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Personal hot take: anyone who doesn’t think Michael Jordan is the GOAT when it comes to the NBA is just deluding themselves.
Jordan averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 2.3 steals over his career. He was a six-time NBA champion, six-time NBA Finals MVP, five-time NBA MVP, 10-time scoring leader, 14-time All-Star, three-time All-Star Game MVP, nine-time NBA All-Defensive first team, Defensive Player of the Year, NBA Rookie of the Year, a two-time Slam Dunk Contest champion, and had his number 23 retired by the Miami Heat – a team he didn’t even play for.
So… how do YOU think he would have done if he was in his prime and playing in today’s version of the NBA?
The answer, at least according to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, is that he would probably be even MORE dominant.
Sorry, Rockets GM Daryl Morey.
“Oh, in today’s NBA he’d kill it,” Cuban told Dan Patrick this week. “I mean, his body’d be fresh every night not having Charles Oakley or Rick Mahorn knocking him on his ass every time he went into the lane. Michael Jordan’s challenge would have been to learn how to shoot the three better and he’s Michael Jordan, he would have done that, just like a lot of guys in today’s game have improved their three. And so Jordan would be averaging 40 in today’s game.”
Cuban added another observation that was also spot-on, “Daryl’s right, in today’s game as is, Harden is the better scorer, because of the rules, but if Michael had been able to play in this game a lot of guys, not just Michael, would have been putting up 30-plus.”
Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Clyde Drexler, Adrian Dantley, Alex English, George Gervin, Bernard King, Rick Barry, Nate Archibald, David Thompson, Calvin Murphy, and Pete Maravich are just a few that would have been incredibly fun to have seen playing in today’s NBA.