No Bull: The NBA in the 90′s if Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls Didn’t Exist

Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls really screwed up the 1990′s.

It’s really, really difficult to gauge how good teams and players were in the 90′s, because MJ and the Bulls won all the awards. Starting in 1991, they took home six NBA Titles, with a two-year break in the middle that only existed because Jordan had temporarily retired. Jordan was also named MVP four times in those six years, made every All-NBA and All-Defensive First Team, and a handful of other things besides.

Basically, the Bulls won everything. So nobody else could.

Even the best players of the prior era acknowledged the transcendence of Michael Jordan. Try on what Magic Johnson (who himself won three MVP’s and five titles) had to say:

Once Michael gets up there he says, “Well, maybe I’ll just hang up here in the air for a while, just sit back.” Then all of a sudden, he says, “Well, maybe I’ll 360. No, I changed my mind. I’ll go up on the other side.” He’s just incredible.

Or, simpler and more to the point, what Larry Bird (three MVP’s, three titles) said:

I think he’s God disguised as Michael Jordan.

The proverbial list of “Best NBA Players to Never Win a Championship” is a who’s-who of 90′s stars, thanks to Jordan and the Bulls—Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Stockton & Malone. How good was Clyde Drexler, in the context of history? Hard to say, because he always played second fiddle to Jordan, no matter how good he was.

In order to level the playing field a bit, I’ve gone through the ’91-’93 and ’96-’98 NBA seasons and re-assigned the accolades as though MJ and the Bulls didn’t exist. It is, in essence, creating a bizarro alternate reality where Jordan (the best player of all time) and the Bulls (the greatest post-merger team) have been removed.

To find each year’s NBA champion, I took each team that Chicago beat in the Eastern Conference Finals and upgraded them to the Bulls’ spot in the Finals. Then it was easy to compare the two Finals teams in terms of regular-season record and SRS, and determine the winner.

The 1991 Finals, minus the Bulls, would have then been a continuation of the old guard—Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and the Showtime Lakers would take home the trophy over the Isiah Thomas/Joe Dumars Detroit Pistons.

1992 gives Clyde Drexler a ring with the Portland Trail Blazers, as they take out the Brad Daugherty/Larry Nance/Mark Price Cleveland Cavaliers. 1993 removes Charles Barkley from that list of players without a title—as the Suns beat the still-ringless Patrick Ewing and the New York Knicks.

1996 was Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton leading the Seattle Supersonics over the Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway Orlando Magic (which would have been a fun series to watch). 1997 was the Utah Jazz, with John Stockton and Karl Malone piloting, over the Miami Heat.

That’s all Western Conference teams winning, mind you, which does make some inherent sense as it’s essentially pitting the West’s winner against the East’s runner-up. 1998 is the only year that there isn’t a clear winner—the Jazz had the better record, but Reggie Miller’s Pacers had the better SRS. Since SRS—which includes both point differential and strength of schedule—is built for this kind of comparison, we have to give it to the Pacers.

And the MVP trophy? In all reality, if Jordan hadn’t been around, we probably would have only seen one more unique winner. Magic Johnson, David Robinson, and Karl Malone would each win another MVP, and each consecutive after also winning the previous year (Magic actually won in ’90, the Admiral in ’95, and the Mailman in ’97). The new member of the club is Drexler, who is seeing his career get a major boost in this non-Jordan bizarro world.

After that, things become quite a bit less measurable. Michael Jordan made the All-NBA First Team each of those six years, but for each year we can only guess which one of the two Second Team guards would have gotten the upgrade (and the All-NBA team doesn’t distinguish between the two different guard positions).

Most likely to benefit in those six years was John Stockton, who made three Second Teams in the Jordan years and conspicuously only made the All-NBA First Team in the two seasons that MJ was retired. Also perhaps benefiting would be Tim Hardaway and Gary Payton, who both made Second Teams twice in that period.

The 1990′s Chicago Bulls also dominated the NBA All-Defensive Teams; both Jordan and Scottie Pippen made the All-Defensive First Team every one of those six seasons. Dennis Rodman joined them in ’96, meaning an astounding three of the five First Team players came from the Bulls. However, since the All-Defensive Team is assembled without regard to positions, it’s impossible to say who would have taken their place had they not been there.

That about wraps up the awards—championships, which are the only real team award, and all the top individual honors.

Most surprising to me is that we don’t see another dynasty rise up in place of the Bulls—especially since dynasties are status quo for the NBA (think Lakers, Celtics, and Spurs in the last ten years). The closest we get is the Jazz, who didn’t even repeat for the title in our simulation, though Karl Malone pulled a couple MVP’s out of it.

It’s also, I’ll freely admit, far from scientific. The psychological impact of winning a ring is more than enough to change the face of the league from season to season, so in a reality without the Bulls it’s actually fairly unlikely that things would have shaken out this way. Maybe the Knicks would have brought home a title. Maybe Shaq would have won one before shipping off to the Lakers (or maybe he never would have left). Minus the ability to change the past, we have to settle for speculation.

The Bulls’ run is unparalleled in the modern NBA. The Lakers won five titles in the 80′s, but they had a rival in the Celtics, who intermingled three title of their own in there. The Lakers squeezed out another four titles in the 00′s, but they had a rival in the San Antonio Spurs, who took four of their own.

The Bulls had no competitive rival. Michael Jordan, for sure, had no rival.

To close I’ll hand it off to Dirk Nowitzki, someone many, many times better at the game of basketball than I will ever dream of being, to say what we’re all thinking.

“To me, Jordan is the god of Basketball, and I think he will always be. “