Houston Rockets: Why team would have beaten Jordan’s Bulls

The Rockets did win with Jordan in the league

On March 19th, 1995, Michael Jordan returned to the league. On June 14th, 1995, the Houston Rockets won the NBA championship. This timeline seems pretty solid to me.

Now what normally is said in response to this is, “Well yeah, but Jordan was rusty” or “The team needed time to get their chemistry back.” So let’s address both points.

First the rusty argument. Now during the regular season it’s true, he wasn’t playing the way he normally did. In 17 games he averaged 26.9 points per game down from his career average of 30.1. It was his fourth lowest total in a season in his career.

But he had his legs with him. He averaged 39.3 minutes a game, the fourth highest total of his career and the exact amount of minutes per game he averaged in his last full season in the league before retiring to play baseball in 1993.

So he wasn’t being worked back in slowly. He played the minutes he was used to playing. But after the regular season, the playoffs came around. And he played just as he always had before.

Here are his numbers from that 1994-95 postseason. In 10 games he averaged:

• 42 minutes per game
• 12 field goals per game on 24.8 field goal attempts per game for a .484 field goal percentage
• 6.5 rebounds
• 4.5 assists
• 2.3 steals
• 31.5 points per game.

Now here are his career playoff averages:

• 41.8 minutes per game
• 12.2 field goals per game on 25.1 field goal attempts per game for a .487 field goal percentage
• 6.4 rebounds
• 5.7 assists
• 2.1 steals
• 33.4 points per game

This is pretty much quintessential Michael Jordan in the playoffs. He averaged more points per game in this post season than half of the championship seasons (1990-91 was 31.1, 1995-96 was 30.7, and 1996-97 was 31.1)

Regular season rust. Sure. Post season rust. No.

Now to the chemistry argument. That same year the Rockets traded for Clyde Drexler on February 14th, 1995, a month before Jordan came back. Now Clyde Drexler had only played with Hakeem Olajuwon and no one else on the roster.

He had never played under Rudy Tomjanovich nor did he know Tomjanovich’s system. Vernon Maxwell was pissed he was there taking his job. Chemistry was an issue for the Rockets as well.

Jordan was at least returning to a city, team, coach, and system he was familiar with and just had to be worked back into what he already knew.

So both teams had the same problem to deal with.  I also don’t want to hear a team complain about adding the best player of all-time a little after mid-season and somehow that really threw their rhythm off. What a tough adjustment that must be getting the best player of all-time back.

So neither argument holds weight. Now Jordan was returning to play with some old teammates. But some were gone. Including the main reason the Bulls didn’t make it past the semi-finals that year.