“Michael Jordan made 40 ppg so normal, I was more impressed by his 4 steals per game against Philly”: NBA fans react to amazing stat that puts GOAT debate with LeBron James in perspective

Michael Jordan may perhaps be one of the few truly mythical figures in sports history. NBA fans still look back in awe at some of his stats.

LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant seemed to all have a GOAT trajectory to their careers. All 4 of these players have bastions of fans who consider these modern greats to be their GOAT picks.

James is the only active player of these 4. He’s had fans rallying for him as the consensus GOAT ever since he won Finals MVP in 2016. LeBron’s Finals performance that year ranks right up there among the greatest series by any NBA player ever.

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Some of those fans would do well to go to YouTube, dig up Hardwood Classics and admire Jordan’s excellence. Because statistically speaking, Jordan’s GOAT case rests on his playoff resume.

NBA Reddit is talking about one of the more unbelievable stats from Jordan’s Bulls career today. It concerns all the players to ever have averaged 40 points per game in a playoff series.

The list of all those players is a relatively short one – only 5 players. Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Bernard King and Rick Barry have all had 1 such series in the playoffs. Jordan, meanwhile, has 5 of those series all by himself. That’s more than everyone else in NBA history put together.

Michael Jordan averaged 41 points per game in the 1993 NBA Finals

Some of Jordan’s playoff series stats are downright absurd. Take, for instance, his statline against the 1985-86 Boston Celtics in his 2nd year. The Bulls were swept, but Jordan averaged 43.67 points per game against a top-3 team in league history – no less.

Then there’s his performance against the Cavaliers in 1988 when he settled the series with ‘The Shot’. Jordan’s scoring average in that series was an absurd 45.2 points per game – a playoff record to this day.

Everyone who watched ‘The Last Dance’ knows what happened in the 1993 NBA Finals. Jordan averaged 41 points per game – a Finals record – to help the Bulls to a threepeat.

But perhaps his most underrated performance from his playoff career was in the Conference Semis against the Sixers in 1990. Jordan averaged a mind-boggling 4 steals per game to add to his 43 points and 7.4 assists per game.

There’s a reason why NBA fans wear Jordan retros to stand out from the crowd 18 years after his last bow. The man was good enough to inspire the English language with a superlative to respect him – Jordanesque.

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