Scottie Pippen said Jordan can score 100 points in a game in today's NBA

Jordan in his prime?

Against today's NBA?

Well, the athletes today aren't close to what they were in the 1980s and 1990s. Nutrition, workouts, even PEDs aren't close what they used to be. So his defender would never be able to stay with him.

In addition, most of the NBA doesn't bother with any defense. The free-flowing, fast break style is all the rage thee days. It changes franchises and carries them to titles. Anyone remember the last time a team that played defense and wasn't a run-and-gun team won the title? Yeah, I don't remember either.

Jordan, in his prime, would easily average 40. I would guess he'd be a threat for 100 every single night. He also would be able to put the ball off the building, through the window, off the scoreboard, and still hit nothing but net.

Then he would turn three hotdogs and four orders of nachos into enough (unhealthy) food to feed an entire NBA arena crowd.

 

Of course, Kobe, LeBron and Kevin Durant could probably score 130-150 points in a game if they were teleported back to the early 1960s, when the average player was 6-4, 215, ran the 40 in about 5.5, had a vertical leap of about 15 inches, smoked a pack of ciggies a day, and teams overall averaged about 30 ppg more than they do now.

 

Yeah, but if those three were teleported back to a 1960s NBA salary, they'd be smoking a pack a day and working at car dealership in the summer and would never have heard of a weight room either. It all evens out.

 

My goodness. I much watch a completely different game from the rest of this board. I thought the NBA did well to get rid of the "gooning" and to also get rid of the illegal defense, which was the most stupid rule in all of professional sport.

The result? No more mauling the guy with the ball. Yay. And, no more playing 1-on-1 while everybody else stands aside.

IF MJ came back in his prime and they didn't allow handchecking AND the illegal defense was still in effect, then maybe he'd have a shot.

But that's not the case.

If I was Kevin Durant, Kobe or any one of the current stars who do well playing within the framework of the current rules, I'd bitch slap Pippen next time I saw him.

 

You can pretty much say Jordan could do anything and the Nike-brainwashed masses of sports fans would nod in agreement.

 

Back then there were a lot better shooters. That's one reason.

Defenses are more physical today? Hell no. More developed, maybe, and maybe tougher because there is more raw ability and physical skill sets in today's game. But defenses were a hell of a lot tougher back then when the league didn't consist of a bunch of crybabies.

 

Even more amazing is that Wilt scored 100 and averaged 50 for the season without the three-point shot.

 

Check your facts. Scoring is actually UP nearly 10 percent from where it was at the end of the 90s. And FG percentages are up as well. Scoring averages steadily dropped throughout most of the 90s as the brutal thug ball defenses came into vogue (a trend started by the late 80s Pistons and soon copied by nearly everyone else), reaching a pathetic low in 99 when teams averaged only 91 points and 43% from the field per game league-wide.

But a couple years later the defensive rules were changed to crack down on the perimeter handchecking and body checking undeneath that epitomized the late 90s NBA and scores have been steadily rising ever since, with the league-wide average climbing to over 100 ppg and around 46% form the field the last couple seasons.

You certainly have a point with regard to the 80s, that was definitely a more open style game. But NOT with regard to the late 90s when defenders were allowed to basically beat the shit out of the guy they were guarding. The late 90s was the hardest era to score in NBA history. And I think it speaks highly of Jordan's legacy that he set his marks during that era (which, btw, bears a striking distinction from Wilt, who set his marks during BY FAR the most statistically dubious and easiest era to score era in League history).

 

Second thread featuring multiple eye-rollers in 30 seconds.

Yes, calling hand-checks would certainly give Jordan a shot at 100 points. Never mind that even when he was still with the Bulls, he had 9-for-26 shooting nights -- after all, blame the hand-checks!

Even Wilt Chamberlain needed a ton of breaks and a lot of help from his teammates to get his 100. Jordan is many inches shorter, far older, and probably quite rusty, despite what Pippen thinks.

 

Seriously?

Um, I don't think Pippin was talking about the overweight nearly-50 year old Jordan of today, so "older and rusty" should have nothing to do with this discussion. I think he was talking about if Jordan in his prime had played in a league with the less-physical more offensive-oriented rules and defensive restrictions of today's game.

Now, admittedly, Scottie didn't tell me that's what he meant, but I have been blessed with basic common sense.