Saturday, September 23, 2023

Jordan vs Pippen. Who Was Better During Bulls' Title Runs

There are some stupid arguments being made throughout social in the Jordan/Lebron debate, and facebook's algorythm must've figured that I really like those arguments, because it shows me a bunch of them.  There is one that shows the points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks for Michael Jordan, and Scottie Pippen for the Bulls' playoff runs for their championship seasons.  The simplistic way of looking at things might lead some to believe that Scottie Pippen was close to as good as Michael Jordan, since he got more rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, while only trailing in points , though scored a lot more points in those runs.  Here's a better statistical look at how they compared in those championship years, and while Pippen's advantages tend to be small, Jordan's advantages are much more significant. The PER, and BPM numbers are accurate estimates, based on their PER, and BPM for each playoff run, and weighing them based on minutes played.

                             

                               FG-FGA    FT-FTA     3p-3pa   Pts       Oreb-Dreb-Reb  Ast  Stl   Blk  To   PF    Min  

Michael Jordan    1395-2916  880-1064   106-314 3776     193-526-719    622   218  91  305  315  4801

Scottie Pippen      809-1824    482-672     100-355  2200    280-628-908    642  244  101 343 358  4723


Jordan     Pippen

fg%    47.8          44.4

ft%     82.7          71.7

3p%   33.8          28..2

efg%  49.7          47.1

ts%    55.8          51.9

ppg    32.6          19.0 

rpg    6.2             7.8

apg    5.4             5.5      

spg    1.9             2.1

bpg    0.8             0.9

topg   2.6             3.0

to%    8.3             13.9

PER  28.4           19.3           

BPM 10.8           5.6

WS    26.7            15.6

ws/48 .267           .159


PER, BPM, and WS per 48 all give Jordan significant advantages over Pippen, and seem to verify what you should have already known.  While Scottie Pippen was a great player, he wasn't on the level of Michael Jordan.   Don't believe me?  You can go basketball reference and do the math for yourself