re: How is Lebron at 38 still able to outperform MJ at 34.

People confuse pace and the 3point shot with better/worse offenses/defenses. It was literally never easier to make a FG (49.2% league average) in league history than Jordan’s rookie year. People think the 102.2 pts per 100 possessions in 1999 are some type of incredible defensive schemes, but I say the league just really sucked at shooting. Let’s isolate defense from the equation and just focus on the free throw, where no defense can be played - the stretch from 1993-94 season to 1998-99 saw the league average FT% plummet. Since the merger, league average has been 75.6%. That stretch ranged from 72.8%-74.0%, but to give you an idea of just how big that variation is, consider that the 74% number is roughly the 9th percentile since the merger, and the 72.8% is less than the 1st percentile. That’s atrocious.

The fundamentals were bad and the game was bad, and it’s just plain lazy to say it was good defense. Jordan’s dominant stretch through his first retirement was played in a game that was far more similar to 2023 than it was to 1998.