What If Michael Jordan Never Retired in 1993?

Would Jordan have won eight straight 90s championships? Would MJ have fallen to Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets? Let’s set the record straight with our handy dandy sports time machine…

WHAT IF MICHAEL JORDAN NEVER RETIRED IN 1993? Would the Chicago Bulls have gone on to win championships in 1994 and ‘95 if Jordan was still playing roundball instead of hardball? Would the Bulls still have won titles in ‘96, ‘97, and ‘98, tying the Boston Celtics’ unprecedented run of eight straight championships in the 1960s?

We’ll never know. Jordan shocked the world when he retired. Conspiracy theories abound, and some believe Jordan was suspended for gambling, but sometimes the simplest answer is right. Jordan was exhausted physically and mentally after three grueling title runs and his father’s recent murder. With nothing left to prove, Jordan told the world, “The desire is just not there anymore.” He walked away from the game he loved.

But what if Jordan hadn’t retired in 1993?

It’s a question many have asked, including serge’s new podcast Hypothetical Adventures in Sports History. Some believe Jordan would have won eight straight; others think MJ would’ve fallen to Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets. The answer might be somewhere in between. Maybe Jordan wouldn’t have won eight straight, but perhaps he wouldn’t have lost to the Rockets either. Maybe things wouldn’t have changed much at all.

We’ve spent our recent Sundays reminiscing about Jordan and the Bulls through the lens of ESPN’s The Last Dance. Now let’s take a trip back to 1993 to see how things would have played out if Jordan had never retired at all…

1993–94 SEASON

Chicago wasn’t exactly prepared for Jordan’s sudden retirement at the age of 30. Everyone in the league was shocked — including Jerry Krause and the the Bulls franchise.

Chicago still had most of its threepeat roster in place. Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant led, with veterans like Bill Cartwright, B.J. Armstrong, John Paxson, and Stacey King dotting the roster. They’d trade King for Australian big man Luc Longley that year, and Croatian rookie Toni Kukoc finally arrived stateside at age 25. This was a championship roster.

Except for one thing.

No Mike meant no team heartbeat. It meant no league-leading 32.6 points a game, no back-to-back-to-back Finals MVP, no championship swagger.

Instead, it meant Pete Myers.

The 30-year-old journeyman had played for 10 teams in seven seasons as a pro, most recently Scavolini Pesaro in Italy. Now he was being asked to replace a legend.

He didn’t.

Myers stunk. He scored only 7.9ppg despite starting 81 games, then saw his scoring average somehow drop even further in the playoffs. Myers finished the season with a -2.2 BPM and a negative VORP in what somehow turned out to be the second best season of his professional career.

The Bulls won 55 anyway and finished only two wins away from the top of the East, thanks to an MVP-campaign from Scottie Pippen.

So what happens when you replace Pete Myers with Michael Jordan?

You do the math.

Jordan was wearing down after three title runs. He played only 78 games in 1992–93, his fewest in eight seasons. Pencil Jordan in for 70, about the same number Scottie and Horace played that year. The Bulls win an extra… gotta be at least eight games, right? That gives Chicago the best record in a watered-down NBA and it means a third consecutive MVP for MJ after embarrassing voters by beating down MVP Charles Barkley in the previous Finals.

There was only one great NBA team in 1994, and it was the Seattle SuperSonics. Unfortunately, the 64–18 Sonics were upset in the first round by Dikembe Mutombo and the Denver Nuggets in the first ever 8v1 upset. That threw the real-life playoffs wide open, but in our revised version, that basically makes this a walkover for the Bulls.

A bored Chicago gets pushed to five in round one by a feisty Miami team, then beats the Pacers in the semis after Indiana upsets Orlando. That sets up another Bulls-Knicks showdown in the Eastern Conference Finals, and you already know Jordan ain’t losing that. After all, the real life Knicks took seven games to beat the ‘94 Bulls, even without MJ.

The truth is that the Knicks weren’t that great a team in 1994. They were pushed to seven by both the Bulls and Pacers before taking the Rockets to seven in the Finals. And those Rockets? They weren’t all that hot either. They went to seven against the Suns in the West semis, then ducked the Sonics in the WCF before being pushed to seven by the Knicks. These series all went long because these teams were more good than great.

The Rockets were similar to the Knicks. They sported a top-two defense and a league-average offense, with an all-time big man paroling the paint and a Hall of Fame coach… plus a bunch of guards and wings with absolutely no shot against MJ and Scottie.

Everyone loves to talk about how the Bulls had no chance against Hakeem, and The Dream puts up 29 points, 12 boards, 4 dimes, and 4 blocks a game in a memorable Finals performance. But Horace Grant holds his own against Otis Thorpe, Scottie Pippen erases a young Robert Horry, and then of course there’s Vernon Maxwell versus Michael Jordan.

LOL.

Jordan’s season scoring average dips to just above 30ppg, still good enough to lead the league an eighth consecutive season, but the Rockets have no answer for Mike. He scores 36 a game, along with six boards and seven assists, as a wearied Bulls team is pushed to the limit but wins in seven.

The Bulls become the only team in NBA history other than Russell’s Celtics to win four straight championships, who did it with two rounds of playoffs in a league with eight to ten teams.

Jordan wins his fourth straight Finals MVP.

NBA fans begin to wonder if anyone else will ever win another title.

1994–95 SEASON

And then, that summer… hope.

The league is shocked when Horace Grant leaves the Bulls. Grant pushed for a pay raise as the third member of Chicago’s title-winning core, but Jerry Krause refuses to pay up and Grant leaves to join Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway in Orlando.

Grant isn’t the only one to leave. Bill Cartwright heads west for Seattle. John Paxson retires.

The real-life Bulls signed Ron Harper to fill the Jordan hole, clearly not expecting MJ back. Our Bulls sign another former Clipper: 1988 #1 draft pick, Danny Manning. Manning was coming off back-to-back All-Star seasons and was expected to fill Horace Grant’s shoes.

He didn’t.

The Bulls miss Grant’s toughness and rebounding, and Manning offers little in defense. Chicago also signs 41-year-old free agent Robert Parish to man the paint, but The Chief has nothing left and Chicago’s interior defense suffers all season as the team faces growing questions of how they’ll deal with Hakeem, Shaq, Ewing, and Robinson in the playoffs.

Things get even worse when Manning’s knee problems return and he has season-ending surgery just before the All-Star break. Toni Kukoc never gets regular minutes and loses confidence, unable to do much in place of the injured Manning.

The Bulls are reduced to a two-man team — but one of those men is Michael Jordan.

Jordan goes to a whole other level, carrying the Bulls offense with 38.6 points a game, most in NBA history by any player not named Wilt. The Bulls barely miss a beat, screaming to a 55–19 start as Jordan and Pippen dominate the two-man game like never before.

And then: DISASTER.

It all comes crashing down when Jordan’s body can’t handle it anymore.

In the final week of March, Jordan’s ACL snaps in front of a stunned crowd at Madison Square Garden when four Knicks converge to foul him at once. Jordan sinks both free throws and grits through the final minutes to lead the Bulls to victory, but after the game, the announcement comes down.

Jordan’s season is over.

MJ wins a bittersweet MVP over Robinson and Shaq, his fourth in five years. The Bulls are still the East 1-seed, but the team is reduced to Pippen, Kukoc, and a bunch of scrubs.

Pippen plays well, but it’s not enough. The Bulls succumb to Reggie Miller’s Pacers in the second round, and Indiana moves on to face the Knicks when New York upsets Orlando with Penny and Shaq not yet ready for primetime. It’s an Eastern Conference Finals bloodbath, but Pat Riley’s guys do just enough, winning in seven.

Patrick Ewing finally makes the Finals and we get that Ewing-Hakeem Finals after all, one year later and without the streaming White Bronco coverage.

The Rockets are a 6-seed out West, but they upset the Jazz in five, then outlast the Suns in seven a second straight season. Hakeem gets the best of Admiral in the WCF and the Finals are on.

The 6-seed undersells Houston, who sense blood in the water after Manning’s midseason injury and trade Otis Thorpe and a first-round pick for Dream Team star Clyde Drexler. Ewing and Hakeem play to a draw, but the Knicks have no answer for Clyde the Glide.

The Rockets win in six, and Drexler and Olajuwon get their ring.

The Bulls have finally been dethroned… kinda.

1995–96 SEASON

It’s a lost season for Jordan and the Bulls. Jordan spends the year rehabbing his knee and finally returns to shake off the rust after the All-Star Break.

Danny Manning has another terrible injury-plagued season and gets unloaded midseason to San Antonio for the volatile Dennis Rodman as Chicago struggles to fill its power forward hole.

This year’s big free agent acquisition is guard Dana Barros. The sharpshooting Barros averaged 20.6 points and 7.5 assists a game in a breakout All-Star season for the Philadelphia 76ers the previous season, but he struggles to replace B.J. Armstrong’s veteran leadership and doesn’t live up to billing.

Scottie Pippen steps up his game in Jordan’s absence with an MVP campaign, averaging 22 points, nine rebounds, and six dimes. Pippen finishes top-three on most MVP ballots, but the award goes to David Robinson and his 59-win Spurs. A rusty Jordan averages 26.9ppg in his return after the break, clearly not quite in peak game shape yet.

The Bulls win only 53, but that’s good enough for the 2-seed in a wide-open East, and hopes begin to rise that Chicago can do just enough to win a weakened East, then let Michael Jordan do his things in the Finals.

Alas, it is not meant to be.

The Eastern Conference Finals pits the Bulls against the now dominant 1-seed Magic, where Penny Hardaway has finished runner-up MVP while Shaq and Horace Grant man the paint. Jordan plays well but not well enough, and the Bulls can’t get the job done. Orlando wins the series 4–2 to eliminate Chicago, and everyone writes off the series as a fluke and never talks about it again.

Robinson’s Spurs are upset by the Jazz, and Utah loses to the Sonics in seven. Seattle is best of the West again, and this time they make it to the Finals.

After an ugly Knicks-Rockets Finals in 1995, NBA ratings soar with the coolest Finals of the 90s featuring the Orlando Magic and Seattle SuperSonics. The stars are out for Shaq, Penny, Shawn Kemp, and Gary Payton.

It’s a wild, back-and-forth Finals and every game comes down to the final minutes, but Seattle’s defense is the difference. The Sonics win a title in front of their home crowd for the first time in 17 seasons, and Payton, Kemp, and Detlef Schrempf are NBA champions.

Seattle keeps their team for decades to come.

1996–97 SEASON

With a full offseason to rehab his knee and stew about his first playoff series loss in six years, Michael Jordan is ready.

Jordan avoids the media all summer, going silent in an unprecedented no-media policy he calls Operation Desert Storm 23.

With no appearances all summer, the media begins to whisper rumors of MJ’s demise or possible early retirement, but Jordan silences his critics with a fax released on the eve of the season. It says only two words:

I’M BACK.

Jordan and the Bulls are out for revenge. MJ scores over 30ppg a record tenth straight season. Pippen does his second banana thing, and Rodman settles into his role as a nasty defender and historically great rebounder.

The Bulls fire on all cylinders and are out for blood every night of the season. They finish the year 72–10, and Jordan wins another MVP after his incredible comeback.

Chicago trounces all comers in the playoffs before facing Karl Malone and John Stockton in the ‘97 Finals. The Jazz push Chicago to six and the game is close late when Jordan drives, gets doubled by Stockton, and dishes to a wide-open Dana Barros.

Barros drains the three, the Bulls win, and Chicago is champions again.

Barros goes down as one of the league’s all-time sharpshooters, later coaching the 2015 Golden State Warriors to an NBA championship.

Jordan and the Bulls were back.

1997–98 SEASON

The 72–10 beatdown season takes its toll on the Bulls, and Chicago shows signs of cracking in what looks like it could be a last dance of sorts for this championship team.

Pippen misses the first half of the season after late offseason surgery, and Rodman struggles to stay on the court with his own problems.

No matter.

The Bulls still have Michael Jordan, and MJ carries Chicago to 60 wins and another 1-seed. Bored voters give the MVP to Karl Malone, having not learned their lesson from the Barkley fiasco in 1993.

Sure enough, the Finals come down to the Bulls and Jazz a second straight season, and Jordan is not pleased about the Malone MVP.

It’s close late in Game 6 as MJ strips Malone and brings the ball up the court. Jordan dribbles the ball slowly as the final seconds tick down, sizing up Bryon Russell on the wing.

Jordan dekes Russell and pulls back for the jumper, then thinks twice.

Seeing a fallen Russell and a wide open lane, Jordan takes two superhuman strides to the rim and pulls the ball all the way back, mythical tongue swagging. He yams the ball over a posterized Malone, and that is the final moment of Jordan’s storied Bulls career.

The Bulls win their second straight title and sixth in eight seasons.

And then, it’s over.

Jordan retires along with Phil Jackson, and Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman leave.

The Bulls rebuild under Jerry Krause, hiring Tim Floyd to coach the team. They go 12–38 rebuilding around Barros and Kukoc and are never particularly relevant again.

The Bulls were the team of the 90s, winning championships in ‘91, ‘92, ‘93, ‘94, ‘97, and ‘98.

Jordan finishes with six titles and six MVPs, still unbeatable in the playoffs, still the Greatest Of All Time.

Hakeem loses his MVP but still beats Admiral and Ewing to get his title. Robinson loses one MVP but wins another. The Rockets lose their second title and the Sonics grab one instead. Jordan nabs one extra MVP but is still shorted on the final tally he should’ve won.

In the end, almost nothing changes.

Jordan is still the GOAT, and a healthy Jordan still never loses a playoff series in the 90s. After all, Michael Jordan is invincible.

But it turns out Jordan’s body needed that mid-90s break either way — whether Mike wanted it or not… ■

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