The Chicago Bulls Would Have Won
Zero Championships Without Michael Jordan
The Chicago Bulls were founded on January 16, 1966, hoping for early success, like all new franchises. But they didn’t achieve their first championship until 25 years later, when they would draft Michael Jordan. This was a franchise altering move that would forever change the landscape of the Bulls organization. Jordan would have an immediate impact on the team by leading the league in scoring his rookie season and leading the Bulls entire team in scoring, assists, and rebounds. Jordan would also take the third worst team in the league the prior year to the playoffs with a record of 38-44 and even beat the best team in the NBA, the Milwaukee Bucks once in the series but unfortunately they would be eliminated. For the next decade Jordan would completely dominate the NBA winning many awards and Championships.
In the first article I consulted, “Michael Jordan Career Stats,” I found out just how incredible Jordan truly was. During Jordan’s fifteen-year career, he averaged 30 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists per game. Jordan currently holds the all time points a game average during the regular season and during the playoffs. If you take away the highest scorer from the Chicago Bulls they very quickly would go from best to worst, even if they tried to replace Jordan it is not possible, a reason for this is because “n 1,072 regular-season games. He was selected to play in 14 All-Star games. He won the Rookie of the Year award, 1 Defensive Player of the Year award, 5 MVP awards, 6 Finals MVP awards and 6 NBA championships”. Michael Jordan was one of one, these statistical feats he achieved would show the insane dominance he played with. You take this away from the Bulls and they would never win a championship. With all of these accomplishments Jordan achieved, this all leads to Jordan being the GOAT. No player has a greater resume as when Jordan first joined the league he was already the best, and this would continue throughout his entire career making him the GOAT.
In “Life without Michael Jordan: The Story of the 1993-94 Chicago Bulls” The Story of the 1993-94 Chicago Bulls,” Michael Jordan has just retired for the first time after the unexpected loss of his father. Jordan was coming off a championship win and an MVP season. This article explains how poorly the Bulls performed without Jordan. The team was coming off two championship wins in a row, and except for the loss of Jordan, they had pretty much the same team. And this factor proved true, with Pippen having a breakout season and coming in third in MVP voting. The Bulls finished the season at 55-27 and advanced to the playoffs, where the loss of Jordan really showed. Losing the greatest playoff scorer of all time really hurt them against other great teams, and they fell in the second round to the Knicks. Pippen did elevate his play to become the new Bull MVP but not the league MVP that Jordan was. While the Bulls were able to replace Jordan in the regular season, they couldn’t replace his ability to will his team to win in the playoffs every year.
If any basketball player can lay claim to GOAT status, it’s the player whose PRESENCE virtually guarantees success and whose ABSENCE spells failure. In my third and final article, “The Chicago Bulls’ Title Drought Without Michael Jordan ” this goes into the struggles the team faced after Jordan left. In 1998 the Bulls would finish 17th in the east after just winning the championship, with almost an identical team, the loss of Jordan would destroy them. Not only did the loss of Jordan contribute to the Bulls losing, but they would lose a massive part of the fanbase they created during his time. Some fans may have been Jordan fans and not Bulls fans, so when Jordan left so did they. The loss of Jordan also destroyed the team’s chemistry as there were now players that wanted to fill Jordans shoes and players who were only on the team to play with Jordan. The following season after Jordan retired the Bulls traded Dennis Rodman, and Pippen. The loss of Jordan gave the superstars no incentive to play for them and the Bulls would quickly go into a very long rebuilding stage which is still in effect 25 years later. This rebuild was so bad that the broadcasting networks would refuse to show their games as it was a complete disgrace to Basketball. After Jordan left, the Bulls record in the playoffs is 4-6. The Bulls who were this great franchise in the 90’s were left to nothing with the loss of Jordan besides the 6 great trophies they won.
To conclude, the Bulls record without Jordan is 207-389 in the regular season and they are 4-6 in the playoffs without him. Jordan won 6 championships for the Bulls, winning all six finals MVPs which was never done before. Without him they would have never won a single one, as we saw in the 1993-1994 season the Bulls were at their best and Jordan retired and the team that was claimed as the best in history couldn’t get past the second round without Jordan. Jordan did what many players dream to do, win a championship and he won six. No player can compare in just how great Jordan was. Jordan was the best scorer of all time and the most clutch and the loss of him is still felt within this franchise to this day. No other player will have an effect on their team for as long a period like Jordan. This is what makes Jordan my candidate for the one and only GOAT status.
References
The Chicago Bulls’ Title Drought Without Michael Jordan | BashaBearsBasketball.com. (2023, November 20). https://bashabearsbasketball.com/the-chicago-bulls-title-drought-without-michael-jordan/
Michael Jordan Career Stats. (n.d.). StatMuse. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/player/michael-jordan-1932
B, M. (n.d.). Life without Michael Jordan: The Story of the 1993-94 Chicago Bulls. Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/370455-life-without-michael-jordan-the-story-of-the-1993-94-chicago-bulls
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
HP, I probably won’t spend as much time on this Feedback session as I did yesterday on your Definition Rewrite. Just let me say this one is vastly superior to that one. Let’s go paragraph by paragraph first, then some overall notes at the end if I have anything left to say.
Paragraph 1. The Chicago Bulls were founded on January 16, 1966, it wouldn’t be until 25 years later that the team would win their first Championship.
—I don’t usually do “copy-edit” level notes on the first feedback round, but the semester is winding down, so . . .
—This is a “comma splice”—a variety of “run-on” that substitutes a comma for a period. There are several ways to correct it. Please find and fix any others you may find in your work.
SIMPLE. IT’S TWO SENTENCES. The Chicago Bulls were founded on January 16, 1966. It wouldn’t be until 25 years later that the team would win their first Championship.
COMPLEX. CREATE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CLAUSES. Although the Chicago Bulls were founded on January 16, 1966, it wouldn’t be until 25 years later that the team would win their first Championship.
BEST. RECOGNIZE THAT THEY DON’T NEED A RELATIONSHIP. AND GET RID OF THAT NEEDLESS “WOULD” TENSE.
The Chicago Bulls were founded on January 16, 1966, hoping for early success, like all new franchises. But they didn’t achieve their first championship until 25 years later, when they signed Michael Jordan.
PLEASE PURGE ALL THE “WOULD” TENSES.
In 1984, the Bulls DRAFTED Michael Jordan with the third overall selection, a franchise-altering move that would forever change the landscape of the Bulls organization. Jordan HAD an immediate impact on the team by leading the league in scoring his rookie season and leading the Bulls’ entire team in scoring, assists, and rebounds. HE ALSO LED the third-worst team in the league to the playoffs IN HIS FIRST SEASON with a record of 38-44 and even beat the best team in the NBA, the Milwaukee Bucs, IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS, but, unfortunately, NO FURTHER THAT SEASON. For the next decade, THOUGH, Jordan completely DOMINATED the NBA, winning many awards and championships.
I made many grammar and punctuation corrections to that first paragraph, HockeyPlayer. I won’t repeat that effort, so I hope you’ll internalize the improvements and apply them to your other work.
PARAGRAPH 2.
In my first article, “Michael Jordan Career Stats” I found out just how incredible Jordan truly was. During Jordans fifteen year career he would average 30 points a game, 6 rebounds a game, and 5 assists a game.
JUST ONE MORE TIME. THREE GOOD VERSIONS:
—In the first article I consulted, “Michael Jordan Career Stats,” I found out just how incredible Jordan truly was. During Jordan’s fifteen-year career, he averaged 30 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists per game.
—According to “Michael Jordan Career Stats,” very few players could “Be like Mike.” During his fifteen-year career, he averaged 30 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists per game.
—In “Michael Jordan Career Stats,” we find out just how incredible his 15-year career averages were: 30 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists per game.
The rest of your paragraph needs significant corrections for grammar and syntax errors, but we’ll have to leave that for later. You shouldn’t be counting on me for all of that.
As for the content, you’re making a case for Jordan being a great scorer, but shouldn’t you be making a bigger case, that EITHER leading your team in scoring OR catapulting them to the championships from obscurity is THE REASON HE’S THE GOAT? You need to keep your eye on the big prize here, HP. Your reader will forget your overall point if you neglect to remind her.
PARAGRAPH 3.
Similar copy-edit problems. A run-on. Misspelling of Micahel. mvp instead of MVP. Missing commas. Etc. Plus FIVE “would” tenses that need to be replaced with simple past tense.
As for content, you make a strong causal argument, but not strong enough for readers to connect all the dots. Don’t let them forget that before he left the team, Michael was the team MVP. Without him, Pippen had to become the Bulls’ MVP, but he couldn’t replace Michael, who had taken them to consecutive championships because, Most Valuable Bull for a season is not GOAT. Jordan earns GOAT votes because with him the team wins, and without him, they don’t. Baseball has a stat for that, right? WAR: Wins Above Replacement.
PARAGRAPH 4.
Lots of sentence structure problems including more WOULD tenses.
Instead of starting three paragraphs with the names of sources (why would your readers care more about where the stats come from that what they MEAN to your argument), please make sure that a reader who scans your essay by looking at the first sentences is constantly reminded of what you’re ARGUING.
“If any basketball player can lay claim to GOAT status, it’s the player whose PRESENCE virtually guarantees success and whose ABSENCE spells failure.”
The team he left behind lacked spark. They lacked leadership. They lost cohesiveness. Those intangibles don’t show up in the stats, but in this case, they’re measurable in championships won while he was there, and playoff games lost after he left.
Get it? Keep ARGUING. Dropping hints leaves too much of the power in the hands of your readers, and they have butterfingers.
CONCLUSION:
You’re closer to making a clear case here, HockeyPlayer, but you still don’t connect Jordan’s indispensability with GOAT status.
This sentence is ridiculously complicated, mostly because it’s more than one sentence you haven’t separated yet.
Jordan was the best scorer of all time and the most clutch and the loss of him is still felt within this franchise to this day.
—You missed one more chance in your closing sentence to claim that THAT’s what makes him my candidate for GOAT.
Helpful?
Don’t let me spend all this time with you and neglect me in return.
I’ll be watching for revisions.
Provisionally graded. Revisions are always encouraged (in the case of short arguments, they’re required) and Regrades are awarded for substantial improvements.
This is massively better, HP. I appreciate the effort. Again, there’s no strong evidence of research, but the arguments are beefier, and the language has improved. You still haven’t purged the odd “would” tenses. I wonder what makes them so sticky with you.
As with your DEF REWRITE, your work is still plagued with basic grammar and punctuation errors. You were wise to do the “big” work first and leave the “copy-edit” for last, but I hope you saved yourself enough energy and motivation to take this thing over the finish line.
Again, I’m going to “treat” just one paragraph of your several. It’s a MODEL of what needs to be done to the rest of your work. I’ve chosen a paragraph at random. Corrections in bold.
In “Life without Michael Jordan: The Story of the 1993-94 Chicago Bulls,” Michael Jordan has just retired for the first time after the unexpected loss of his father. Jordan was coming off a championship win and an MVP season. This article explains how poorly the Bulls performed without Jordan. The team was coming off two championship wins in a row, and EXCEPT FOR the loss of
MichalJordan, they had pretty much theexactsame team. And this[?] PROVED true, with Pippen having a breakout season and coming in third in MVP voting. The Bulls FINISHED the season at 55-27 and ADVANCED to the playoffs, WHERE the loss of Jordan REALLY SHOWED. LOSING the greatest playoff scorer of all time really hurt them AGAINST other great teams, and they FELL in the second round to the Knicks.WhilePippen DID elevate his play to become the new Bull MVP, but not the league MVP that Jordan was. While the Bulls were able to replace Jordan in the regular season, they couldn’t replace HIS ABILITY TO WILL HIS TEAM TO WIN IN THE PLAYOFFS EVERY YEAR.Regraded. As always, further Revisions are encouraged, and Regrades are awarded for substantial improvements.
More valuable improvements here since November 30, HockeyPlayer. Noted and applied to your new grade.