These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part VIII to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at Kobe “Black Mamba” Bryant:

But to take a good look at how different their careers were, I think you always have to start off by taking a birds eye view of the comparison by checking out their individual career stats. Here is the statistical comparison below in this chart:

 
From the feedback we have received thus far on this series it seems everyone reading is anxiously awaiting our final installment, the comparison to Kobe Bryant. We can make this as simple or as complicated as we want. The simple question is ‘who would win in a game of one-on-one between Michael and Kobe? Curiously, this exact question was asked recently of Jordan at a development camp he runs. This link has his answer…..I tend not to argue with the greatest ever, so i’ll take that as fact. Let’s move on to the more complicated version then, shall we?

Statistics:

When looking at the on-court statistical comparison between the two, it is quite simply not even a contest. Quite a few Kobe fans (many of which were not old enough to watch and appreciate Jordan in his prime), will try and tell you that the statistics are an unfair comparison since Kobe came into the NBA straight out of high school and in his first couple of years did not receive the same playing time as Michael did. While I will grant them that fact, it must be duly noted that Kobe has been in the league for 13 years now, and has only had 3 seasons where he averaged over 30 points per game. Jordan on the other hand had 8 of his first 13 seasons averaging over 30 points per game. Let’s forget point scoring for a minute though, because regardless of how it plays out, Michael and Kobe are both prolific scorers. Kobe has proven that fact by scoring 81 points in one contest against the Toronto Raptors in January of 2006. In that same season of 2005-06 Kobe also put up huge scoring numbers of 35.4 ppg on the year, which was quite close close to Jordan’s phenomenal 37.1 ppg in 1986-87.

So where else is Kobe trailing Michael statistically? A lot of fans would probably key in on the fact that Michael Jordan was a better passer and outperformed Kobe quite a bit in the assists column, or they might notice that Jordan had a better field goal percentage therefore saying he was a better scorer. But where I would like to focus is on the defensive end. Kobe is a great defender, and he proved as much the last two summer’s playing for Team USA often taking it upon himself to shut down the opposing countries biggest scorers. But has it translated for Kobe to his defensive play in the NBA? We all know Michael Jordan was a 9 time NBA All-defensive First Team selection and in 1988 was voted in as Defensive Player of the Year, and for good reason. Kobe has great numbers defensively, but if you look at how Kobe trails Michael significantly in defensive rebounding, steals, and blocks you start to get a flavor for the intensity Jordan brought to both ends of the floor. Kobe is a good defender, but he definitely is a much better offensive player, and on some nights leaves nothing to be desired on the defensive end. Michael Jordan was probably one of the most offensively and defensively balanced players to ever play the game. He rarely, if ever, took a night of defensively.

Awards:

One of The Hoop Doctors readers last week when we did the Dwyane Wade comparison was kind enough to point out that of all the players compared to Jordan in this series, Dwayne Wade was the only player who has won an NBA Finals MVP Award. I would like to point out that Jordan has 6 of them, but regardless the point was well taken. Performing on the NBA’s greatest stage, the NBA Finals, and winning an award recognizing your achievement towards your contribution to your team’s success is the ultimate praise given out by the league. So to be clear, Kobe Bryant has three NBA Championships but due to the fact he played alongside the Diesel, Shaquille O’Neal, he doesn’t have any NBA Finals MVP awards as Shaq back then was clearly the dominant force driving the Lakers success. Kobe does however have a long list of awards and achievements during his career worth noting. Here is a comparison of the two player’s accolades:

 
I realize that Kobe’s career is far from over, but after 13 seasons in the league I think the above table of awards, really speaks for itself when you are looking to compare Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan. Kobe is a great player with many accolades, however Michael Jordan is in a whole other universe, as the greatest player to ever play this game.

Intangibles:

Lately there has been a lot of talk about how Kobe Bryant is the only player in the game today that has the same level of fierce competitiveness that Michael Jordan had. You know that feeling you got watching Michael play that told you he hated to lose more than anything in the world, and would do whatever it took to make sure he was a winner. Although Kobe early in his career was often labeled as selfish and only concerned with his own personal glory, over the years he has taken some huge strides towards involving teammates, and putting the team winning games before his own personal success. But regardless of how fierce a competitor Kobe is, I can’t help but think about how he ran Phil Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal out of LA a few years ago. At the time Phil was still the best Coach in the league, and Shaq was still the most dominant center and arguably the most dominant player in the league. When you really get down to comparing Kobe’s competitive edge with that of Michael Jordan you have to wonder, would MJ have ever turned away Phil Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal, regardless of his off-the-court relationships with the two? I highly doubt it. Michael loved to win too much.

The other comparison I often hear with Kobe Bryant in the last two seasons since L.A.’s rejuvenation, is that Kobe makes his team better like Michael Jordan. As far as intangibles go, I think this is a ridiculous statement. Michael Jordan in his prime was a leader that players wanted to follow. He was a guy that lead by example and his teammates followed. He was a player that did make everyone around him better, regardless of the quality of his supporting cast. When Michael did have a good supporting cast they set the record for most wins by any team ever in an NBA season at 72 wins. Kobe on the other hand is more often than not criticized by teammates after they leave LA about being a tough teammate to play with, both on and off the court. People often neglect the fact that when crunching the numbers throughout Kobe’s career the Lakers lowest winning percentages have come when Kobe averages more than 30 points a game.

So that is it for the series “The Nextology of Michael Jordan”……for now…..Why? Because the media has proven one thing over the years…although I cringe at the thought of another player being compared to Michael Jordan in the future by the media, it is bound to happen. I just hope to hell they at least wait until his career is over and done with before they pull out their lab coats and start dissecting his performances.

Tell us your thoughts below on Kobe Bryant being called ‘The Next Jordan’…..Thanks for tuning in….

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant

These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part V to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at Dwyane “Flash” Wade:

But to take a good look at how different their careers were, I think you always have to start off by taking a birds eye view of the comparison by checking out their individual career stats. Here is the statistical comparison below in this chart:

Of all the players I have covered in this series thus far, Dwyane Wade reminds me the most of Michael Jordan. I can’t pinpoint the source of the feeling exactly….maybe it’s D-Wade’s body, maybe it’s his attacking the rim with a reckless abandon, maybe it’s his steady improvement from year to year to always add a new weapon to his game, or maybe it’s his ability to dominate the game on the defensive end as much as he does on the offensive end. While i’m not so sure he will ever deserve the title “The Next Jordan”, especially after last season’s poor performance and the failings of the Miami Heat, he certainly deserves to be mentioned in the same breath. At first glance D-Wade’s 25 points per game career average may seem largely inferior to MJ’s huge 30.1 career average, however you have to take a close look at the stats to see Wade is averaging 6.7 assists per game to Jordan’s 5.3. In other words, they both are affecting the offensive in a huge way for their respective ball clubs.

I’ve made it clear throughout this series that I hate when the media anoints players as “The Next Jordan” as they are doomed to failure. But in D-Wade’s case what frustrates me most are his flashes of brilliance that are Jordan-esque. Take the 2006 NBA Finals for example. In that series Dwyane Wade single-handedly carried the Miami Heat to the NBA Championship. He looked like the second coming of Michael Jordan himself, while he averaged 35 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals for the ENTIRE SERIES! Those are numbers that in the past only Jordan could possibly put up. Especially during the playoffs when it matters the most. One of Michael Jordan’s greatest qualities in my mind was his ability to stand out when it counts. It was almost as if Michael Jordan could sense “the big moments” and turn it up a notch to perform at a level no one had ever seen from a player. That was made fact by Jordan’s 6 NBA Finals MVP awards that he has to go along with this 6 NBA Championships. The very same trait is the only way I can explain Dwyane Wade’s performance in the 2006 NBA Finals. It didn’t matter how his team was playing, he would carry the load and will them to victory. Personally when I was watching that series I was thinking to myself “holy cow this is it…Dwyane Wade has become Michael Jordan…the next Jordan is actually here.”

Then the 2006-07 season started, Miami struggled mightily and I woke up to reality. There will never be another Michael Jordan. I had bought into too much of what the hype machine was feeding me during the 2006 playoffs. Sure there are players that will come along and show flashes of brilliance that will make you wonder if they have the potential to be as good as Michael Jordan. But can they sustain it for an entire career, year after year? That has always been the problem with the label, you have to fight against the odds of injuries and sustain that high level of personal performance and domination, and couple that with team success for an entire career before anyone (in the know) will legitimately give you the title of “The Next Jordan”. Dwyane Wade is still young and has a long career ahead of him to prove that his poor team success rate in 2006-07 and 2007-08 were aberrations caused by a combination of injury and roster, and will not define his career. But ask yourself this question…..If Michael Jordan in his prime was on the 2007-08 Miami Heat, and played 51 games of the season as Wade did, would the Heat have still only won a league low 15 games? I doubt it.

Tell us your thoughts below on Dwyane Wade being called ‘The Next Jordan’…..Also stay tuned next week for Part VIII, the final installment in the “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series by Dr. Anklesnap, where I will be taking a look at Kobe Bryant and how he stacks up to his ‘Airness’.

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant

These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part V to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at ‘TMac’ Tracy McGrady:

But to take a good look at how different their careers were, I think you always have to start off by taking a birds eye view of the comparison by checking out their individual career stats. Here is the statistical comparison below in this chart:

Unlike most of the players that have been compared to Michael Jordan over the years, Tracy McGrady did not attend College. Along with Shawn Kemp, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett, he was one of the early ‘straight from high school’ success stories in the NBA. Early in his career with the Toronto Raptors people started to recognize his amazing potential as a scorer, but he was doing it in bunches and not all that consistently, so there were certainly no immediate comparisons to the great ‘Air Jordan’. It wasn’t until McGrady left Toronto and got out from under the shadow of his cousin Vince Carter that the world, and his new team the Orlando Magic, saw just how much potential McGrady really had. Tracy McGrady was a scoring machine! His last year in Toronto he scored only 15 points per game, but in his first year in Orlando he broke out huge with a 27ppg scoring average.

The next few years McGrady became known as one of the top scorers in the league consistently finishing in the top 2 or three in the scoring race. In 2002-03 he scored an average of 32.1 points per game over the entire season. This is when the comparisons to the greatest of all time, Michael Jordan, started for McGrady. Hell, in one particular regular season game in 2004 against the Washington Wizards, Tracy McGrady scored 62 points for his career high, BUT HE DID IT IN ONLY THREE QUARTERS OF PLAY! The game was out of reach so his coach sat him for the fourth quarter. This was unlike the game another great player Kobe Bryant scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors. Many consider Kobe’s 81 point performance the greatest scoring performance of the modern era. But even though the Lakers were well up on the Raptors, the Lakers Coach Phil Jackson kept Bryant in the game to see what he could do. I would love nothing more than to know how many points Tracy McGrady would have had in that one single game against Washington on March 10, 2004 if his Coach had let him play the 4th Quarter. Maybe it would have been McGrady with the greatest scoring output of the modern era?

But there were two BIG things that always troubled me about the comparisons with McGrady and Jordan. The first was that Tracy McGrady wasn’t a winner. His team was a loser in Toronto, his team lost consistently in Orlando, and even once he was moved to Houston to play with Yao Ming his team lost. Sure a lot of fans that support McGrady may point to the fact he has always been hindered by injuries, such as his chronic back spasms, or weak ankles. But none the less McGrady has failed to perform in the playoffs on the rare occasions he has been there, his team never having made it past the first round. McGrady will be lucky to play with Houston if they get as far as the 2nd or 3rd round before he retires, let alone near the greatness of MJ with his all-time highest playoff scoring average, 6 NBA titles, and as many NBA Finals MVP’s.

The second thing that bothered me back when McGrady was being compared to Jordan, was DEFENSE. MJ was one of the best defenders in the league, year after year. He was defensive player of the year in 1988, and was a 9 time All-defensive First Team. McGrady on the other hand has consistently been considered one of the worst defenders on the floor on any given night. And although he may post decent numbers in blocks and steals due to his athletic ability, he is almost always noted for his poor defensive effort given at stopping his assignment. There have been many opposing NBA Coaches that have keyed in on this fact and exploited McGrady and his lack of defensive focus. It almost has seemed in the past that McGrady would rather get into a one-on-one shootout, where neither player plays defense. This has often been the focal point of the McGrady critics who feel he never lived up to his full potential.

So for those of you who have been following this “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series carefully, you will notice we are sort of building up to something expected. We are now down to our final two subjects of comparison. That’s right folks, Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant. Stay tuned for the much anticipated comparison…..who will stack up?

Tell us your thoughts below on Tracy McGrady once being called ‘The Next Jordan’…..Also stay tuned next week for Part VI in the “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series by Dr. Anklesnap.

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant

These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part V to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at Vince ‘Air Canada’ Carter:

But to take a good look at how different their careers were, I think you always have to start off by taking a birds eye view of the comparison by checking out their individual career stats. Here is the statistical comparison below in this chart:

Vince Carter has fallen way short of the title “The Next Jordan”. While he has had a few excellent seasons in the NBA where he averaged over 25 points per game and had respectable numbers in rebounds and assists, he has lacked the consistency required to maintain those numbers year after year. Vince may be doomed by his own dunk highlight reel success, given that if he retired from the NBA today he would only be remembered as the player that dunked over 7 footer Frederic Weis in the Olympics, and/or the guy that won the NBA Dunk Contest in 2000 with the Alley-oop East Bay Funk.

I really have a hard time blaming the media for connecting the dots on this one, as you couldn’t have scripted a better comparison coming into the league. Vincent Lamar Carter is 6’6″ tall, 220 lbs, with freakish athletic ability. Just like MJ he played three seasons at North Carolina for the Tar Heels under Coach Dean Smith before entering the NBA Draft in 1998. Both were very marketable players due to their looks, social skills, and jaw-dropping jumping ability. Early in his career in Toronto, aside from being called “The Next Jordan”, Vince was also labeled “Air Canada” to further fuel the comparisons to “Air Jordan”.

Now that Vince Carter is well into his career and we can look back on what was, and maybe would ‘should have been’, we can easily identify the major difference between Vince Carter and Michael Jordan….and that’s “Heart”. Michael Jordan was as driven, competitive, and just plain stubborn an athlete you will ever see. He hated to lose, and would do whatever it took to prevent that from happening. Vince Carter on the other hand was quickly labeled as ‘soft’ and as a quitter. Many people have even referred to Vince as “Mr. Glass” due to his often injured knees and ankles. I will concede that some of the accusations against Carter may have been blown out of proportion (most likely due to the disappointment in his failure to live up to the promise he showed early in his career), but he certainly gave the media plenty of ammunition to turn on him in 2005 when he was traded to New Jersey.

Now if there is one thing you have to give credit to Carter for in the comparison…it’s his higher three-point shooting percentage than Michael Jordan. Although eventually fans and analysts would even use that against Vince, saying he developed the outside touch to avoid taking the ball to the basket for fear of getting hurt. In the fans and media’s eyes, Jordan hit the weights to bulk up to be able to better handle the contact he was taking from defenders when driving to the hoop, whereas Vince Carter decided to over utilize his outside stroke to the disappointment of fans who wanted to see acrobatic drives to the hoop.

I realize most of you reading this will consider Kobe Bryant to be the closest player we have seen to Michael Jordan, and while I would have to agree, I think Vince Carter had the most promise with his athletic ability and basketball talent. He just didn’t have the determination, drive, and leadership that it takes to be a champion.

Tell us your thoughts below on Vince Carter once being called ‘The Next Jordan’…..Also stay tuned next week for Part VI in the “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series by Dr. Anklesnap.

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant

These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part IV to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at Harold ‘Baby Jordan’ Miner:

But to take a good look at how different their careers were, I think you always have to start off by taking a birds eye view of the comparison by checking out their individual career stats. Here is the statistical comparison below in this chart:

Of all of the players in this series to be compared to Michael Jordan by the media, Harold Miner is definitely the least deserving. Once again this isn’t a knock on Harold Miner, he was a great leaper and two time dunk contest winner, but his actual all-around game was seriously lacking. In fact he only ended up playing 4 seasons in the NBA before failing to make the Toronto Raptors squad in 1996 and quietly walking away from pro basketball.

Harold Miner will always be remembered as the guy with amazing vertical leap. After being drafted 12th overall by the Miami Heat in 1992, Miner quickly earned the nickname “Baby Jordan” due to his ridiculous leaping ability. He never failed to entertain in a dunk contest, and won both the 1993 and 1995 contest. I will never forget the 1995 contest when he upset the field by taking down the defending champion and heavily favored Isaiah Ryder. Just one year earlier Ryder had shocked the world by putting the ball through his legs on a dunk coined the “East Bay Funk”. For me Miner will always be known for the style and flash he brought to the reverse dunk called the “Bread and Butter”.

But back to what counts for a minute…..on court play. Miner was all flash and very little substance. He was not a great defender, and although he shot a decent percentage, he was often in the coaches bad books due to poor shot selection. Those coaches, Alvin Gentry and Kevin Loughery, never really gave ‘Baby Jordan’ much burn. Miner only averaged 18 minutes per game throughout his short career.

After retirement, word has it that Harold Miner is now a real estate investor in Las Vegas and has continually shied away from the media and taking any interviews…

Tell us your thoughts below on Harold Minor being once called ‘The Next Jordan’ and ‘Baby Jordan’…..Also stay tuned next week for Part V in the “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series by Dr. Anklesnap.

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant

These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part III to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway:

But to take a good look at how different their careers were, I think you always have to start off by taking a birds eye view of the comparison by checking out their individual career stats. Here is the statistical comparison below in this chart:

By a look at the gross statistical differential between Michael Jordan and Anfernee Hardaway’s careers you would assume Hardaway was the least like Michael Jordan of all the player’s compared to the great one. But you couldn’t be more wrong. Before Hardaway’s career was plagued by injuries, he was arguably one of the closest players to be compared to Michael Jordan. Although not quite as accomplished of a scorer at the time, in Anfernee’s second and third season in the NBA he was averaging over 20 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals per game. He did all of this while playing second fiddle to Shaquille O’Neal on the offensive end. Penny was shooting over 50% from the field during those years, and theoretically could have been a much more prolific scorer had he been the first option offensively for the Magic instead of Shaquille O’Neal. You can’t blame Magic management though for this choice, as Shaq was a greater than 60% shooter from the field and the second most dominant big man in the game at the time.

Anfernee (who I will refer to by his nickname ‘Penny’) in his second year in the league went head to head with Michael Jordan and won. Sure he had a little help from a well known guy by the name of Shaquille O’Neal, but still he led his team the Orlando Magic to the NBA Finals in 1995 and had to get by Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the process. At the time people starting calling Penny “The Next Jordan” because he was a slashing guard of about the same height at 6’7″ (Jordan 6’6″) who could play the point guard, shooting guard, or small forward positions for the Magic. Just like with Jordan’s Bulls, most of Orlando’s plays used to run through Penny. Hardaway also had a great mid-range, back to the basket game with a great turnaround jumper. Penny most likely patterned his game in that regard after Jordan, who loved to back down smaller defenders into an area where he could abuse them with pump fakes, footwork, and a lethal jumper.

But after all was said and done however, that Penny Hardaway/Orlando Magic victory over the Jordan Bulls in 1995 would have a black mark next to it since it was the year MJ came back more than half way through the season breaking his first retirement. Analysts would eventually say that Jordan was not yet in game shape having been playing baseball instead of basketball during his hiatus. That line of thinking was ultimately cemented as fact when Jordan and the Bulls went on to win 3 more NBA titles in the following years from 1996-1998.

Four knee surgeries later for Anfernee Hardaway, and he was stripped of his explosiveness and ended up finishing out his career playing spot minutes for both the Phoenix Suns and New York Knicks. One of the most magical things about Michael Jordan was not only his consistent and maintained greatness throughout his career, but his ability to stay healthy and dominant. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was conditioning, but regardless of why, Jordan was able to sustain his brilliance. There is probably more ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’s’ following Penny Hardaway’s career than almost anyone else, but at the end of the day he was nowhere near the player Michael Jordan was, and definitely didn’t live up to the tag of “The Next Jordan”.

Tell us your thoughts below on Penny Hardaway being once called ‘The Next Jordan’…..Also stay tuned next week for Part IV in the “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series by Dr. Anklesnap.

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant

These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part II to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at Grant Hill:

But to take a good look at how different their careers were, I think you always have to take a birds eye view of the comparison by checking out their individual career stats. Here is the statistical comparison below in this chart:

Unlike Part I of this series with the comparison to Jerry Stackhouse who got skunked by Jordan, Grant Hill surprisingly has slightly better numbers than MJ in two categories, rebounds and three point percentage. The differential however in those categories is ever so slight, and doesn’t come anywhere near making up for the disparity in steals, blocks, assists, and most glaringly points. MJ averaged over 30 points per game over his entire career, whereas Hill averaged only 18 ppg.

I know a lot of you Grant Hill fans out there will point to the multitude of injuries and illnesses Grant has had to deal with and overcome throughout the course of his career, however at his best before any injuries, Grant Hill was barely scoring over 20 points per game. In fact his best season statistically came in 1999-2000 with the Detroit Pistons where he put up only 25.8 ppg. Remarkably, Michael Jordan never put up numbers lower than 26 points per game…until he was almost 40 years old… with the Washington Wizards…after two retirements…and on two bad knees. Even then Jordan put up over 20 points per game. Now that’s greatness.

So why was the media so quick to announce that Grant Hill was “The Next Jordan”? Simple: Marketability. Grant Hill was smart both on and off the court, he was well-groomed, good looking, and was perceived as “a good guy”. It was a time when the NBA needed to improve their image to one of a more family oriented game with broader appeal. Grant Hill was the guy the media and the league both loved, and he was certainly a guy that sponsors and Corporate America could stand behind. And all of this reminded the world of only one other basketball player who had been able to do all that and more from a marketing stand point. Michael Jordan.

Tell us your thoughts below on Grant Hill being once called ‘The Next Jordan’…..Also stay tuned next week for Part III in the “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series by Dr. Anklesnap.

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant

The Hoop Doctors love Michael Jordan. That’s got to be pretty obvious to everyone by now. So in honor of Michael, and to discourage the media from pretending to be clairvoyant in the future when it comes to comparing young ballers to the greatest to ever play, every week I will be shining a little light on each of the media’s shortcomings when it has come to these ridiculous and presumptuous predictions.

These posts are not intended to disrespect any of the players compared to Jordan in any way. They all had excellent careers and were or are tremendous basketball players. It is not your fault someone with very little knowledge of the game or even the skill to play this game decided to call you the “Next Jordan”. Part I to my series called “The Nextology of Michael Jordan” will be looking at Jerry Stackhouse:

When I look back on the early to mid 90’s and think of Jerry Stackhouse and his style of play, I sort of recognize why the media decided to pin the ‘Next Jordan’ tag on Stack. He was after all 6’6″ tall, with a closely shaved head, tremendous leaping ability, and to top it all off he played for the same College team Jordan did, the North Carolina Tar Heels. Just like Jordan, Stackhouse was also selected 3rd overall in the NBA draft in 1995. But to take a look at how they are different, let’s kick off a comparison of the career stats below in this chart:

So it’s quite clear that although Jerry Stackhouse was a very serviceable starter with a few good years in Philly putting up some nice offensive numbers, he fell way short of being even statistically close to “The Next Jordan”. Jordan blew Stackhouse out of the water in every statistical category that matters. In fact by the numbers one of the most glaring differences between Jordan and Stackhouse was their shooting percentages. Jordan was an almost 50% shooter from the field over the course of his career. For a shooting guard/small forward in the NBA this is an amazing statistic for even one season, let alone an entire career. Stackhouse however was a 40% shooter which is commendable, but no ‘Jordan’. And if you are one of those “defense wins championships” believers, than Stackhouse fell waaaay short, as Jordan had more than double the steals per game and double the blocks per game over the course of his career that Stackhouse achieved.

But all that said, if looking back I could only pick one reason that Stackhouse fell short of ever having deserved to be compared to the great one, it’s his ability to win. Michael Jordan played in 179 playoff games! Stackhouse recently upped his playoff numbers to 64 while going on a nice little run with Dallas as a 6th man, but still this falls way short of just how lethal a Michael Jordan team was in not only making the playoffs, but going deep once they got there. Jordan was a winner, Stackhouse is not.

Tell us your thoughts below on Stackhouse being once called ‘The Next Jordan’…..Also stay tuned next week for Part II in the “Nextology of Michael Jordan” series by Dr. Anklesnap.

Links to Other ‘Nextology’ Posts:

• Part I – Jerry Stackhouse
• Part II – Grant Hill
  
• Part III – Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway
• Part IV – Harold Minor
• Part V – Vince Carter
• Part VI – Tracy McGrady
• Part VII – Dwyane Wade
• Part VIII – Kobe Bryant