Last Updated on August 31, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake
Michael Jordan has said that he would average a lot more points today than he did when he played. I agree: Jordan’s stats in general would be a lot higher in today’s game and during most of the Lebron James era. Lebron deserves praise for having lasted so long in the NBA; he has played for two decades straight almost without significant injury. His endurance has been unparalleled. But it’s also a fact that it’s easier not to get injured in today’s NBA — that’s part of the reason the NBA commissions have adjusted the rules (they wanted to improve longevity for the star players).
It’s impossible to say whether Jordan would have won 6 championships if he played in the NBA at the same time as Lebron. For starters, Lebon may have prevented him from winning some of those rings. Second, you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of the full team in basketball. Jordan probably wouldn’t have son 6 championship rings if not for having Scottie Pippen because the two of them had very good chemistry and Pippen was the second-best player in the league. We saw how Jordan struggled to be competitive when he played with the Washington Wizards. Part of Jordan’s inability to win was due to health and fitness, but for the most part, he was the same Jordan when playing on the Wizards. He just couldn’t win. And that’s what every star NBA player tells you: they can’t do it alone.
Jordan as an individual may have been more valuable to a team in the Lebron era, but basketball is a complicated sport and when all else isn’t equal, it’s virtually impossible to say what the results would have been. When I went back and played basketball in a local basketball league, I purposefully put myself in a lower division with the goal of winning the championship quite easily. And I’m sure I had that potential. But Jordan’s situation is different. The NBA in Lebron’s era was very competitive. Nobody can conclude that Jordan definitely would have won championships without the right pieces around him and without comparing how those pieces compare with the rest of the league both individually and collectively as a team.
If we are talking about just the style of today’s NBA being played in the Jordan era, then Jordan would have been even more successful. Jordan’s era made it more difficult for the individual player to succeed above the competition because you could fend them off with physical force. There are fewer opportunities to stop players from doing what they are capable of doing on the basketball court under today’s rules, which would result in Jordan being an even more powerful player.