In the 1987-88 season Jordan averaged 35PPG while only attempting 0.6 3 pointers per game and only hitting 13% of them. These are the kind of numbers you could expect from a bigman (or Ben Simmons), not from a guard

Question is, how did he manage to score that many points pretty much only from 2 pointers, did teams not adjust to prevent him from driving like they do against Giannis? Young Jordan based on his numbers seemed to not be a threat from outside at all, how was so prolific while at the same time so one-dimensional? I must be missing something

  • rick_32BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    It was a different time… you could only double team the player with the ball, defenders had to stay glued to their man otherwise it would be illegal defense even if that player was a bad shooter or whatever. There was no help AR the nail or zoning up a side or even just plain zone.

    So it was much easier to isolate a player 1 on 1.

    Also Jordan got a very favorable whistle