If Michael Jordan Had Never Retired

He would have been even more of a slam dunk — basketball metaphor! — as the best player in the history of the game, obviously. But how much more? Basketball Prospectus’s Kevin Pelton brings the numbers. What if Michael Jordan had never taken his years off?

When we add up the projections for Jordan’s missing seasons and subtract what he actually accomplished during the 17 games he played for Chicago at the tail end of the 1994-95 season while wearing the number 45, the difference is significant. Based on a relatively conservative projection, Jordan missed out on 8,702 points, more than 2,000 rebounds and nearly 1,400 assists.

Those added points would have put Jordan over the 40,000 mark somewhere around 2002-03, Pelton suspects, meaning he would have been the first player in the history of the game to top the mark. In other news: Michael Jordan was good at this thing you call “basket-ball.”