Fraudulent inflated stats may have led to Jordan's '87-'88 DPOY award

Yahoo Sports analyst Tom Haberstroh recently looked into data and found that Jordan's defensive averages that season—a career-high 3.2 steals and 1.6 blocks per game—could have been skewed by receiving favorable treatment from the Chicago Bulls' official scorekeeper during home games.

As Haberstroh noted, Jordan logged 165 steals in 41 games at home compared to 94 steals in 41 games on the road that season. He averaged 5.5 "stocks" (steals and blocks) per 36 minutes at home and just 3.02 stocks per 36 minutes on the road.

Jordan's 182% increase in stocks at home in 1987-88 is the biggest split difference for any Defensive Player of the Year winner in NBA history, sitting comfortable ahead of the 1988-89 winner Eaton (159%) and the 1985-86 winner Alvin Robertson (153%) in second and third place.

Haberstroh pointed out a few more oddities from Jordan's 1987-88 season. Nine of Jordan's 10 games with at least four blocks that season happened at Chicago Stadium. He also watched back six games from that campaign and found the box scores from those contests displayed 59 Bulls steals when their opponents committed just 41 live-ball turnovers, indicating there perhaps was a bit of stat-padding occurring at home.

One might interpret the disparity as a reflection of a bygone era and perhaps not unique to Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. However, Jordan’s home/road disparities stood out even among his peers that season. According to Stathead.com, Jordan posted 165 steals at home (by far the most in the NBA) compared to just 94 on the road (tied for fourth). That gap of 71 steals blew away the competition, with the next largest gap among the top 15 league leaders in steals being 47.

Crucially, the additional home steals were instrumental in Jordan achieving the title as the league leader in steals. Jordan finished with the most steals at 259, speeding past Alvin Robertson’s total of 243.

If we were to believe the official box score, Jordan was god-like at home and a mere mortal on the road. When looking at just road games, arguably a control group of impartial scorekeepers for every player, Jordan’s steal count placed not first, not second but tied for fourth with Denver’s Michael Adams. Jordan’s disparity in home steal numbers is illustrated below:

The six full games we found tapes for from Jordan’s Defensive Player of the Year campaign:

Atlanta at Chicago: Nov. 20, 1987
Indiana at Chicago: Jan. 5, 1988
Denver at Chicago: Jan. 7, 1988
Detroit at Chicago: Jan. 16, 1988
Atlanta at Chicago: Feb. 15, 1988
Boston at Chicago: Mar. 18, 1988

Lācis and I were most interested in the Feb. 15, 1988, game. The official box score indicates the Atlanta Hawks registered 10 turnovers and the Chicago Bulls tallied 10 steals. That detail immediately grabbed our attention. Turnovers fall into two categories: live-ball turnovers and dead-ball turnovers. By rule, dead-ball turnovers (i.e. traveling, out of bounds, 24-second violation, etc.) cannot be steals. For example, if, say, Atlanta’s Kevin Willis traveled on a play, a steal couldn’t be credited to a Bulls defender.

Only live-ball turnovers — like an intercepted pass or a recovered loose ball — can be assigned to a defensive player for a steal. The more live-ball turnovers in a game, the more steals in a game.

The Bulls having 10 steals on 10 Hawks turnovers meant that none of the Hawks turnovers could have been dead-ball turnovers. No travels. No offensive fouls. No ball tossed out of bounds. No 24-second violations. For an entire game. Could it be?

And then we watched the film — independently, as to avoid influencing one another’s findings. We compared notes. Turns out, we both saw the same troubling series of plays.

A 24-second violation by the Hawks’ offense. Later, Atlanta reserve Chris Washburn dribbled off his foot out of bounds. An outlet pass to Dominique Wilkins bounces off his hands and into the scorer’s table. Three dead-ball turnovers — three plays that could not have been considered a steal opportunity. And, yet, the box score indicated zero such plays.

It also meant an opportunity to hand out three excess steals to Bulls players.

We compared notes again. We both saw only two legitimate steals by Michael Jordan. The box score credited him with five. An excess of three steals. (To be precise, we saw two Jordan steals, at best, but possibly only one — when he poked the ball, chased it down and saved it from going out of bounds before throwing it directly to the Hawks for a turnover. The other play — a transition deflection by Jordan’s teammate Mike Brown that was recovered by Jordan — could have gone either way.) There were three steals unaccounted for.

The incongruent turnover/steal columns presented a glaring red flag. In the other five games we watched, the live-ball turnovers and steals did not add up, either. In the Detroit game, eight Chicago steals on six Detroit live-ball turnovers. In the Denver game, 13 Chicago steals on just seven Denver live-ball turnovers. Again and again, the official steal counts were routinely outpacing the possible number of steal opportunities. Something was amiss.

All in all, by our count, the box score showed 59 steals on 41 live-ball turnovers, resulting in a whopping 18 excess steals.

Who benefited from all those extra steals? We brought our attention to Jordan’s accounting. In the six games, the box scores indicated that Jordan’s total steal count was 28. After comparing our notes from the film study, we each counted 12 steals. An astounding difference of 16 excess steals. Almost every excess steal was being allocated to Jordan.

A pattern emerged as the games began to pile up in our film review. It appeared that Jordan benefited from deflections being erroneously recorded as steals. In games where there was a surplus of Jordan steals, we noticed that the turnover/steal counts would closer align after we counted the defensive plays that Jordan poked the ball out of bounds or back into the hands of the opposing team — even if there was no change of possession.

In the block category, it seemed that Jordan also benefited from some exceptional statkeeping. For instance, whenever Chicago Bulls forward Horace Grant blocked a shot but was whistled for the foul, he was, correctly, not credited with a block. But when Jordan did the same, his box score line tended to show excess blocks.

Something was going on. Which left only one thing to figure out: Who was the Chicago statkeeper?

They called him Rosie. A legend in the Chicago Bulls organization, Bob Rosenberg worked as the team’s scorekeeper for the Bulls from their inaugural season in 1965-66 all the way to 2023. He was there for Jerry Sloan’s age-24 season, and he was there for Michael, and he was there for Ayo Dosunmu.

The Rosenberg and Jordan dynamic was written about in the press, and reportedly at one point drew scrutiny from the league office. According to a 1989 report from the San Francisco Examiner, Rosenberg would flash hand signals to inform Jordan how close he was to a triple-double. The league reportedly stepped in and told Rosenberg to cut it out.

To our knowledge, Rosenberg has never been accused of padding statistics for Jordan. But he wasn’t without controversy. In 1998, a Western Conference executive told Sports Illustrated that Dennis Rodman received phony rebounds from the Chicago stat crew. Rodman, like Jordan’s blocks and steals in the 1988 DPOY season, showed a statistical home/road disparity in the rebounding column. Rosenberg denied the claim. Multiple writers also made reference to claims that Rosenberg stat-padded Guy Rodgers’ assist totals in his first and only full season with the Bulls in 1966-67, in which he was named an All-Star.

[see photo]

[see photo]

They found and reviewed full game tapes of games from Jordan's DPOY season









Chicago had a statkeeper that padded home numbers for decades

Interesting and believable.

Jordan still the goat and it’s not close. But he would cheat to win. Sounds on brand. I’m not surprised.

They been doing it for Bron too.

How is it believable dumbass when Jordan was robbed of the DPOY in 1987?

[see photo]

[see photo]

This is another hit piece by a Jordan hater aka LeBron fanboy.

Klutch Sports is behind this.

You're a pathetic hater.

i believe it. was listening to dan patrick, he heard the jazz stat keeper would throw stockton a few extra assists here and there

Players to Win a Championship and Lead the NBA in Scoring:

Michael Jordan: 6x
Shaquille O’Neal: 1x
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 1x
Wilt Chamberlain: ZERO

Wilt only needed to play 8-17 teams over the course of his career so he had it easy. In spite of that Wilt only won twice, and he needed Willis and Oscar's injuries in 1972 to help him.

Even when Wilt failed, Jerry West was so good he won the Finals MVP over Chamberlain. He even dropped a 43-13-12 triple double in Game 7 of the 1969 Finals, but Wilt still lost with that help.

The root of evil

Did he do the same home vs away video review for the other DPOY finalist?

was the scorekeeper, he said this a clear cut steal for Jordan

Thats fine, but can you explain how he had more steals than the other team had turnovers?

The Bulls having 10 steals on 10 Hawks turnovers meant that none of the Hawks turnovers could have been dead-ball turnovers. No travels. No offensive fouls. No ball tossed out of bounds. No 24-second violations. For an entire game. Could it be?
.

I already did


Buy just to embarrass you more

[see photo]

[see photo]

[see photo]

[see photo]

[see photo]

[see photo]

bronsexuals working overtime

i can't imagine the posts and how many pages this thread would be if it was about stat keepers cooking the books to inflate bron's numbers at home to help him win awards lmao

the hypocrisy continues

Then bulls had 10 steals but hawks only had 10 turnovers because you cant read. They rest of the bulls didn't have 10 total woth Jordan having 4 and the rest having 6...it was 6 TOTAL steals woth Jordan having 4 and the rest of the team having 2

bronsexuals working overtime

or...you n1ggas got MJ d1ck so far up your a$s you won't even acknowledge this dude watched 6 full game tapes and counted the stats and they weren't close to the official numbers