Are we done with the 90s?

Michael Jordan is a basketball player that was so great for his time, he inspired generations to come and changed the NBA forever. The same players we idolize today, idolized him growing up. Jordan is a man who gave everything except his left hand to the game of basketball, and his impact is still felt today. However, the day has come where we must reevaluate his greatness and ask ourselves; who is the greatest of all time?

Michael Jordan in his prime is nowhere near the skill level of today’s league. His ridiculous up-and-unders are now moves that role players regularly pull off. His post-game and mid-range skills that made him special are now just moves every NBA all-star has in their arsenal. The game has gotten better…like a lot better-but that’s how it should be. With the recent developments in sports science across the last 30 years players have resources to develop and hone their game that they didn’t have when Jordan was playing. 

So yes, compared to what we know the game to be today, MJ didn’t have a bag, but that doesn’t matter. 

We’re talking about who’s the greater basketball player, not who’s better at playing basketball. The latter is LeBron James without question; if you disagree with that please never talk about basketball. But amongst his peers in his era, Jordan was a deity, a fictional character, a mythical creature, some even believed him to be an alien. Jordan dominated in his era. 

We are quick to forget that in one of the slowest paced eras, Jordan averaged over 30 points per game. I could ramble off more stats to attest to how dominant he was in his time, but stats don’t tell the full tale. One of the recently popular trends ‘we’re done with the 90s’ calls out how the game of basketball looked like a pickup game at the YMCA in the 90s. Players didn’t know what a basketball felt like in their left hand, they were dared to shoot, and ‘good’ defense was just attempting to murder whoever was shooting the ball. So it calls into question, do Jordan’s impressive statistics even count? 

I’ll be the first to say, Jordan had a left hand but he wasn’t as good as players are today with their offhand. If you forced Jordan left, you had a decent shot of shutting him down. I see all types of clips where people try to show that Jordan could use his left hand, but they misinterpret what is meant to have a left hand. At the professional level, every single player on an NBA roster can dribble with their left hand and score a wide open layup on the left side. However, in the 90s and even including the great Michael Jordan, they did not have the ability to consistently drive left and create an offensive opportunity. 

Now there’s the point that even if this was true, he was able to score absurd numbers time and time again. While that is true, there needs to be some context. Until the 2001-02 season, zone defense was illegal. In my opinion, this is one of the most commonly overlooked arguments against Jordan. This rule is very nuanced, but has huge implications. To put it simply, a defender must be actively guarding someone. Hard doubles were allowed but the defender must leave their matchup wide open. Therefore, defenders couldn’t be ‘stuck in the middle,’ play the passing lanes, or prepare to contest a drive. 

In layman's terms, if Jordan was able to break free from his defender in an isolation possession, in theory there would be no help side defender because it would be illegal. Even if opposing teams sent a double, they would leave someone else wide open. With Jordan’s generational scoring ability combined with this defense rule, it made it easier for him to put up the numbers he did. 

Imagine if Kyrie played in this era, or Lebron, or Curry, or even any one of the perennial all-stars in today’s era. The numbers they would put up would look like video game numbers. 

However, it’s not Michael Jordan’s fault that this rule was in place. This was simply how it was in his time and he had no control over it. He made the best of the cards he was dealt and dominated.

So did the other greats of his era. I don’t think this should be an asterisk around Jordan’s career, dismissing everything he’s done; rather it should just be a testament to how different the game was back in the 90s. 

However, it’s not Michael Jordan’s fault that this rule was in place. This was simply how it was in his time and he had no control over it. He made the best of the cards he was dealt and dominated. So did the other greats of his era. I don’t think this should be an asterisk around Jordan’s career, dismissing everything he’s done; rather it should just be a testament to how different the game was back in the 90s. 

As a result of this inherent difference, the two eras cannot possibly be comparable. Greatness is defined by how one utilized the resources given to them, and how they measured in comparison to their peers. For example, Bill Russell is often disregarded in GOAT debates because his success came at a time when the league only had 8-9 teams, and the Celtics had a hall of fame caliber talent coming off the bench. So in a sense, all he did was meet expectations. With Michael Jordan, he accomplished two three-peats in an era of basketball stacked with all time greats and competitive teams. With LeBron James, he dominated in the most competitive era of basketball and competed against some of the greatest teams ever assembled. These exceed any expectations put on them and their heroic feats have yet to be replicated. 

So what a majority of fans have been arguing over during the most recent ‘we’re done with the 90s’ trend is actually who was better and more skilled; not who was greater. However, this acts as if we know how Michael Jordan would have fared in today’s league. 

LeBron James spends millions of dollars on his body and players have access to resources that players from Jordan’s era and before never had. From the data that players have access to, or the equipment and tools they have to heighten their game, or the floor spacing of the modern NBA that allows for more room to generate offense, players today are better but only because they benefit from more opportunities to succeed. Who knows what type of a player Jordan would have become if he had these tools and resources, but on the flip side; who knows what James would’ve been able to achieve if he played in the 90s with the defense rules and schematics from that era. 

So by saying that LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan or vice versa would ignore important context, which is why I think we need to reconstruct dialogue about greatness in sports. 

Rather than having a rigid list, it should be a tier list. With the tier list, it’s possible to put Michael Jordan and LeBron James in the same breath. They would be at the top of the pyramid, in a GOAT tier, in a league of their own. This properly appreciates the greatness and the heights they accomplished without knocking off the other.

In the future, hopefully very distant, there will be players that surpass the skill and talent of Michael Jordan and LeBron James. In fact, such players might shine brighter in comparison to their peers than Jordan or James ever did. With the tier list, that player would be accepted into this GOAT tier rather than having to knock Jordan or James down the list. We can appreciate the eras of old while also acknowledging the talent and the skill of this new era unfolding in front of us.

The game is forever changing, that's how it was always meant to be. Magic Johnson hung up his jersey  knowing that Michael Jordan was going to reach higher peaks than he ever did. Jordan laced up his sneakers for the last time hoping Kobe Bryant would become a better player than he ever was and then Bryant handed the league over to LeBron, knowing it was in good hands. This is how the mantle is passed down from generation to generation.

There’s a mutual understanding that the stars of each era were better than ones that came before them, but will be overtaken by the ones who take their place. In fact this isn’t just an understanding, but rather a hope that they pass down from generation to generation. A hope that all the hard work they put in, the greatness they achieved, and the heights that they reach transcend their career, and inspire the next generation not to be like them, but be better.