Is Michael Jordan’s 1987-88 DPOY Justified? New Report Claims Bulls Legend’s Stats Were Faked originally appeared in NBC Sports Chicago
From the 1987-88 season Bulls legend Michael Jordan added an imperative to his loaded resume, winning the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
Not only did he solidify himself as the league’s best offensive player and scorer, but he also completed arguments about his all-encompassing skills by earning the title of NBA’s best defensive player. No player has ever led the league in scoring and won the league’s best defenseman title in the same season.
But is Jordan’s defensive praise justified? Yahoo Sports Tim Haberstroh recently pulled back the curtain on statistical issues from Jordan’s monstrous 1987 season. They claim that some of his statistics were falsified due to Homer’s bias.
In essence, the long story explains the stark contrast between Jordan’s home and away defensive statistics. They are terrible. The disparity between blocks and steals between home and away games is a whopping 182%.
During the 1987-88 season, Jordan recorded 165 steals at home and 94 on the road. The 71-steal difference wiped out the competition that season, with Jordan’s closest difference being 47 steals in Alvin Robertson’s splits.
Jordan’s blocks at home that season also increased to 87, which is much higher than the 47 blocks he recorded on the road. His blocks at home finished 8th in the NBA, while his blocks on the road ranked 21st in the league.
Jordan averaged 4 steals and 2.1 blocks at home that season. But on the road, those numbers nearly halved to 2.1 steals and 1.2 blocks per game.
Jordan’s stock (steal and block numbers combined) finished at an impressive 5.5 per 36 minutes at home compared to 3.0 on the road. To eliminate the variable playing time away from home versus at home, using 36-minute statistics helps cover the playing time factor.
As mentioned above, Jordan’s 182% disparity between housing and road stocks represents a huge shift in numbers. No Defensive Player of the Year award winner has come close to that disparity. The closest is Mark Eaton’s DPOY award from the 1988-89 season, registering a 159% disparity.
At the time, Bob Rosenberg was the official scorer for the United Center for Bulls games. He was a home run and scoring king. He kept official statistics during games for not only the Bulls, but also the White Sox, Bears and Blackhawks. He did everything.
Shortly after he started working for the Bulls, Jordan would often visit him at the scorer’s table during check-in for a game. And he quickly discovered why.
“The first week Jordan played for the Bulls, leading scorer Bob Rosenberg looked up and found him studying the scoreboard every time he reported to the table to get back into the game,” Chicago AP writer Jim Litke wrote in 1999. “ Did not happen. It takes a long time to find out why. Knowing everyone’s point and rebound totals, Jordan knew how the next day’s newspaper reports would begin. So he took the floor and made them always start the same way: ‘Michael Jordan…’”
Rosenberg openly admitted to the Chicago Tribune that he often signaled Jordan to help him look for stats. He even recounted a time Jordan berated him in 1988 for not signaling that he was two points shy of Wilt Chamberlain’s All-Star game record of 42 points. Jordan finished with 40.
Rosenberg, while admitting to helping fill out Jordan’s statistics, denies fudging numbers to give Jordan a boost on the stat sheet. Multiple reports also accused Rosenberg of stat padding for Guy Rodgers’ assist numbers and Dennis Rodman’s rebounding numbers.
According to the story, if someone watched the Bulls-Nets game From January 29, 1988, it was possible to see the falsified numbers in action. The stat sheet says Jordan recorded 10 steals during the game. But Haberstroh claims that three of the Nets’ turnovers were credited to Jordan, even though they came in the form of dead ball turnovers, i.e. travels, offensive fouls, out of bounds, etc.
It’s a telling case, as Jordan is often used as the archetype of greatness in the NBA. Certainly, even in today’s NBA and modern sports world, statistics can often drive and influence a discussion.
Jordan led the league in steals in three separate seasons. He also has nine All-Defensive team nominations to his name, along with his coveted DPOY award.
The old saying is “Numbers don’t lie”. But do they do this? After winning the 1987-88 DPOY award, even Jordan supported that idea with this Tribune review.
“Leading the league in steals certainly helped.”
