When did Michael Jordan really start to lose his athleticism

[Ikill]

and become more of a jumpshooter and post player

[SFMF]

after 96'

[Micku]

and become more of a jumpshooter and post player

Jordan was actually a great jumpshooter and post player in the early 90s. Most of his shots were jumpers in the early 90s.

He became more polish in the late 90s. So after the first threepeat was when he lost his athleticism. But he was still athletic after the 1st theepeat.

[BMOGEFan]

after the first 3peat.

[The_Yearning]

When he got married.

[97 bulls]

I think this is another example of people confusing a players role with ability. Jordan himself said in an interview posted by I believe RRR3 that he felt at most his athletic ability in 96 was about 5% off from what it was before he retired after 93. Then he said he lost weight in an effort to get that quickness back in 97. I believe da realists posted that one

[oolalaa]

In the 90/91 season. I remember reading in THE JORDAN RULES that his coaches had started to notice some "slippage", in terms of his athleticism.

He became predominantly a jump shooter form the 91/92 season onwards....

[Inactive]

Jordan was actually a great jumpshooter and post player in the early 90s. Most of his shots were jumpers in the early 90s.

He became more polish in the late 90s.This.

He always had the ability to post up, he just didn't utilize it that much, until Pippen became a good ballhandler. By the time he was winning championships, he was already as good a midrange shooter as anyone.

Obviously, he had lost some athleticism, when he returned in 95, and then he continued to lose a bit more every year. I don't think there is really any one season we can point to, and say this is when he stopped being the same ole MJ. He just had a slow, continuous decline in athleticism, due to age.

[Micku]

I think this is another example of people confusing a players role with ability. Jordan himself said in an interview posted by I believe RRR3 that he felt at most his athletic ability in 96 was about 5% off from what it was before he retired after 93. Then he said he lost weight in an effort to get that quickness back in 97. I believe da realists posted that one

I dunno. Feeling it is one thing and showing and doing it is another. There was a lot of times where Shaq and other players have said that did work in the offseason to gain certain abilities back, but most of the time they weren't as athletic when they were younger.

I think Jordan was more in his athletic prime in 80s, but I dunno.

[Collie]

97-98 was when I noticed it. 96 was roughly as athletic as 93 MJ, give or take a few vertical inches. 97 was hard to gauge, but he still felt athletic. He looked noticeably slower and tired by 98 though.

[bwink23]

After the first retirement....Anyone with 2 good working eyeballs can tell you that.

[HighFlyer23]

96 ... after kobe was drafted

[305Baller]

he never lost his athleticism but he started slowing down circa 90-91 i think. he started doing more reverses instead of flying over peeeps

[Round Mound]

After the first retirement....Anyone with 2 good working eyeballs can tell you that.

This

[sekachu]

After the first retirement....Anyone with 2 good working eyeballs can tell you that.


:cheers:

[Indian guy]

Stylistically, MJ adopted a more jump-shooting approach to the game from 89-90(age 27) itself, in order to dominate the ball less and open the game up for his teammates. He was still a ridiculous athlete though. MJ's athletic prime lasted till the 90-91(age 28) season, IMO. So you could say he lost a little after his first championship. He always remained a great athlete though. Even during the 2nd 3peat. Look up his games on YT. For someone well into his 30's, it's amazing how sharp and quick he was.

[woshiftren]

jordan's last athletic prime year is 89-90 season.
In 90-91, he began to slow down a little bit and he began to gain more weight. But he still had some nasty dunk at that moment

And i would say 92-93 season is the year, that Jordan's atheletisim began to decline dramatically;
Jordan ALREADY lost most of his athletisim in 92-93 season comparing what he was before 1990.

[32Dayz]

Jordan from 85-93 was his Athletic Prime.
Jordan from 85-91 was his Athletic Peak.

[woshiftren]

Jordan already lost most athleticism in 1992-1993 season.
just looked at how his fg% fallen between 91-93, and you will understand

[woshiftren]

since 1990-1991

[swi7ch]

after his first retirement.

[gengiskhan]

After the first retirement....Anyone with 2 good working eyeballs can tell you that.

What about anyone with 2 good working "balls" instead of "eyeballs"

will that do it. :rolleyes:

[boojitede]

jordan's last athletic prime year is 89-90 season.
In 90-91, he began to slow down a little bit and he began to gain more weight. But he still had some nasty dunk at that moment

And i would say 92-93 season is the year, that Jordan's atheletisim began to decline dramatically;
Jordan ALREADY lost most of his athletisim in 92-93 season comparing what he was before 1990.
you have no clue what you're talking about

[ShaqAttack3234]

Having seen at least 30+ regular season games from the '89-'90 regular season and the entire run, I can say that's when he became more of a jump shooter and started playing off the ball much more. His approach remained the same for the next few years. He still had his athleticism, though when he made the transition, nobody could watch a significant amount of games from '91 and maybe '90 in particular not see his quickness and explosiveness.

I'd say that '93 was when he seemed to lose a little athleticism, but not enough to dramatically reduce his effectiveness, and as far as his return from retirement, he actually seemed more athletic in '95 than '96, but seemed to lose the most in '98, which is also when his level of play fell off the most in the second 3peat, but he was also battling injuries that hurt his shooting early. His athleticism was always well above average for someone his age, though.

His 3 best years as far as a mix of skills, athleticism, approach and defense are '90-'92, any of them can be argued as his best. '90 and '91 are the 2 years he was the most capable individually, imo. His prime would more accurately be described as being from '89 or '90 until his first retirement in '93.

A noticeable difference between early 90's and mid/late 90's Jordan is stamina. He couldn't quite go all out defensively and still play at the same level offensively as he regularly did in the early 90's. Phil Jackson mentioned the difference in stamina and that Jordan got tired more often during the second 3peat, which is natural.

But stats can be misleading so I wouldn't go by them, while I wouldn't say pace played a big role in Jordan's numbers, particularly since even MJ's teams pace as far back as '87 and '88 was by far the slowest in the league and a pace a number of teams in the mid/late 00's were matching/exceeding. But the league did slow down considerably in the mid/late 90's, and more importantly, MJ was even more committed to the triangle. He adjusted his style as soon as Phil took over from the more ball-dominant role Collins had him in, but Phil has mentioned in Sacred Hoops that MJ became more committed to the offense and sold on it when he returned. Perhaps some of that had to do with Pippen's improvements.

As far as MJ becoming a post player, well, he had the turnaround years before he used it regularly, he was using it in '90, '92, '92 ect. when the match ups were favorable, I've seen games vs the Cavs from '90 when he went to it a lot because he had the advantage, or against Philly in the playoffs, but he didn't go to it as much on average during those regular seasons. He went to it more regularly in the second 3peat, but he had it, and most of his skills long before that.

[Smoke117]

In his late 20's so around the 93 season. There is stories about how Scottie could do shit Jordan couldn't do, so I dunno why Pip is so underrated athletically. I lost the article, but it basically was saying how Pippen did things easily Jordan COULDN'T DO in athletic test or what not. The guy actually dribbled it out and at 6'7 WITH SHOES dunked from the free throw line. He's dunked on more people than anyone wants to admit and never pushed off. Look at all of Pippens dunks and his off hand is limp...that's a bad ****ing man right there. He just went up there said **** YOU and dunked on your ass and didn't need to cheat or push your ass off.

[bwink23]

In his late 20's so around the 93 season. There is stories about how Scottie could do shit Jordan couldn't do, so I dunno why Pip is so underrated athletically. I lost the article, but it basically was saying how Pippen did things easily Jordan COULDN'T DO in athletic test or what not. The guy actually dribbled it out and at 6'7 WITH SHOES dunked from the free throw line. He's dunked on more people than anyone wants to admit and never pushed off. Look at all of Pippens dunks and his off hand is limp...that's a bad ****ing man right there. He just went up there said **** YOU and dunked on your ass and didn't need to cheat or push your ass off.



Pippen barely squeaked out that FT dunk, and Pippen has a ridiculous wingspan. I don't know anyone who really underrates Pippen athletically.

[Calabis]

After the first retirement....Anyone with 2 good working eyeballs can tell you that.

:applause:

He came back with less hops, less explosion....what happened is because he was a freak athletically,....he reinvented himself into a jumpshooter and post-up/fadeaway guy, along with knowledge, it hid the loss so damn well......plus his loss of athleticism, still put him on par with the top 1% of the league.

[pauk]

96 sounds about right

[Kobe 4 The Win]

I didn't see a huge drop off in athleticism until he was playing for the Wizards. There was some drop off after the first three peat but it wasn't major.

[nnn123]

Jordan had alien athleticism until the 92 season. That was the 1st season where, given he was still insanely athletic, he could no longer warp past opponents w/ supernatural speed. Then after that, the next obvious decline was in 96, although it's possible he purposely toned down his aggressiveness in order to preserve his body for the playoffs.

[Rake2204]

He's dunked on more people than anyone wants to admit and never pushed off. Look at all of Pippens dunks and his off hand is limp...that's a bad ****ing man right there. He just went up there said **** YOU and dunked on your ass and didn't need to cheat or push your ass off.
Pippen was a great dunker, but I account his non-use of the off-hand to his style of dunking. He appeared to have giant hands which led him to develop the Statue of Liberty style of attacking. That is, putting the ball on a pedestal, taking off of one foot, and finishing hard at the rim with his body faced up. So on the moments he was taking flight off that one foot, the style never really called for the off-hand to come airborne. As such, the one-foot takeoffs would create nasty facials like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFNekXg13dU

However, when jumping off two-feet, Pippen was subject to the same physical result of the off-arm exploding up with the body. This can be seen in many of his two-foot dunks, including #6 and #5 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_--VPPY4lA#t=1m2s. #8 in that same list is another example of his Statue of Liberty nastiness.

Point being, the propelling of an off-arm on two-foot, one-hand dunks is most often not an intentional strike. It's a matter of giving ball players more credit than they deserve. It's not particularly easy or intelligent to attempt to go out of one's way to push a defender while simultaneously attempting to complete a dunk. Plays happen so quickly that it's a player looking to dunk and whatever happens happens.

[bwink23]

I didn't see a huge drop off in athleticism until he was playing for the Wizards. There was some drop off after the first three peat but it wasn't major.


:facepalm ......:biggums:

Obviously someone who didn't see Jordan at his athletic peak.

[miller-time]

Jordan had alien athleticism until the 92 season. That was the 1st season where, given he was still insanely athletic, he could no longer warp past opponents w/ supernatural speed. Then after that, the next obvious decline was in 96, although it's possible he purposely toned down his aggressiveness in order to preserve his body for the playoffs.

i think that is a part of it. even though he would have naturally declined, he would still be able to pull off moves that he could before it would just require more effort on his part. it is the same with kobe now, he's declined but he can still pull out flashy moves if he wants.

[played0ut]

jordan's last athletic prime year is 89-90 season.
In 90-91, he began to slow down a little bit and he began to gain more weight. But he still had some nasty dunk at that moment

And i would say 92-93 season is the year, that Jordan's atheletisim began to decline dramatically;
Jordan ALREADY lost most of his athletisim in 92-93 season comparing what he was before 1990.


On the off season of '90 he intentionally started bulking up in preparation to defeat the physical pistons. He essentially chose to to gain strength/durability at the sacrifice of some speed.

[stephanieg]

It's all downhill after 25.

'80s Jordan was some sort of alien that could blow past people at will.

In the early '90s he was more reserved but could still do it. In the '93 finals he scored a lot of his points by driving into the paint.

In '96 was the first huge decrease in athleticism and he was on the wrong side of 30. He could still get past people and every once in awhile have a big dunk, but it was more methodical.

[SamuraiSWISH]

MJ became a jump shooter following his first championship season in the 1991 season. He still could attack the basket and showcase godly levels of athleticism but after 28 years old he started wisely conserving energy.

His physical prime would've ended in that 1995 season. He missed the last full year of his physical prime in the 1994 season he was off playing baseball.

Even in 1995 though coming off baseball, without the wind or leg strength he still attacked the basket with ferocity off the dribble. Could still leap and finish.

There was some to the trained eye a slight drop off in 1996, but not much. MJ himself commented on how he was maybe 90 to 95 percent the athlete he used to be by the age of 33. He was a lot stronger that season however. And heavier.

He dropped weight in 1997 to regain quickness, and explosion. Which he did. He could still leap pretty high as well. Very impressive athleticism that season for a 34 year old.

1998 however was the first true year of a drop off. When he was turning 35 years old. He still retained his quickness off the dribble. But his leaping ability, and wind was all but gone. Visibly.

'85 - '95: Air Jordan
'96 - '98: Fadeaway Jordan
2k2 - 2k3: Floor Jordan

[Calabis]

When he got married.

:bowdown:

[andgar923]

He started losing his athleticism when he lost the ability to dunk from the ft line.