Michael Jordan is the GOAT and We're Not Done With the 90's

The GOAT is real and not just a product of nostalgia

Last week, “We’re done with the 90’s,” trended on the social media platforms, especially over politically precarious TikTok. What’s it about? It’s a phrase mostly appended to unflattering clips of 1990s basketball, often used to discredit Michael Jordan’s status. Like a lot of social media movements, there’s an element of pure provocation to it, a glee taken in pissing off older people who can’t do anything but get madder.

Some of you might be blissfully unaware that there’s some MJ vs. LeBron generation gap war playing out over social media about who the Greatest of All Time is. It’s more of a Cold War, always there, but occasionally flaring up. Friend of Pod Nick Wright might have recently inspired an outburst when making the case for LeBron James, with a focus on respective peaks. Other Friend of Pod Bomani Jones responded like so.

Nick is wrong, Bomani is right, and I reject the relativistic premise, fashionable among writers, that such matters can simply not be decided. I mean, I get there’s a logic to that premise. There’s probably no definitive way to prove which active NBA player should be the 6th ranked versus the 7th. But the issue LeBron has in this fight is that he’s behind absent some creative accounting. No offense to an incredible player but he trails on the major benchmarks that have been classically cited to determine such matters. And time is running out, if it hasn’t already run. James’ effectiveness at this age is a marvel, but his last MVP was over a decade ago. I loved watching his rise out of high school on, and remain impressed by how good he still is, but this is the situation.

To make a compelling LeBron GOAT case now, you require someone as rhetorically skilled as Nick Wright to craft it. What’s nice about making the Mike case is that I, an idiot, can simply go, “More championships (6) and more MVPs (5).” The benefit of having the correct opinion is that you need not be so clever in conveying its truth. Sure I could get into the weeds on how Jordan not only has the hardware but also the slightly better advanced stats (compiled in a less offensively efficient era), but that already feels like overworking the case.

Jordan’s resume wins out before we even get into the subjective aspect Bomani mentioned and talk about MJ becoming a worldwide object of cultural obsession. We don’t even need to make a ruling on how real a “bubble” championship is. LeBron’s not there, and, even if there’s more winning to be done, the peak is long over.

This is partially why the pro-LeBron GOAT argument feels rickety. The Nick take, while totally wrong in my estimation, was novel because few Bron-as-GOAT supporters even bother to compare primes. Most making that argument fear to tread here because everyone knows Jordan’s 90s to be the most iconic decade in the history of athletics.

Instead, material used to build the LeBron argument is usually culled not from James’ peak, but from the continuation of quality. This point isn’t made to discredit LeBron in his late 30s, now that he’s transitioned from arguable MVP to the “All-Star” portion of his run. It’s just that there’s an uncanniness in using these current individual accomplishments on the 9th seed Lakers as ammunition for a war with a legend who went six for six in the NBA Finals. It’s like trying to build up a house not on its foundation but on some less appealing parcel a block down the road, under the hope that passerby will see both as part of a glorious unified mansion.

Jordan’s last MVP was his final year as a Bull, in that storied “Last Dance” season where he won the scoring title and also received First Team All Defense honors. What a way to go out (but for his Wizards return). When we discuss Jordan’s greatness, we talk about the time when he was undeniably at the sport’s absolute pinnacle, night after night. LeBron hasn’t played more than 70 games in six seasons. He’s still a relevant and sometimes great player. Though the Lakers got swept, he was fantastic in last season’s WCF. I’m impressed with where he’s at right now, and you probably are too. He’s just not the guy anymore, and hasn’t been for awhile, perhaps not since his Cavs’ stunning upset of the Warriors back in 2016.

I don’t know when LeBron stopped being the NBA’s best player. That’s a different debate for another day. I just know that the LeBron case relies on longevity, and longevity, while having its virtues, isn’t exactly the measure used in these matters. Karl Malone played till age 40 and is now 3rd all time in points scored. No one outside of Utah ranks him as the greatest power forward ever. A certain perspective can declare James the GOAT because he’s played 21 (and counting) quality seasons to Jordan’s 15. But then, if you’re a James-backer, you’re stuck with this uncomfortable issue: MJ got more done in 15 than James did in 21.

“We’re Done with the 90’s”

So this predicament leaves us with where we are: Meme warfare. Discrediting the past as overhyped nostalgia has more rhetorical punch than reminding people that LeBron scored the most points, in aggregate. Why? First, because the more foreign the past feels, the less relevant it seems. I’ll confess that’s why I don’t personally consider Bill Russell and his 11 championships in this conversation. His era, captured in black and white and lacking a three-point line, just feels like a different sport. I can’t necessarily defend my own ruling here but believe I’m far from alone in that sentiment.

Semi related, attacking the past as different and worse works because, honestly, there’s something to it. Skills evolve, moved forward by greater knowledge and enhanced technology. So yes, even if these “We’re done with the 90’s” clips are edited to give an exaggerated impression, it’s also so that today’s players have, on average, better ball skills than guys from 30 years ago. To quote Freddie deBoer:

Yes, if you dropped Bob Cousy from 1955 into a modern NBA game, he’d get run off the court. But if you drop Lebron from today into a game 70 years from now, he’ll get run off the court. That’s because human progress exists.

I’m broadly in agreement with nearly all aspects of that deBoer column, but I’ll just pause to make a point that’s unprovable but worth mentioning if we are, perhaps foolishly, comparing across generations: Michael Jordan would crush in today’s game and I don’t see why we should pretend otherwise.

The irony of using generational advancement to diminish Jordan is that the game’s subsequent advances would leave it powerless to stop the GOAT. MJ has a fair claim to having been the greatest midrange shooter ever. This is a guy who, at age 33, made 52 percent of his attempts between 16 feet and the 3-point line, theoretically the worst shot in basketball. Kevin Durant is unusual in being similarly efficient in this zone, but it’s on far fewer attempts. Jordan hoisted 4.5 long 2s per contest over an 82 game season. In earlier seasons he was as accurate from long 2, but on fewer tries. Jordan somehow did this while often off balance, double pumping and/or fading away from the hoop. If that sounds unbelievable, I assure you, it was unbelievable to behold. Hence all the praise and adulation.

Obviously we can’t perform some experiment of dropping prime Jordan into the current game, but I’ll just note that he was historically incredible at the shot every modern NBA defense is set up to concede. We’re not even getting to the part where MJ was also the greatest slasher ever and he’d be going against defenses that were stretched out by surrounding shooters plus Adam Silver’s loud whistle. Oh, and no hand checking.

Why do I say all this even if we can’t literally find out what would happen? Because sometimes reasonable people understate Jordan’s historic case by assuming he’d be displaced by progress, as happens to other athletes. Yes, I think Patrick Ewing might look worse if dropped into today’s game. But part of the whole Jordan thing, the blessing that was obvious at the time, was that he was sui generis. As in, he wasn’t subject to the limitations of other guys, even other athletes who were at the top of this craft. Michael Jordan existed inside and outside of his own time, an unprecedented presence who expanded observers’ idea of what was possible in basketball. Before him, big men dominated the sport and it was assumed that scoring guards couldn’t lead teams to victory. Now it’s taken for granted as a possibility.

Has the game moved forward since his reign? Yes. But prime Jordan’s skillset, that mix of insane body control on drives, combined with top tier midrange accuracy, later buoyed by an inexorably burly post up assault is quite “lindy.” Put that in any era and there’s no handling it. Too many options, too many answers. Not much you can do against a guy who’s like a combo of Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler, but more coordinated and athletic than either.

It’s no disrespect to LeBron James to recognize a solved game for what it was, what it is, and what it would be, even today. It’s why Michael Jordan is still with us despite his career happening a long time ago. One interpretation of “We’re done with the 90’s” is it’s a wish unfulfilled. Somehow, Jordan’s 1990s, much as you might want to move on, don’t leave. You keep hearing about Mike’s era. And even if you buy the premise that young people don’t care about a past that preceded them, you go outside, look at the ground, and see teenagers wearing more Jordans than any other player’s model.

Mike remains the icon, not just because of what he did, but how the highlights hold up. Unassailable, unimpeachable, and without a true challenge, even from a basketball descendent as great as LeBron. To be eternal isn’t necessarily to be falsely mythologized in judgment clouded by nostalgia. The assumption of nostalgia bias is indeed its own bias. Some figures truly do stand alone, outside of time. We can’t discard them because they remain perpetual sources of inspiration. We’re not done with the 90’s because, thanks to Michael Jordan, they’re not done with us.