Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player of all-time, and as such, he’s delivered some of the most indelible moments the sport has ever seen. From his game-winning baseline jumper to beat Georgetown for the 1982 NCAA title, to his series-clinching hanger over Craig Ehlo in 1989, to his title-winning shot over Bryon Russell in 1998, Jordan’s most memorable moments spanned his entire career.
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This is a man whose signature dunk spawned the logo of a multibillion-dollar shoe line, so choosing just one moment as Jordan’s most iconic is impossible. In the end, it comes down to personal preference, and many fans would say that “The Shrug” in Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals is the moment that stands alone, because not only did it occur on the biggest stage, it showed that sometimes the best player in the world could be so good that he could even surprise himself.
Jordan wasn’t known as a three-point shooter, and in those days the three was a much less important part of the game than it is now. Nevertheless, MJ set what was then an NBA record by draining six first-half threes, and after the final one he did his iconic shrug as he ran back down the court as if to say, “I don’t believe it, either.”
Jordan ended the half with 35 points (also a Finals record for a half), and the Bulls eventually took Game 1 on their way to a six-game series victory. This was the Bulls’ second straight title, and of course, they would go on to win four more in the next six years to earn their place as one of the greatest teams of all-time.
Michael Jordan had a good reason to be surprised about his Game 1 three-point barrage
MJ was only a 32.7 percent three-point shooter for his career, and in an old interview, he revealed why he purposely didn’t work on his outside shot.
“My three-point shooting is something that I don’t want to excel at, because it takes away from all phases of my game. My game is ‘fake, drive to the hole, penetrate, dish off, dunk, whatever,’ and when you have that mentality, as I found out in [Game 1] of making threes, you don’t go to the hole as much, you go to the three-point line, and you start sitting there waiting for someone to find you, and that’s not my mentality, and I don’t want to create that, because it takes away from my other parts of my game.”
Jordan’s attention to the rest of his game paid off, as he averaged 35.8 points for the series despite only going 6-18 from three after Game 1. In the 16 other playoff games that led to that Finals appearance, he attempted exactly one three per game and only made five of them, an unfathomably low number by today’s standards.
How would Jordan fit in today’s game?
It’s becoming more and more difficult to imagine how Jordan was so dominant without having much of an outside shot, because today’s game is centered so much around the three. Today, the average team shoots 37.6 threes per game, the highest number in history. The Boston Celtics shoot more than 50 per game on their own. In 1992, the league average was just 7.6.
Even Jordan’s modern competition for the GOAT, LeBron James, has embraced the three. LeBron is making 2.3 threes per game this year, which is more than Jordan even attempted in all but four years of his career. Only three times in his 15-year career did MJ ever average more than one made three per game.
It’s fascinating to think about what Jordan’s game would look like if he played today. Given the way analytics has made the outside shot such a dominant part of the game, he’d likely have no choice but to take it seriously. Would it detract from the rest of his game, though? Or would he still be the best player in the game? It’s a question without an answer, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to think about.
