His Airness had one of his best NBA seasons in 1988 winning the scoring title and Defensive Player of the Year award
Advertisement
Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. The 6″6′ guard out of North Carolina was selected 3rd overall in the 1984 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls and took the league by storm with his arrival.
By the end of his career, Jordan had a resume boasting 6-NBA titles, 6-Finals MVPs, 10-scoring titles, 14 All-Star MVP selections, and a DPOY, to name a few.
While it is difficult to pick out which was Jordan’s best-ever season considering how good he was year after year, many believe that his best season was the 1987-88 season.
Jordan was at his peak during the 1987-88 NBA season and looked absolutely unstoppable
“There is nothing like MJ’s 1987-88 season. The combination of being the league’s best player, best scorer, best dunker, and the best defender is unprecedented”, said Chicago sports historian Jack M Silverstein in 2020.
It truly was an incredible season for Jordan who established himself as the league’s best player that year.
Jordan is also one of the three players in NBA history to win MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. The other two being Hakeem Olajuwon and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
He would go on to play all 82 games of the 1987-88 season and averaged 35.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 3.2 steals, and 1.6 blocks while shooting 53.5% from the field and 84.1% from the free-throw line.
Although Jordan had a terrific year personally, the Chicago Bulls were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by the Detroit Pistons.
The only thing that was not on Jordan’s illustrious career resume at that point in time was an NBA Championship which he would go on to win 3-years later.
