First on a serious note..MJ was not a great 3 pt shooter even in his era..so if he came in today’s game and tried to be a volume 3pt shooter, the results would likely be westbrook or wade like
Lmao..so you think MJ is a better scorer then KD..by 25 points in this era? That’s the question..MJs games is nothing at all like harden..he wouldn’t be doing the **** harden does..MJ was midrange, mid post, get to basketball get fouled/finish and a dribble pull-up scorer..he was never the offensive ignitiator at any point like harden. MJs most effective years was playing in the triangle without the ball.. so for all these ppl who think he could be dropped in today’s game and ave 50, when the guy played in the 80s when scoring was higher and pace of play was higher (athleticism wasn’t as good as it is today across the board and he ave 35 and 37 career highs) Then today..I ask what’s the formula for 90s MJ to get 50?? Who’s system is he putting up 35 plus FGAs in?? Dantoni? Are u guys just saying MJ would automatically become a better 3 pt shooter and therefore be a efficient volume 3pt scorer?? Are we just pretending like Defenses are gonna let MJ play 1v1 on the wing like the rules in the 90s allowed?..James harden avg 35 on 26 shots per night...or are ppl who believe Jordan would ave 50 just saying outrageous bs
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First, there were several good 3-point shooters that simply did not take the number of 3-point shots that are taken today.
Larry Bird was a great 3-point shooter. Now, you can say "he's only ranked 148th in all-time NBA 3-point shooting percentage". True. But there are only 8 Hall of Famers ahead of him. And there are a few guys ahead of him who WILL be Hall of Famers, but we are still talking about the fact that over 125 guys ahead of him are more like 3-point specialists.
Bird shot .3758 from 3-point range for his career. But look at his contemporaries.
Ainge shot .378
Dumars shot .3819
Stockton shot .3836
Mullin shot .3834
Reggie Miller shot .3947
D3 Scott shot .3967
Ray Allen shot .4002
Even the GOAT, Steve Kerr, shot .454
For his career, Bird averaged UNDER 2 three-point attempts per game, and made under 1 per game. In his BEST year, he averaged 3.3 attempts per game.
And the reason I cite Bird is because he was a person who did NOT have the athleticism of Jordan, so you would naturally think that he could have benefitted from taking more 3 point shots, yet the NBA was not built that way back then. But to think that Bird COULD NOT have hit more 3s in today's game is just nuts, his percentage was fantastic and he could have benefitted from getting more attempts within the flow of today's game.
So then you move on to Jordan, and HIS 3-point percentage for his career was .327 (after two bad years in Washington). So he's not that far off from Bird in terms of percentage, and he averaged fewer attempts and makes per game than Bird did.
Again, the NBA game just wasn't set up then the way it is now. A lot of great shooters from the 90s and earliers may well have cranked up their 3 point percentage out of sheer practice-makes-perfect. Do you honestly believe that shooters are sooooo much better today? Look at the Top 150 3-point shooters (by percentage) and the list is full of recent role-players who simply take a ton of shots without rebounding, assisting, or scoring close to the basket.
The NBA of the 80s and 90s was full of talented big men, and the game went through the post. It was a very physical game. But there are a lot of guys from that era who could also thrive in today's spacing game where the centers absolutely suck.
