“Kevin Durant has missed 11 games this season”: ESPN’s Mike Greenberg illustrates how Michael Jordan never cheated the fans with low effort or load management

Amulya Shekhar | 20/02/2021
"Kevin Durant has missed 11 games this season": ESPN's Mike Greenberg illustrates how Michael Jordan never cheated the fans with low effort or load management

Mike Greenberg went on a reverie about how Michael Jordan is the most unique player in NBA history on his 58th birthday.

Jordan’s 58th birthday brought him a whole host of tributes from the entire basketball fraternity. MJ is quite easily the most recognizable team sports athlete in American history. He will have an everlasting legacy in the public consciousness.

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Among the many tributes paid to Michael Jordan on his birthday, Mike Greenberg had one of the most poignant ones. On his ESPN show yesterday, Greenie noted some of the great achievements of His Airness.

The ESPN host marveled at how Jordan averaged 35.0 points per game while winning DPOY. He did make a mistake, however, calling Hakeem the highest scorer in a DPOY season other than Jordan. Giannis holds that record for his stats last season, averaging 29.5 points per game.

Mike Greenberg with 5 unique Michael Jordan stats

Greenberg threw 5 unique and lesser-known facts about MJ to us. The first was how Jordan is the most popular athlete in America despite his retirement in 2003. The six-time NBA champion currently polls as the most popular athlete in the United States.

Next, Greeny talked about Jordan’s historic 1987-88 season, when he won MVP, DPOY and the scoring title. Only three players in NBA history have won MVP and DPOY in the same campaign.

Mike Greenberg then noted that Jordan stole 30 bases for the Birmingham Barons in 1994-95 and racked up 30 steals with the Bulls after coming back to the NBA at the end of the 1994-95 NBA regular season.

Greenberg’s fourth memorable Jordan stat is “His Airness” having two of the three 100 blocks/200 steals/300 assists/300 rebounds seasons in NBA history.

Greenberg then told us his favorite MJ stat of them all: Jordan missed just 6 games in his 6 championship seasons. He lamented the trend of load management that has overtaken the league today:

“For context, this season alone, Joel Embiid has missed six games. Kawhi Leonard has missed six games, Paul George has missed nine, Kyrie Irving has missed 10, and Kevin Durant has missed 11.”

“I understand there are extenuating circumstances, but Michael Jordan played. He showed up on a Tuesday night in February in New Jersey and acted like that game was Game 7 of the NBA Finals.”

Post Edited By: Amulya Shekhar
Joel Embiid Michael Jordan Mike Greenberg

About the author

Amulya Shekhar

Amulya Shekhar is a sports junkie who thrives on the thrills and frills of live sports action across basketball, football (the American variant works too), parkour, adventure sports. He believes sports connect us to our best selves, and he hopes to help people experience sports more holistically.

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