Michael Jordan won almost all the accolades a player could desire for, but one of them is now in question. A recent article by Tom Haberstroh for Yahoo Sports has raised the question if the stats for Mike during his Defensive Player of the Year award (season 1987-88) were fabricated.
As per the report, when MJ played on the home court, his stats were 182% higher than that of on the road. Although the allegations are that the home statistician fabricated the numbers in MJ’s favor, Shaquille O’Neal has a different take on this.
In a recent episode of ‘The Big Podcast with Shaq‘, Adam Lefkoe asked the former LA Lakers star of his opinion on the whole controversy. Shaq replied to the question with his question on the lines of who saw Haberstroh and the statistician watch the game. However, the 4x NBA champ’s more conclusive answer to the controversy was, “it doesn’t matter,” stating that the allegations were just that — unconfirmed and haven’t earned his belief.
Apart from this, Shaq also posed a kind of impossible challenge to the ones making these allegations. “It’s (stats) there. It’s documented. You want to impress me? Go back and change it…” he stated. The 15x All Star star argued that if this were the case, then players like Pete Marovich, who shot behind the three, should now be given extra points for all the deep brain shots they got. Shaq further stated the guy who brought MJ’s stat issue is now viral, but what is he going to do about his claims now? “Mr. Statistician face man? What you gonna do? Stop it… Let it go…” he added.
