Michael Jordan secured his first and only Defensive Player of the Year award during the 1987-88 NBA season. This remarkable achievement saw Jordan surpass competitors like Mark Eaton and Hakeem Olajuwon. In that same season, he also became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in scoring, averaging 35.0 points per game, while clinching the top defensive honor. Since then, no player has replicated this feat.
However, a recent analysis by Yahoo Sports analyst Tom Haberstroh suggests that Jordan’s impressive defensive stats might have been inflated by the Chicago Bulls’ official scorekeeper during home games. According to Haberstroh’s findings, Jordan recorded significantly higher defensive numbers at home, with 165 steals in 41 home games compared to 94 steals in 41 away games. On a per-36-minute basis, he averaged 5.5 steals and blocks (collectively known as “stocks”) at home, versus 3.02 stocks per 36 minutes on the road.
This discrepancy—a 182% increase in stocks during home games—stands as the largest home/road split for any Defensive Player of the Year winner in NBA history. It surpasses the splits of other notable winners like Eaton in the 1988-89 season (159%) and Alvin Robertson in the 1985-86 season (153%).
Bob Rosenberg, the Bulls’ official scorekeeper from 1965 to 2023, has never confessed to manipulating stats. Nonetheless, there’s evidence suggesting that stat-padding was not uncommon in the NBA during the 1980s and ’90s. For instance, Alex Rucker, a former statkeeper for the Vancouver Grizzlies, admitted on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast that he and other scorekeepers often inflated player stats during home games to favor their teams.
Haberstroh also highlighted other peculiarities in Jordan’s 1987-88 season. Notably, nine out of Jordan’s ten games with at least four blocks occurred at Chicago Stadium. Further scrutiny of six games from that season revealed that the box scores reported 59 Bulls steals, while their opponents only recorded 41 live-ball turnovers, suggesting possible statistical manipulation.
Despite these revelations, Jordan’s Defensive Player of the Year award remains secure, as the NBA has no plans to re-evaluate his statistics from the 1987-88 season. This intriguing examination into Jordan’s historic season sheds light on potential biases in statistical recording but doesn’t diminish his legendary status and the accolades he rightfully earned through his stellar career.
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