Tom Haberstroh wonders : « was LeBron James chasing a ghost? » The journalist from Yahoo! Sports obviously evokes the famous and eternal race for the hypothetical, subjective, anecdotal and paradoxically so important status of best player of all time. James being Her Majesty’s fiercest opponent Michael Jordan in this endless debate.
Among the (many) arguments in favor of number 23 of the Chicago Bulls, and therefore in opposition to that of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers, there is the trophy for best defender of the season gleaned by MJ in 1988. An individual award which validates the fact that he dominated his opponents on both ends of the field. Especially since he finished top scorer in the league the same year, unheard of until then. Haberstroh looked into this campaign in question. And the results of his research tend to show that the trophy was “offered” to Jordan.
First, we must recall the context. In ’87, the superstar took it very badly when he received only one vote for the DPOY trophy, ultimately postponed by Michael Cooper. What followed was an 18-page article in Sports Illustrated where Jojo complained and felt he was the victim of a lack of recognition for his defensive performances. A year later, he is the lucky one with 3.2 interceptions and 1.6 blocks on average per game.
Except that Haberstroh delved into the stats and videos of the time. He saw a huge disparity between Michael Jordan’s home and away averages. 4 steals and 2.1 blocks in Chicago. 2.1 steals and 1.2 blocks away from Illinois. An unprecedented gap. Even more important than the one concerning Jaren Jackson Jrthe latest DPOY winner to have been accused of benefiting from preferential treatment by his franchise’s scoreboard.
But that’s not all. Haberstroh and an assistant manager of a Latvian club, Reinis Lacis, who has already proven the inflation of many stats from the 90s and 00s, reviewed in full six matches of Michael Jordan in Chicago during the 87-88 season. Where they counted two steals for MJ, the boxscore gave him five. Over the six matches in question, they compiled 12 interceptions of the player while the scorer table awarded him… 28. There was a match where he finished with 4 steals while the Atlanta Hawks, opponents of the evening, n only lost 3 balls.
Unfortunately, this is probably not an isolated example. A former Vancouver Grizzlies scorer recently confided that he was asked to inflate the stats of many stars at the time. It’s not even certain that the practice has completely disappeared. The difference, however, is that there was no Twitter or social networks to get behind in 1988. Good for Jordan. After all, he didn’t even really need a DPOY to prove he was one of the best defenders in the league.
2024-06-21 20:43:15
#Michael #Jordans #DPOY #fabricated
