Not only do I want basketball (and football) season to start already, but I also just want to start doing Fall activities. You know, go apple-picking, jump in a pile of leaves, roll my eyes when I purchase my significant other yet another Pumpkin flavored drink … all those fun things!
Let’s hurry this summer-season up.
I’ll start this conversation off by saying, normally, I respect Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey. You can’t deny the guy has always been pretty good about talking to the media. Plus, he has that thing called “being good at your job” going for him, which tends to help. Although, he and I are going to have to agree to disagree on his latest comments about James Harden and Michael Jordan.
Daryl Morey: "It's just factual that James Harden is a better scorer than Michael Jordan…You give James Harden the ball and before you're giving up the ball how many points do you generate, which is how you should measure offense, James Harden is by far #1 in NBA history." pic.twitter.com/91A9ij3wRc
Morey claims it’s “just factual” when referring to Harden as a better scorer than Michael Jordan. In all fairness, he does go on to recognize that the counter-argument about prime Jordan doing more on a team today is quite possible. He also understands this is an extremely unpopular opinion. Anyway, he references the “stats” to back this up; however, I think when you’re getting into the territory of calling someone the best “scorer” you have to look at versatility (and the intangibles as well).
Clearly, Harden is going to be a better three-point threat, and that’s going to play a role in skewing the numbers in his favor. During Jordan’s era, the three-ball just wasn’t shot at the same rate, and no one takes more 3PA’s per game than James Harden. For example, the most 3PA’s per game for Jordan came during the 1996-97 season where he took just 3.6 per game. On the other hand, Harden just had the most of his career this past season with 13.2! In terms of career totals, Harden has averaged 7.3 attempts per game to Jordan’s 1.7.
Flip that around though and look at how many two-point attempts these players are taking … Jordan CRUSHED Harden in this category. During his career, Harden has taken an average of 9.0 two-point field goal attempted per game. Jordan took 21.2. Yeah.
Considering Morey’s reasoning: “If you give James Harden the ball and before you’re giving up the ball how many points do you generate, which is how you should measure offense, James Harden is by far number one in NBA history.” You have to think the percent and amount in which Harden shoots the three-pointer plays a role in this. To give credit where credit is due, if you look at each player’s true shooting percentage (which Morey actually created back in the day), Harden does have Jordan beat with 60.9 percent to 56.9 percent. In some ways, you can see where he’s coming from, but for me, in this argument, you need to take into consideration how these guys are scoring.
The Bulls Talk podcast gives their opinion on this topic as well, and shockingly (*said with sarcasm*), they also think what Morey’s saying is VERY wrong.
Later in the podcast, the Bulls playoff picture conversation comes up. A level of disappoint was certainly expressed with the idea of the Bulls not making the No. 7/8 seed in the playoffs. The reasoning was piggy-backed by the idea of the Bulls starting five being on-par with many of their fellow Eastern Conference teams. For example, Will Perdue makes the argument that the Bulls starting group is better than the Milwaukee Bucks. As a whole, the talent the Bulls have at each position might outweigh that of a team like the Bucks, but those individual players like Giannis Antetokounmpo matter so much more nowadays. You can talk about the starting five all you want, but one player can be enough to win you games in the NBA, sooooo that’s a tough argument to make.
Dennis Rodman is getting his own 30 for 30. If just reading that sentence isn’t enough to get you excited, here’s the trailer:
Elias Schuster is the Lead Chicago Bulls writer at Bleacher Nation. He started with BN full-time in 2019 immediately after graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign with a degree in Journalism (yes, he started with the Jim Boylen Era). Since joining, Elias has been the driving force behind Bulls and NBA content for both the site and social accounts. You can follow him on Twitter/X @Schuster_Elias.
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