) cannot be steals. For example, if, say, Atlanta’s Kevin Willis traveled on a play, a steal couldn’t be credited to a Bulls defender.

Only live-ball turnovers — like an intercepted pass or a recovered loose ball — can be assigned to a defensive player for a steal. The more live-ball turnovers in a game, the more steals in a game.

The Bulls having 10 steals on 10 Hawks turnovers meant that none of the Hawks turnovers could have been dead-ball turnovers. No travels. No offensive fouls. No ball tossed out of bounds. No 24-second violations. For an entire game. Could it be?

And then we watched the film — independently, as to avoid influencing one another’s findings. We compared notes. Turns out, we both saw the same troubling series of plays.

A 24-second violation by the Hawks’ offense. Later, Atlanta reserve Chris Washburn dribbled off his foot out of bounds. An outlet pass to Dominique Wilkins bounces off his hands and into the scorer’s table. Three dead-ball turnovers — three plays that could not have been considered a steal opportunity. And, yet, the box score indicated zero such plays.

It also meant an opportunity to hand out three excess steals to Bulls players.

We compared notes again. We both saw only two legitimate steals by Michael Jordan. The box score credited him with five. An excess of three steals. (To be precise, we saw two Jordan steals, at best, but possibly only one — when he poked the ball, chased it down and saved it from going out of bounds before throwing it directly to the Hawks for a turnover. The other play — a transition deflection by Jordan’s teammate Mike Brown that was recovered by Jordan — could have gone either way.) There were three steals unaccounted for.

The incongruent turnover/steal columns presented a glaring red flag. In the other five games we watched, the live-ball turnovers and steals did not add up, either. In the Detroit game, eight Chicago steals on six Detroit live-ball turnovers. In the Denver game, 13 Chicago steals on just seven Denver live-ball turnovers. Again and again, the official steal counts were routinely outpacing the possible number of steal opportunities. Something was amiss.

All in all, by our count, the box score showed 59 steals on 41 live-ball turnovers, resulting in a whopping 18 excess steals.

Who benefited from all those extra steals? We brought our attention to Jordan’s accounting. In the six games, the box scores indicated that Jordan’s total steal count was 28. After comparing our notes from the film study, we each counted 12 steals. An astounding difference of 16 excess steals. Almost every excess steal was being allocated to Jordan.

A pattern emerged as the games began to pile up in our film review. It appeared that Jordan benefited from deflections being erroneously recorded as steals. In games where there was a surplus of Jordan steals, we noticed that the turnover/steal counts would closer align after we counted the defensive plays that Jordan poked the ball out of bounds or back into the hands of the opposing team — even if there was no change of possession.

Steals should not be awarded in these instances, but Jordan seemed to benefit from the apparent generosity. And here’s the thing: when other players made the same deflections on both teams, their steal counts tended to be scored by the book — that is, correctly. Twelve steals in six games for Jordan (two steals per game) would be much more in line with his road average that season (2.3) rather than his official home average of four steals.

In the block category, it seemed that Jordan also benefited from some exceptional statkeeping. For instance, whenever Chicago Bulls forward Horace Grant blocked a shot but was whistled for the foul, he was, correctly, not credited with a block. But when Jordan did the same, his box score line tended to show excess blocks.

Something was going on. Which left only one thing to figure out: Who was the Chicago statkeeper?

I knew those numbers from back in the day were head scratching. nikkas averaging 26 rebounds per game, 30 rebounds a game. Like come on man, we're these muthafukkas superhuman or something.

 

[Remote]

I knew those numbers from back in the day were head scratching. nikkas averaging 26 rebounds per game, 30 rebounds a game. Like come on man, we're these muthafukkas superhuman or something.

People are so emotionally invested in their athletic heroes that ANY attempt to contextualize their careers and eras feels like a personal attack to them.

There MUST be some agenda to tear down the great Michael Jordan. Because no way could his 1988 season have been enhanced by some questionable scorekeeping.



But we do this all the time with other athletes and other sports.

Hell, notice how the article explicitly questions the assist numbers of a certain Nick Van Exel game.

Why did NOBODY in this chat get up in arms over this writer's CLEAR AGENDA to tear down a historic Van Exel performance?

Because there's no agenda there. The agenda could only be directed at their Dear Leader, His Airness.

 

[Boonapalist]

Damn now I’m wondering about the ABA stats. Especially during the inception of the league

 

[NYC Rebel]

Just as in all thing pre-internet, one could be much more egregious with their behavior. Books being cooked back in the day minus video evidence for everyone to see was far easier than today and @Yayo Toure so badly wanting Bron and others to benefit in the same manner. Cant even steal on a niqqa today without video evidence but swear it was the same as yesteryear when a sucka knew he could touched and no one knows who did what.

Yall wild in here.

 

[fifth column]

His style of play when he came into the league was nothing like his style of play in the '95-'98 run. And yet he was already working with an individual Nike deal (which his team negotiated to be the first specifically player-focused ad campaign in shoe history) before his rookie season had even started. Before then, ad campaigns had always focused on the shoe. Jordan's team got Nike to agree to focus their campaign on the player rather than the shoe, which turned out to be a huge win for both of them.

You answered your own question. MJ’s style of play(not his accomplishments/stats) is what “it” looks like

 

[theGoldmangod]

This is getting sick.... LeBron will never be Jordan. That argument is closed. It's over. Just stop already... Enjoy the last year of LeBron's career. He had a good one.

Sick is the perfect way to describe it. nikkas do not even enjoy the actual sport anymore, just watch with their notepads out looking for things to research to prop up and dikk ride their fave players later on. shyt's disgusting.

 

[NYC Rebel]

Sick is the perfect way to describe it. nikkas do not even enjoy the actual sport anymore, just watch with their notepads out looking for things to research to prop up and dikk ride their fave players later on. shyt's disgusting.

This is all rubbish to avoid the obvious. Them niqqas fudged that shyt in 88’. I saw that shyt and knew it in real time. It ain’t MJ fault for it either. Take advantage of what’s given to you. But the shyt was rigged like a mug. I saw that shyt.

 

[JasoRockStar]

Lācis and I were most interested in the Feb. 15, 1988, game. The official box score indicates the Atlanta Hawks registered 10 turnovers and the Chicago Bulls tallied 10 steals.

We compared notes again. We both saw only two legitimate steals by Michael Jordan. The box score credited him with five. An excess of three steals. (To be precise, we saw two Jordan steals, at best, but possibly only one — when he poked the ball, chased it down and saved it from going out of bounds before throwing it directly to the Hawks for a turnover. The other play — a transition deflection by Jordan’s teammate Mike Brown that was recovered by Jordan — could have gone either way.) There were three steals unaccounted for.

And here's Justin Jacobs, Senior Basketball Researcher for the Orlando Magic, paid to keep accurate record of stats and data corroborating this:





He came to the same conclusion as the author in the article: two legitimate steals during the game for Jordan, but box score credits him with 5. Three false steals attributed to Jordan.


Another reliable source that says the same thing, but let me guess, he's just lying to tear down Jordan too.

 

[Osmosis]

And here's Justin Jacobs, Senior Basketball Researcher for the Orlando Magic, paid to keep accurate record of stats and data corroborating this:





He came to the same conclusion as the author in the article: two legitimate steals during the game for Jordan, but box score credits him with 5. Three false steals attributed to Jordan.


Another reliable source that says the same thing, but let me guess, he's just lying to tear down Jordan too.

B-B-But Klutch

 

[NYC Rebel]

This aint Jordan fault. It was an executive decision by Stern and the NBA.

 

[Sccit]

 

[NYC Rebel]

Someone tell this Jon B looking Arab that this doesn’t mean shyt

 

[JasoRockStar]

We brought our attention to Jordan’s accounting. In the six games, the box scores indicated that Jordan’s total steal count was 28. After comparing our notes from the film study, we each counted 12 steals. An astounding difference of 16 excess steals. Almost every excess steal was being allocated to Jordan.

Jacobs reviewed just five of the six games Haberstroh watched and counted 15 excess steals. And just like the Yahoo article pointed out, nearly every excess steal was allocated to Jordan.