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The Jordan Myth: Don’t call him the greatest player of all-time

Dan Boyce

“I wanna be like Mike”

to quote the 1992 Gatorade commercial.

This advertisement campaign was merely a promotional ploy focused on selling sugary beverages, but it is also an example of how endemic the belief that Michael Jordan has no equal on a basketball court and how this myth has been spread through society.

Michael Jordan’s greatness is also inextricably linked to being the best player born at the best possible time and without these unique once in life-time opportunities which coincided with his career he almost certainly would not be considered by many to be the single greatest player of all-time.

Different eras in time provide unique opportunities that create clear advantages over players from other eras. Jordan should not be considered the greatest ever (although he certainly is one of the greats) because of the many benefits he received from merely being born in 1963 and drafted in 1984.

How marketing and consumerism created the Jordan Myth?

The Jordan myth is empowered by being at the right place at the right time. Jordan’s drafting in 1984 coincided with the reality that up until 1984 little NBA games were shown on television with local stations only broadcasting local games.

If you lived in Boston you only ever saw Celtics games, in New York, you only were able to see Knicks games. “ESPN began distributing sports programming outside the United States in 1983” (Encyclopedia Britannica 2011).

This rare situation no doubt allowed Jordan’s agent, David Falk, to offer a deal to Nike where for a fee cheaper than usual they could use Jordan’s image if he was used as ‘the face’ of their brand. “In 1988 Jordan became the first basketball player ever on a Wheaties box” (Porter, D 2007. pg 69).

This innovative move united with Falk’s savvy decision to split the Jordan brand among advertisers like Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, Gatorade and McDonald’s to allow maximum exposure at one time. Michael Jordan was the auspicious recipient of being the first athlete to be nationally promoted by multiple consumer products in the mid-late 1980s.

Jordan would have been one of the first Chicago Bulls players many people across the United States and the world would have ever seen due to the lack of NBA exposure.

Combine this with ESPN hoping to increase brand recognition for the NBA, partnering it’s latest product (an exciting rookie Michael Jordan)became the perfect strategy to increase NBA viewership.

This strategy was executed during a time when capitalism was rife and America echoed the Gordon Gecko’s quote in Wall Street (1987) “Greed is Good”, Jordan was on a consumer product in every home across America and at a time when media and commercial saturation of an individual had never been done before Jordan performed better than any other basketball player.

People have an innate need to be a part of something. People who saw Jordan when they were young want Jordan to be the best because it enriches their lives if they have been witness to the greatest player ever. Jordan’s legacy is enhanced because his career coincided with the boom of consumerism, television expansion and product placement.

The Luck of the Draw in 1984

ESPN broadcast begins and allows players from all NBA teams to be marketable on both nationally and internationally for the first time ever.

That year the NBA draft was decided by a coin flip. Houston won this flip of a coin, earned the number one pick, and drafted big man Hakeem Olajuwon allowing Jordan to drop to Chicago, a rebuilding team keen to build around a new star in the third-largest market in America.

If that coin flip lands tails, Portland receives the number one pick and take Olajuwon and Jordan ends up in Houston a market half the size and a team built around big man Ralph Sampson who would use Jordan as a complimentary piece to Sampson instead of the team’s primary option, at least for the beginning of Jordan’s career.

Jordan ends up in Houston and not Chicago, the third-largest city in America, probably results in Nike, on the back of consumerism reaching an all-time high, selecting a different player from 1984 for its first national marketing campaign. The “Air Jordan” shoe never exists and Michael’s likeness isn’t promoted across the country.

David Stern takes over the NBA as commissioner in 1984 after the league failed to market the league well under Larry O’Brien. One of his first moves includes bringing back the Dunk Competition as a way to market the NBA better, knowing that kids don’t want posters of players shooting jump shots.

If Stern doesn’t bring this competition back and ESPN doesn’t broadcast the event, Jordan’s poster doesn’t end up in the house of millions of children’s bedrooms in the 1980s.

If we don’t see a coin flip, a new commissioner, consumerism reach new heights, the first marketing campaign of it’s kind all come together as they did in 1984 Michael Jordan does not become Michael Jordan.

“The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside ourselves or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our place in history presents us with” Malcolm Gladwell states in Outliers (2008).

Michael Jordan can’t be the greatest of all-time.

Although marketing and consumerism no doubt influenced the opinions of many who call Jordan the greatest” he is one of the best players we’ve ever seen and clearly the most successful of the 1990’s.

However, another once in the lifetime factor Jordan benefited from was a rapid dilution of the NBA that had never happened before or since which benefitted him by making the league weaker during the time he was at his peak.

While Jordan was being marketed in ways no other athlete had during the late 1980s and early 1990’s the NBA expanded internationally. This move diluted the league with an influx of players, approx 20% of the league, who would not have even played in the league prior to 1988.

This dilution allowed players who reached their peak between 1988-1992 to enjoy would to enjoy extended time as their team’s best player because there were more teams to spread the league’s best talent across.

In 1987 whilst Jordan was struggling to get past the first round, there were 23 teams. Between 1988-1995, when the Chicago Bulls had their greatest success the NBA’s popularity caused the league to add 6 expansion teams (Miami, Charlotte, Minnesota, Orlando, Vancouver and Toronto) to the league.

27% of the league’s players were re-distributed among the incoming teams and this resulted in a highly diluted league that provided the Chicago Bulls an extended window at the top due to other teams being unable to rebuild as fast as teams did in the 1980’s.

A review of the average age of the league’s top 10 players each year (as per NBA win shares) you can see the impacts which occurred in the NBA landscape over that time.

The best players in the NBA generally peak around 26 to 28 (26.9 years old based on data from 1985 to 2019).

The age of the league’s top 10 players hovers within this range from 1985 to 1993 when all of a sudden it explodes to a range of 28-31 between 1993 and 2000.

1993’s Top 10 Players By Win Share

Rk Player Pos Age Tm WS▼
1 Michael Jordan* SG 29 CHI 17.2
2 Hakeem Olajuwon* C 30 HOU 15.8
3 Karl Malone* PF 29 UTA 15.4
4 Charles Barkley* PF 29 PHO 14.4
5 David Robinson* C 27 SAS 13.2
6 Brad Daugherty C 27 CLE 12.7
7 Reggie Miller* SG 27 IND 11.3
8 Larry Nance PF 33 CLE 10.7
9 Patrick Ewing* C 30 NYK 10.6
10 John Stockton* PG 30 UTA 10.6

1998’s Top 10 Players By Win Share

Rk Player Pos Age Tm WS▼
1 Karl Malone* PF 34 UTA 16.4
2 Michael Jordan* SG 34 CHI 15.8
3 David Robinson* C 32 SAS 13.8
4 Tim Duncan* PF 21 SAS 12.8
5 Gary Payton* PG 29 SEA 12.5
6 Reggie Miller* SG 32 IND 12
7 Tim Hardaway PG 31 MIA 11.7
8 Dikembe Mutombo* C 31 ATL 10.8
9 Vin Baker C 26 SEA 10.4
10 Detlef Schrempf SF 35 SEA 10.4

Four players were able to stay among the leagues top ten players which is unheard of over a five year period.

If we compare 1985-1990 only Jordan and Magic Johnson were able to stay among the leagues elite.

If we compare 2014-2019 only Lebron James and James Harden were able to retain their position in the leagues top 10 players. Its fair that one or two players are talented enough to do so, but four? That never happens.

During the NBA’s expansion period if a team was able to draft most of their team prior to the NBA draft becoming diluted (1983-1988) and managed to retain them, you were a very successful team in the 1990’s. Chicago, Houston, Utah, San Antonio, New York all fit this mould perfectly.

These team’s benefited because with each new franchise that entered the NBA, their counterparts, mostly mid to low tiered teams weren’t able to rebuild as quickly. Mid-tier teams suffered the greatest impact, first expansion teams first were able to take players from their rosters and then their spot in the NBA draft which teams would generally use to move from good to great were pushed back to make way for incoming franchises.

Look at recent NBA seasons to identify how often a fresh team is able to reach the NBA’s top 4 teams, recently Toronto, LA Clippers, Denver have all managed to do so and remove some great teams like Miami, Golden State, Dallas and San Antonio.

During 1993-1998 basically whoever was at the top, remained at the top while the league adjusted to 30 teams.

In 1993 the Bulls, Jazz, Suns, Spurs all had win loss records that had them ranked in the top eight

In 1998 the Bulls, Jazz, Suns, Spurs all still remained in the top eight. How are half teams in the top 8 the same teams 5 years later? That just doesn’t happen. Consider the fact that in 1998, the year MJ won his sixth title, there were six teams that did not make it past twenty wins. 20% of the NBA lost more than sixty games. No wonder the Chicago Bulls were able to notch up a record 72 wins.

This trend isn’t a once-off, a similar trend occurs when the NBA decides to draft high school players because teams in the middle tier can’t acquire strong talent from the draft due to the league now being 30 teams.

This additional factor caused the league’s best incoming talent was to either be drafted before they were NBA ready or end up at brand new franchises ie. Toronto, Vancouver, Minnesota, etc were yet to create a strong development program.

Consider how Kevin Garnett (pick 5), Kobe Bryant (pick 13), Jermaine O’Neal (pick 17) and Tracey McGrady (pick 9) are all drafted in 1995-97 by mid-tier teams as they try and find a way to acquire talent in a weakened draft system.

This is evidence of the mid-tier team’s trying to adjust to a draft process made 20% hard from the addition of six new teams.

Top players don’t stay in college for their junior and senior years in college and as a result, the NBA now develops talent faster the average age of the league’s best players has dropped to 25-27 since the NBA adjusted to accommodate 30 teams and a younger draft process.

No matter what “numbers” one uses to measure Jordan against his peers his achievements are always matched or beaten by other greats, players forgotten by those who use ESPN as their resource for basketball knowledge.

While Jordan was no doubt the best player in the 1990’s and the Chicago Bulls the best team its fair to say they would not have six titles if the league hadn’t slowed down the rebuilding phase for opposing NBA teams due to expanding the league.

It’s fair to say without the league expanding to 30 teams, removing players from mid-tier rivals with expansion drafts and descending draft picks the mid-tier teams of 1988-93 would have developed much faster and most likely stood in the way of the Bulls fifth and sixth championships.

So how were all these factors overlooked?

The consumerism of the 1980s and 1990s was so successful in promoting Michael Jordan that it was able to erase some of the more important numbers when measuring Jordan’s career.

0 titles without All-Stars

Michael Jordan needed a very talented cast to help him win his titles.

The success of the Chicago Bulls was always reliant on Jordan’s virtuosity scoring abilities rather than passing the ball to teammates which would create difficult defensive switches.

This strategy was extremely limited until Pippen became an All-Star in 1990 and the team had either Horace Grant or Dennis Rodman (both NBA All-stars) to contribute to any deep playoff run.

This strategy did not work in the 80’s before the Bulls drafted Pippen and any suggestion that Jordan had a weak “supporting cast” is greatly mistaken. Jordan was never without one or more all-stars during his championship seasons which is better than what a lot of other teams had.

Isiah Thomas won a title in 1989 as the only all-star on his team. It’s something that’s been done many times and certainly not impossible, recent teams include;

55 wins

The Chicago Bulls won 57 games in 1993, when Jordan retired to play baseball they won 55 games, only two games less.

Jordan faithful love to say Jordan had a weak supporting cast but will always ignore the success the Chicago Bulls had without him that dispels this theory.

When a great player leaves his team, typically the team falls apart after he leaves. This can be seen in a number of instances. When LeBron left the Cavs in 2010, the Cavs record dropped by over 40 wins the following season. When Shaq left the Lakers, they had difficulty making it to the postseason the first few years after he left.

So when the “greatest player of all time” left the Chicago Bulls after his first retirement, you would imagine they lost by like, at least 20 more games the following season, right? In actuality, behind the amazing play of Scottie Pippen, the Bulls dropped only two more games than in their previous season. When a league MVP leaves his team, not to mention if the “Greatest Player of All Time” retires, shouldn’t his team completely sink without him?

6 expansion teams

Michael Jordan won his championships when the league was at its weakest.

We’ve already covered this, but to add more emphasis to this point consider the playoff opposition that Jordan and the Bulls faced the most during their championship runs,  New York, Indiana, Seattle and Utah.

Jordan’s success game against defenders who were much physically smaller than Jordan like John Starks and Hersey Hawkins or three-point shooters who were not considered great defenders like John Stockton, Jeff Hornacek and Reggie Miller.

The only great player Jordan faced who was a Hall of Famer and a great defender was Gary Payton. who despite being two inches shorter, 35 pounds lighter and having a calf injury gave Jordan nightmares.

Take a look at Jordan’s production in the first three games of the 1996 Finals when he wasn’t facing Gary Payton, compared to when Payton guarded him in series last three games.

First three games : 31 points, 46 fg%, 50 3fg%, 12.3 FTA.

Last three games: 23.7 points, 36.7 fg%, 11.1 3fg% 10 FTA.

You have to wonder if Jordan has “Six Rings” if Payton doesn’t have a calf injury.

Bill Russell had to defeat Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Dolph Schayes and Bob Pettit to win championships. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had to outplay Chamberlain, Hakeem Olajuwon and the legendary Boston front line of Bird, McHale and Parish.

Even Jordan’s closest “heir apparent” today, Lebron James has had to defeat opponents considered to be in the twenty greatest players of all-time ie. Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Kevin Durant to win his three NBA titles.

Jordan may have six championships and Kareem and LeBron sit behind him with five and four but it’s a fact Jordan won his “six rings” against far inferior opposition, and surely the quality of the opposition has an impact in considering who is the greatest?

3 year drop off?

Only three years after being All-Star MVP, League MVP, Finals MVP and NBA champion Jordan was a shadow of his former self at Washington.

Sure, he wasn’t in his prime during his time in Washington, but we are still talking about the guy people say is clearly the “greatest player of all time” here aren’t we? Only three years after winning a title and every MVP you can think of, you’d think the greatest player of all time would be able to at least drag his team into the playoffs three years later? But no, the Wizards did not make the playoffs in either of the two years MJ was with the team.

Wilt Chamberlain was never on children’s cereal and Bill Russell was rarely seen on television outside Boston. A plethora of great players achieved great things and have been all but ignored due to global market saturation of the Jordan brand which companies perpetuate in order to sell the latest cereal, sugary drink or athletic shoes.

What else is there?

All of the other Jordan is the greatest arguments are subjective and futile.

‘Jordan won six Championships’

True, but Bill Russell won eleven championships. If we want to use championship glory as a measuring stick than Jordan is only the tenth greatest player of all-time… behind Robert Horry and Jim Losctufoff (7 titles each) mind you.

When this is pointed out it’s generally dismissed by the statement of Jordan winning more games as a team’s franchise player in the post-season in order to dismiss Russell’s claim (bygone era) and Robert Horry’s claim (wasn’t a franchise player).

Yet Lebron James, another contender for the greatest player of all-time, has already won a similar amount of games NBA playoffs games but when this is brought up, the (moot) argument generally returns to that of Jordan winning “six rings”.

‘They had to change the rules for Michael Jordan’

Very few players ever forced the NBA to changes it’s rules. The game hadn’t seen a player use their athleticism to score like Jordan before and implemented a number of officiating changes as a result.

Illegal offense was introduced to clear out isolation on one side of the court and the NBA’s rule on hand checking was amended to say;

“A defender will not be permitted to use his forearm to impede the progress of an offensive player who is facing the basket in the frontcourt”.

These rules were changed to make it easier for athletic wing players to score against the league’s big men, who had dominated the league up until that time. This ultimately led to the death of the traditional NBA centre.

Wilt Chamberlain on the other hand, forced the NBA to make changes that made it more difficult to score, not easier, changes like;

If you are the greatest player of all-time shouldn’t the league be changing the rules to make it harder for you instead of easier?

‘But he was also a five time league MVP’

So too were Bill Russell (five times) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (six times). Heck, it’s likely will LeBron James will too before he retires (LeBron currently has four NBA MVP’s).

‘He was the NBA’s greatest scorer’

Jordan averaged 30 points per game, but so did Wilt Chamberlain, who once scored 100 points in a game, something Jordan came nowhere close to.

Many other players had greater scoring performances than Jordan;

If you needed a player to score as many points as possible in one game wouldn’t one of these players be more qualified?

But other players say he was the best?

Take Charles Barkley, whose quotes often cause attention, he refers to Jordan as being the greatest basketball player ever. Barkley and many other people in media often rank Jordan as the greatest. But do they have an ulterior motive? Could referring to Jordan’s greatness, in turn, benefit their own legacies?

Barkley was denied an NBA championship by Jordan numerous times in Phoenix and Philadelphia, therefore it benefits Barkley to state this as in turn this infers that he was denied a championship as a result of having to play during the same era as the “Greatest Ever” instead of his own falling short due to his own shortcomings.

NBA media personalities are often former players from the 1990’s who were denied championships by Jordan. These players’ legacies are benefited by portraying Jordan in this light. But what do players/coaches say whose answers would not involve any kind of personal gain by listing Jordan as the greatest?

Phil Jackson, who coached Michael to all six of his championships said he would take Bill Russell over not Michael Jordan.

Julius Erving, the man Jordan spent his entire career trying to emulate points to Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the greatest of all time.

” For him  to that (being the best ever). for me, he (Lebron) has to surpass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He is the best to ever play the game” said Erving

In 1985, Larry Bird called Jordan as a rookie the best ever. But when MJ retired in 1998, he said: “Is he the greatest? He’s in the top two.”

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, two men who belong in the conversation of greatest players also, have made it known that they do not rate Jordan as the greatest NBA player ever. Both men have stated that there are several players are in the conversation, Abdul- Jabbar adding that he thinks Oscar Robertson was superior to both Jordan and Lebron

If Bill Russell had 120 million social media followers like Lebron James, had billions of marketing dollars from megabrands like Nike, Wheaties promoting his on-court exploits like Jordan and had every one of his 11 championships broadcast live and viewed by billions of fans around the world… would he be viewed differently today?

This article is not saying Jordan isn’t a great player, nor is it to say Jordan isn’t a player who should be considered the greatest of all time. The point is that we cannot compare eras, there are too many variables.

Trying to compare players who never played against each other and existed in different eras is impossible and more importantly, unfair to do.

League expansion, new technologies, different training regimens, different economics have changed each NBA decade in drastic ways, making it impossible to state a definitive answer to “who is the greatest basketball player of all-time”.

While the impact the Jordan brand had off the court and how it changed the way players were used as marketing tools may never be equaled, his “greatest ever” title has.

If the league doesn’t expand and lottery teams are forced to take longer to rebuild Jordan does Jordan win only five titles instead of six? Maybe he only claims four?

Then how does he compare to players like Shaquille O’Neal who would also have four championships but from playing on two different teams. How would he match up to Tim Duncan who owns also owns five championships as does Kobe Bryant who additionally eclipsed Jordan in every statistical category all-time?

We can’t compare eras. Jordan is one of the greatest… but it’s unfair to say he “IS” the greatest.

REFERENCES

Dan Boyce (815 Posts)

Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.


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