uring the 1987-88 NBA season, the legendary Michael Jordan became the first player ever to win the scoring title and the Defensive Player of the Year award in the same season, validating himself not only as a scorer but as a dominant all-around basketball player, as well. But after a recent analysis of that season, it sounds like he may not have actually been deserving of that honor.
On Thursday, Yahoo Sports published a deep dive into that 1987-88 season in which they revealed the practice of home scorekeepers inflating stats on behalf of star players, and it sure seems like Michael Jordan benefitted greatly from this practice, leading to the massive numbers that helped him win the Defensive Player of the Year Award.
“Breaking out his numbers into game location, we find that Jordan averaged a mind-boggling 4 steals and 2.1 blocks at home. But on the road, those numbers shrunk to a more normal rate of 2.1 steals and 1.2 blocks,” Tom Haberstrah wrote for Yahoo Sports.
“Put simply, Jordan’s steals and blocks nearly doubled at home compared to the road. To account for possible uneven playing time effects, we can look at per-36-minute numbers for a truer portrayal of the phenomenon. Jordan’s combined block and steals numbers (‘stocks’) were a whopping 82 percent higher at home (5.5 stocks per 36 minutes) than on the road (3.0).”
The disparity in steals and blocks between home and away games is the largest in the history of the NBA with Jordan totaling 182% more at home than on the road. The article notes that a similar thing happened in terms of his blocks per game on the home and road, though on a smaller scale.
According to the article, Jordan’s numbers seemed to return to normal in previous seasons after he won the Defensive Player of the Year award, adding validity to the claim that his numbers were juiced purely just to get him the award.
Further analysis of some individual games seems to prove that Jordan’s stats were indeed inflated. In a six-game sample of the season, Jordan was awarded 28 steals, while he had only 12 based on the actual footage that was reviewed. And in one game, Jordan was awarded more steals on the stat sheet than the opposing team even had total turnovers, which is statistically impossible.
Needless to say, this is pretty horrible news for Jordan and his legacy as the greatest all-around player of all time, and it led to a lot of reactions on social media.