Michael Jordan's Other Legacy

(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

It is my contention that the decade in which we were all spoilt by this multi-spectral brilliance has left an indelible impact on the game that remains to this day.

Over the years Jordan changed more than just the way the game is marketed. He changed the very way that talent is evaluated in basketball. He took high scoring outbursts and made them synonymous with winning, and that association remains to this day.

To illustrate this point I looked at three measures: the top scorer each season, the leader in win shares, and how those related to MVP voting. I took this back 30 years, to the 1979-80 season, and the data presents as follows:

The Conclusion

Before Michael Jordan's emergence the league's leading scorer averaged a placing of 6th in the M.V.P voting. The leader in Win Shares averaged a place of 2nd in the voting.

During Michael Jordan’s career (before the stint with the Wizards) the league's leading scorer (usually Jordan) averaged a placement of 1.75 in the M.V.P voting. The leader in Win Shares (again usually Jordan) had the same average.

Thus during his decade of dominance Michael Jordan achieved a synthesis between individual scoring output and contributions to team wins which is almost completely unparalleled in at least the last 30 years.

After Jordan hung up his sneakers in 1998 however, the league's leading scorer has been placed an average of 3.8 on the M.V.P voting.

Contrast this with the Win Share average placement, which has remained almost exactly the same as it was before MJ at 1.9, and you can see that whilst the measures which make a player valuable to his team have basically remained unchanged, the perception of what is valuable has been skewed towards scoring. 

The impact of being the league's leading scorer in relation to how valuable a player is perceived is now almost double what it was before MJ's emergence.

It is therefore my position, that Jordan's simultaneous dominance in both the overt area of point production, and subtler areas of efficiency (which though less obvious are in fact more important to the win column), has lead to a cognitive coalescence of these two principles in the minds of the media and the casual observer.

For better or for worse the top scorers are now more than ever seen as the cream of the N.B.A crop, and a large part of that change is due to the G.O.A.T himself.

Miscellaneous 

Some other assorted observations of this data;

In the last 30 years, the leader in win shares is named the M.V.P 11 times. The leading scorer (except when he also led the league in win shares) was M.V.P 2 times. On average, win shares leaders finish twice as high in the M.V.P vote than PPG leaders, and the PPG numbers are skewed heavily by Jordan.  This indicates that win shares are indeed a much more effective evaluator of a players value than points per game.

T-Mac should probably have been given consideration for the M.V.P award in 2003. He should at least finished higher than fourth place.

Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant have both had multiple scoring titles in the post Jordan era, and have won an M.V.P award despite not having yet led the league in win shares.

Dirk Nowitzki had a strong case to beat out Steve Nash for at least one of his two M.V.P awards.  Dirk is the only player other than Jordan to lead the league in win shares more than twice in a row.

The only players other than Jordan to be the leading scorer, and leader in win shares in the same year are McGrady in 2003, Shaq in 2000, David Robinson in 1994 and Adrian Dantley in 84. Shaq also won the M.V.P award in 2000, the only player except MJ to lead the league in all three.

Jordan lead the league in win shares, and points per game for 7 seasons in a row, yet only received 3 M.V.P awards during that period. Magic Johnson also won 3 M.V.P awards during the same stretch. 

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