Yeah except we have plenty of evidence of Bird being a better shooter than Jordan.

Bird had much higher 3p percentages than Jordan even on small samples, plus Bird won multiple 3p shooting contests.

Jordan literally had the worst ever performance in a 3p contest.

I'm also taking Dirk over Jordan as the greatest contested jump shooter ever. Durant too.

Jordan probably Top 5 though, which is pretty good.

^^^ Categorically false - Jordan shot better than Bird for their playoff careers on nearly twice the attempts, and this is also true when we look at Bird's prime only:

3-point shooting in Playoffs

80-88' BIRD.................... 35.3% on 1.4 attempts
85-93' JORDAN.............. 35.2% on 2.2 attempts

So Mj shot better in the playoffs, while the regular season shows Bird shooting badly at less than 1.5 attempts (bailout volume) just like Jordan did, and then he shot great above 1.5 attempts, just like Jordan..

However, Bird has less seasons of low-efficiency bailout volume, so his overall percentage in the regular season is higher than Jordan's despite both players basically shooting the same, aka both shot poorly at bailout volume and great when above bailout volume.

Accordingly, Bird was better at long-distance shooting mainly because he actually worked on it - long-balls were a massive part of Bird's game, while "Air" Jordan didn't care for them yet still matched Bird's efficiency in the Playoffs and also the regular season... Again, the numbers show that Bird had lower 3-point shooting in the playoffs (efficiency and attempts)l, while the only reason he had higher regular season efficiency was from having less seasons of low-efficiency bailout volume than MJ did.

So this response and my last one (which you ignored) have been complete corrections (with linked documentation) of the false information that you posted.. It's almost like you haven't looked at the numbers at all and are just vague thoughts from your brain that you think are likely true lol.




No we don't.

Jordan shot better in the playoffs on threes and Bird's regular season percentage was higher only because he has less seasons of low-efficiency bailout volume.

Furthermore, people don't realize that in 1987, Jordan averaged 37 ppg and the vast majority of his made field goals were jumpshots - this means he made more jumpshots in 87' than anyone ever made in a season.. He was infact a goat jumpshooter on 2-pointers from 87' onwards.. However, he almost never had games where he took multiple 3-point attempts (he only took bailout volume), so his 3-point percentage didn't show until 1990 when he finally had numerous games with multiple 3-point attempts.

Btw, Jordan's ability to exceed some of Bird's 3-point shooting numbers despite not practicing the shot demonstrates goat talent for the game of basketball, and we saw this with passing too - he was a 1st time point guard at 26 years old in 1989 and he was instantly a 30/9/11 point guard - everyone said he was already better than Magic, Isiah and Stockton - that's goat talent for the game of basketball.

I don't mind saying Dirk, Bird or Durant were better long-range shooters than Jordan, but it's a small gap due mostly to Jordan not getting the reps in from that distance, aka practice

Regarding contested jumpers however, I must disagree due to MJ's goat mid-range volume and efficiency, shown above..

From 96' to 98', the stats confirm that Jordan led the league in scoring via mostly contested (mid-range) jumpshooting at a volume and efficiency that no one is close to touching..

For example, Jordan made over 700 jumpshots in 1997, which is twice as many as Lebron's highest-volume jumpshooting season, while having far higher efg% on those jumpshots (effective FG %).. This is also nearly twice as many jumpshots as Curry ever made in a season, albiet with lower efg... So Jordan was giving his team far more positive possessions and this was via jumpshooting, aka ball movement that broke defenders backs at the end of shot-clock (So Jordan won the attrition battle - his jumpshooting and zippy ball movement wore down defenses, so they have less capacity for offense, whereas Lebron's ball-dominance lets defense rest, so they have more capacity to "get hot" offensively).

Twog on MJ carrying high usage at low efficiency: bailout volume artificially lowering his efficiency. Makes things easier for his teammates that don't have to take as many shots, so can be more efficient

Twog on MJ taking very few 3s per game: bailout volume artificially lowering his efficiency. It's hard to be efficient when you take too few shots.

Of course twog is too stupid to understand that these literally contradict each other. There's also evidence that MJ disproportionately took bailout volume in a way that makes his efficiency numbers look worse. In fact, how the Bulls performed without MJ in 93-94 and 94-95 strongly suggests that MJ wasn't particularly impactful on his teammates' efficiency. Either way, this is important to understand:

A huge part of the reason why MJ scored a ton in the NBA is that his teams correctly funneled a lot of possessions to him because he's an efficient-enough scorer, which means this maximizes team offense. But MJ's offensive impact beyond his own scoring efficiency does not seem particularly impressive compared to other superstars. MJ also at times seems to have dominated usage in a way that led to his teammates being out of rhythm as far as scoring is concerned.

You can also easily see this in other ways - consider MJ's numbers in college, on the Dream Team and so on, which are fairly underwhelming. When MJ's asked to carry a scoring burden, it doesn't result in some crazy efficiency. MJ actually had the worst FG% on the Dream Team of anyone that took at least 30 shots. And took somehow 30 more shots than Barkley while scoring 25 points less.

Also, twog is weirdly blaming teenage Lebron that barely played for the 2004 Olympic Team's failure, but a huge part of the reason why that team failed is due to the MJ-inspired reliance on iso-ball by the veterans on the team simply not working against international competition that hasn't been tactically hampered by years of illegal defense rule. Given that MJ also struggled offensively against god-awful competition in 92. it makes sense that a bunch of MJ-wannabes would struggle offensively against more advanced international competition. It's a weird thing to bring up because what we saw in international competition (again, assuming some understanding of basketball) is fairly strong evidence that MJ would've had some issues with hybrid-zone defenses of the type that Lebron often faced from 2008 or so when the NBA teams started to figure out how to best take advantage of the rule changes.

Mainly due to the singular brilliance of the one Lebron James.

This is incredible, so despite having these coaches, you still don't know anything. That's quite an accomplishment. Is that why your college coaches didn't give you any playing time?

Before moving further sabr42, because I feel we go all over the place with stats ,which stats we should use ?
Since It seem u disregard any merits in pure stats ppg, PER and others , which stats u preferably want to use :
FG%, eFG% or TS% ?

Of those 3 obviously TS%.

eFG% is just FG% with 3s properly weighted, and TS% adds free throws to eFG%.

I'm not all over the place with stats, so don't say "we." You were using whatever you could to try to make 2002 Jordan look better. He wasn't good that year.

.
EFFICIENCY AT HIGH VOLUME - PLAYERS WITH 25 FGA AND 45% FG:

Regular Season:

Michael Jordan....................... 1987, 1993
Rick Barry.................................1967, 1975
Bob McAdoo........................... 1975
George Gervin........................ 1982
Kobe Bryant............................ 2006
Elgin Baylor............................. 1963
Tiny Archibald........................ 1973
Dominique.............................. 1988


Playoffs (10 game min):

*Michael Jordan......................1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998
Elgin Baylor............................. 1960, 1961, 1968
Bob McAdoo........................... 1974, 1975
George Gervin........................ 1975, 1982
Jerry West................................ 1966
Rick Barry................................. 1977
Hakeem Olajuwon.................. 1995
Kobe Bryant............................ .2007
Dominique............................... 1988
Allen Iverson............................ 2005
Kareem Jabbar......................... 1975

* MJ averaged 25.1 FGA and 48.7 FG% for his playoff career




Of course the bolded isn't what I said - I said it's hard to be efficient when you're taking "bailout volume"... Bailout volume means the player didn't want to take the shot but is forced to because the shot clock is winding down - these shots are usually highly-contested shots, which produces low efficiency and the volume on these unwanted shots is low.. So your notion that simply taking low volume produces low efficiency is obviously wrong and a misstatement of what I said.. It's the degree of contest on the shot and high-pressure of clock winding down that produces less efficiency.. Essentially, Steph Curry would shoot poorly from 3 if he could only take 1 highly-contested "bailout" three at the end of a shot clock, per game.. Of course he would never decide to do this unless he decided that he didn't want to shoot the three-ball altogether, like Jordan did until 1990.




don't get it twisted - Jordan's teammates didn't see material changes either way in their efficiency and it's certainly good that he didn't increase his teammates' efficiency by turning them into lower-producing, spot-up shooters like Lebron does with his reliance on ball-dominance and lack of expert jumpshooting skill, or overall inability to play off teammates at an elite level (off-ball).

So the efficiency of Jordan's teammates matters little compared to their ability to develop alongside him and play to capacity (near career highs), which allows the TEAM can achieve full capacity and higher team ceilings/Finals records.. This is far more important than being reduced to higher-efficiency spot-up roles by Lebron-ball, which doesn't get as much actual production or chemistry from teammates and therefore wins far less.

Ultimately, you minimize Jordan's effect on teammates even though he's the one with sufficient scoring diversity to fit well with all player types and allow them to play to capacity.. In addition to having better chemistry, Jordan's skillset has a massive track record of single-digit rookies growing into meaningful -producers on his watch (young player development), while Lebron's imposition of spot-up roles has zero young player development in 21 years.. Lebron's deficit in these areas (player development and playing to capacity) prevented his teams from reaching the dynasty-caliber or all-time regular season records and perennial favorite status that Jordan's teams reached despite less all-star teammates.



Indeed, raw production has always won more than higher efficiency - teams need higher points to win, not necessarily higher efficiency..

We saw this in the 2014 Playoffs where the Heat had the best efficiency of any Spurs' opponent but lost by the most, while opponents fared better in order of their PPG (so Dallas averaged the most PPG and lost by the least, followed by OKC and Portland, while Miami's efficiency-hunting and low PPG lost by the most).. This is why Lebron fared to much better in 2015 against a superior opponent - he doubled his shot attempts and pursued a production approach over efficiency.. This forced the Warriors to defend his volume, thus producing a viable attrition battle that kept his undermanned team close for a while.. Jordan was doing this his entire career (winning with volume/carry-jobs due to weak scoring-help).




^^^ This is obviously a dig at MJ's passing, but You can't knock Jordan for not playing in Curry's spacing era that made offense easier for everyone (2015 onwards):

FIRST 9 YEARS OF PLAYOFF CAREER (pre-Curry era):

85-93' Jordan.......... 34.7... 6.2... 6.6.. 2.3.. 1.0
06-14' Lebron......... 28.0... 8.4... 6.4.. 1.7.. 0.9

If Jordan was never tasked with being the primary playmaker and elite-assist guy for his team, then why did he average more assists than Lebron for the first 9 years of their playoff careers (thru half their chips), until Curry's spacing era made offense easier for everyone from 2015 onwards - only then did Lebron start averaging more assists than Jordan in the playoffs.. Jordan averaged less turnovers as well while averaging more assists (3.3 to 3.4).

And why did Jordan lead the Bulls in assists for 6 of 9 playoff runs alongside Pippen (3 title runs), while being the only player with elite-assist capability on the team?.. If the Bulls needed elite assists and playmaking, Jordan was the only option such as the 91' Finals (11 apg) or his 25 games at point guard in 89' (30/9/11), and various other series of 8-10 apg.. Pippen did not have a breakdown handle - only Jordan did - only Jordan routinely broke his man down, drove the lane and "tossed dimes".. Only Jordan had sophisticated forays of consistently manipulating the defense, setting up teammates and controlling the game.

The greater assist load for Jordan shown above was coupled with doubling his sidekick's scoring average (carrying scoring load, aka defeating maximum defensive attention) - the greatest scoring burden of all-time.. In contrast to Jordan carrying the scoring load and defeating max defensive attention, Lebron had equal-scoring partners to attract equal defensive attention - his sidekicks matched or led him in scoring for entire playoff runs and outplayed league MVP's (curry, jokic, dirk).. In addition to a greater assist load and goat scoring load, only Jordan was tasked with using the most possessions in the league to win titles (usage champ) - completely unprecedented - and he did this 5 times (won titles as usage champ).. Jordan is also the only guy to win the title as scoring champ, except for peak Shaq in 2000 and peak Kareem in 71' - so their peak burden was Jordan's standard burden.




^^^ proven incorrect and pure nonsense because the Bulls were known for goat chemistry, aka teammates being in rhythm, while Jordan has a massive track record of young player development (teammates growing alongside him) and teammates playing to capacity (near career highs).. All of these things refute the idea that teammates were "out of rhythm" alongside Jordan, since they literally played to capacity, grew alongside him and had all-time chemistry with many #1 offenses.

Btw, Jordan achieved these goat offenses with no 3rd scoring option, a sidekick that frequently had all-time low efficiency, and 4 on 5 lineups (Rodman).

Since Jordan had all-time offenses despite weak scoring help, we know the chemistry was all-time goat.




One of the biggest misconceptions about Jordan's career is that you can compare other guys' scoring burden to his... There's no level like MJ's - he carried the scoring burden at a level that no one else can compare.. Everyone in history needed teammates to lead in scoring for entire playoff runs, while MJ led every SERIES by 10-30 ppg over all teammates.. Everyone in history had great scoring help at various times during their career, except the GOAT.

The reality is that ONLY JORDAN shot well as a standard at 25+ FGA's - see stats at the top




Jordan was POY in college over Hakeem against full zone defenses, while Lebron's lack of expert jumpshooting skill to shoot over defenses and need to rely on spacing for drives is why he suffers against zones that encourage shooting over the top (bricklaying for bron).. It's just another reason that the best expert jumpshooters (MJ, Curry) are better than the best ball-dominators (Magic, Lebron) - jumpshooters can get off a shot regardless and don't need spacing like ball-dominators.. Jumpshooters can just get off ad-hoc, off-the-cuff shots and see them regularly go in - they're unstoppable and instill fear, while LeBrick never gets hot so defenders are saying "what... must... i... do...".............. so no one fears him, which is what literally everyone says.

Twog, did you score *any* points in college ball? I'm starting to think the answer is no.

Twog, why did MJ average 17.7 PPG on okay efficiency in college and 14.9 PPG on terrible efficiency on the Dream Team?

Also, this whole bailout thing, do you have any evidence whatsoever or are you just making stuff up? Because I looked at the numbers and it looked like Lebron was consistently one of the better bailout guys and my recollection was that MJ tended to dump the ball to his teammates in those situations. The only evidence we have was that he wasn't a big bailout guy - if he was, why were his teammates' efficiency mostly unaffected by his presence?

Stats aren't breakfast cereals, JFC, I mean how low can you go? You don't randomly prefer to use certain stats, you should use stats that are relevant to what you're trying to measure.

Twog, is it fair to say there's some connection between your once promising basketball career falling apart in college and your irrational hatred of Lebron James? Your earlier rant was completely nonsensical - well it's not that much less incoherent than your other posts, but that's not saying much - but it sounded like you're blaming Lebron for what happened to you personally.

You might want to check out how the Lakers are doing with/without AD and Lebron (either this season or past few). Feel free to also check out Pippen's career, since you seem unfamiliar with his game. While I'm giving you valuable life advice, you might also consider going back to lurking and clicking "Like" on Twog's posts like a good little lapdog for a homeless lunatic. That fits you just fine.

Looks like the Lakers are 5-4 without Lebron this year including wins over Boston and Milwaukee. NEXT.

The Tar Heels averaged 80 ppg for Jordan's sophomore and junior years, so Jordan's 20 ppg represented 25% of his team's points, just like his rookie year in the NBA.. The Bulls averaged 108 ppg to 80 for Tar Heels.. Furthermore, Jordan's 8 point gap in his raw PPG average can be attributed to playing 8 more minutes as a rookie in the NBA and also higher pace and DRTG of the NBA - you guys seem to have a hard time accepting that playing on a court that is 10 feet shorter and allows full zone is harder to score on, even if the players are college level, aka crappier.. It's the same thing with international game - Luka, Giannis and Jokic get better stats in NBA and say it's easier to score in NBA.. It was the same in Jordan's day but is much worse now as Silver made it into a beginner format.

But here's another reality - college offenses in previous eras were geared for bigs and therefore stifled backcourt players.. If a guard became good enough to dominate NBA players, they invariably averaged more in those years than dominating college - this is for guards, with rare exception. For bigs, the numbers are closer because college is a big man's game.. Again, the college game stifles guards, with rare exception, such as the rare coach back then that ran offense through guards.




The evidence is that Jordan shot better above bailout volume - so the bailout volume must have been tougher shots that he was forced to take, plus he personally said that he didn't want to take threes or be good at them.

Btw, regarding being a "bailout" guy in general, Jordan was the goat based on 4th quarter scoring, clutch-time scoring burden (last 5 within 5), overall scoring burden, or efficiency on game-winners (icewater) and also last possession of 1-possession championship ganes (Lebron never scored on last possession of 1 possession game in the Final... 0-7... lol)

You're just mad thar you're ignorant about the game and every assertion you make gets blown to pieces like a child.

And Pippen literally embarrassed himself outside of the 3-peat system that he grew up in.. if he never handed alongside MJ, no one would know who the #135 all-time PER was but everyone knows the #4 all-time PER is (AD) because people notice all-time production and performance.

Nonsense because the Bulls were known for goat chemistry, aka teammates being in rhythm, while Jordan has a massive track record of young player development (teammates growing alongside him) and teammates playing to capacity (near career highs).. All of these things refute the idea that teammates were "out of rhythm" alongside Jordan, since they literally played to capacity, grew alongside him and had all-time chemistry with many #1 offenses.

Otoh, Lebron's lack of expert jumpshooting skill and reliance on ball-dominance imposes spot-up roles that prevent teammate development, elite chemistry or teammates playing to capacity.. That's why he never had a #1 offense.

Regarding Jordan's #1 offenses, he achieved them with no 3rd scoring option, a sidekick with all-time low efficiency, and 4 on 5 lineups (Rodman).

Since Jordan had all-time offenses despite weak scoring help, we know the chemistry was all-time goat (teammates were in rhythm).



One of the biggest misconceptions about Jordan's career is that you can compare other guys' scoring burden to his...

There's no level like MJ's.. Everyone in history needed teammates to lead in scoring for entire playoff runs, while MJ led every SERIES by 10-30 ppg over all teammates.. Everyone in history had great scoring help at various times during their career, except the GOAT.

The reality is that ONLY JORDAN shot well as a standard at 25+ FGA's - see stats in previous post above.

Antawn Jamison scored most of his 20k points (more than Pippen) before joining Lebron - he was averaging 22/9 right before joining Lebron and becoming a spot-up shooter.

And Mo was averaging the same PPG before Lebron and 50% more APG..

So again, it's pretty nice to have a better scorer than Pippen (Jamison) at third option (more scoring options than the 1st three-peat Bulls), while also having better team defenses as well..

Mike Brown is a reputed defensive coach and made a top 3 defense out of the Cavs' elite shot-blockers, while a bevy of good rebounders made Lebron 4th on the team in rebounds.. So Lebron's early Cavs teams had better rebounding help, rim protection and more athletic guards than the 1st three-peat Bulls, while also having more scoring help.




I know that Jordan won the attrition battle - his jumpshooting and zippy ball movement wore down defenses, so they had less capacity for offense, whereas Lebron's ball-dominance lets defenses rest, so they have more capacity to "get hot" offensively..

Everyone's brand of ball looks great and gets hot and confident against the plodding bron-ball, even 1-star teams like the Magic, Mavs or Nuggets, while Bron-ball has a lottery record vs the Spurs and Warriors.

That's how I knew the Nuggets would sweep the Lakers last year - if there was ever a brand of ball to usurp Bron-ball like the 14' Finals, it was Jokic-ball.. I was surprised the games were somewhat close but Lebron's cast was more stacked then ever top to bottom - the league conspired to make his team the hottest squad entering the playoffs and he still got swept - a career of losing with preseason favorites and hyped rosters.

Antawn Jamison played 0 games on the 08-09 Cavs that went 66-16. He played 25 games on the 09-10 Cavs and they went 44-13 in games he did not play. I wonder what explains this sorcery. How could they play so well without such an esteemed scorer in Antawn Jamison? Oh yeah, Lebron James.

Antawn Jamison did play 56 games on the 10-11 Cavs however. They went 9-47 in those 56 games.

The Antwan Jamison + Mo Williams combination was +8.9/100 in 09-10. The same combination was -12.5/100 in 10-11. In other words, they were an astounding 21.4/100 worse in 10-11 versus they were in 09-10. What could possibly explain this? Once again, it's Lebron James.

The Lakers in 10-11 went 57-25 (NR: +6.7) with Phil Jackson as the HC.
The Lakers in 11-12 went 41-25 (NR: +1.6) with Mike Brown as the HC with essentially the same roster plus healthier Bynum.

In other words, the Lakers were +5.1/100 worse with Mike Brown than they were with Phil Jackson. That's roughly the difference between an MVP player and an average player for a full season. And that's probably the worst version of Phil Jackson that seemed kind of checked out. I mean that was literally his last season and the change in defensive philosophy and the emphasis on 3-point shooting were starting to make the triangle look dated. Losing this worst-ever version of Phil Jackson for Mike Brown seemed to have even more impact than literally losing prime Michael Jordan.

Yet here we are.

I'm not sure if you can understand what this means but the Lakers are -5.6/100 without Lebron and +2.1/100 with Lebron. With AD, they are +0.2/100 and without AD, they are -2.9/100. Of course, even that's a fairly small sample size, so we can go back a few years and yeah they all pretty much tell the same story. Lebron is a superstar and AD, while really good, seems consistently less important than Lebron.

It's much harder to separate Pippen and MJ on the Bulls - Pippen has slight better +/- than MJ in 96-97, while in 97-98, MJ appears to have better raw +/-. but much of this is due to Pippen missing a lot more games (so Pippen's off numbers are much more disproportionately minutes where MJ played).

I know you're cognitively challenged but I hope even you don't think that your 9-game sample size means a ton here.

His favorite thing is tiny sample sizes, if he can find a 4 game stretch to fit his narrative the other 75/200/etc obviously are irrelevant

To be fair there are a lot of LeBron fans that use a 3 games sample size as the defining reason they have LeBron over MJ.

[QUOTE=fallguy;58499997].
EFFICIENCY AT HIGH VOLUME - PLAYERS WITH 25 FGA AND 45% FG:

Regular Season:

Michael Jordan....................... 1987, 1993
Rick Barry.................................1967, 1975
Bob McAdoo........................... 1975
George Gervin........................ 1982
Kobe Bryant............................ 2006
Elgin Baylor............................. 1963
Tiny Archibald........................ 1973
Dominique.............................. 1988


Playoffs (10 game min):

*Michael Jordan......................1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998
Elgin Baylor............................. 1960, 1961, 1968
Bob McAdoo........................... 1974, 1975
George Gervin........................ 1975, 1982
Jerry West................................ 1966
Rick Barry................................. 1977
Hakeem Olajuwon.................. 1995
Kobe Bryant............................ .2007
Dominique............................... 1988
Allen Iverson............................ 2005
Kareem Jabbar......................... 1975

/QUOTE]

The alltime overrated list

Contested midrange jumpers are the worst possible shots.