Michael Jordan: Game Logs From His Pre-NBA Days

MJ. Air Jordan. 23. His Airness. The greatest of all-time. Nicknames for Michael Jordan run about as deep as his history of greatness, from the very moment he picked up a basketball. Up until recently, much of Jordan’s performances from his pre-NBA playing days were nothing more than folklore or grainy YouTube videos, at least as far as collective databases go.

Thanks to author Todd Spehr and Basketball-Reference.com’s David Corby, we now have a comprehensive game log of every organized game of basketball Jordan played since his sophomore year of high school, even summer exhibition games.

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Despite improving his midrange and post game over the years, MJ was always a born scorer, averaging 25.8 points per game over his two years on varsity in high school. Continuing that trend in college, MJ was a heavy contributor on a stacked 1982 National Championship team at North Carolina, averaging 13.5 points per game his freshman year.

After future No. 1 overall pick James Worthy left for the NBA and it became MJ’s team and his alone, the future Chicago Bulls’ legend upped his average to 20 points per game for the next two years before declaring for the draft.

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Thanks to Spehr, we now have access to each and every box score from MJ’s UNC days, but to me, the most notable find is MJ’s preseason scoring from before his rookie season.

It’s often asked when people knew Jordan would be something special, and honestly, just from looking at these box scores, it may very well have been after his second preseason game in the NBA.

Sure, it was just the preseason, but MJ was still up against NBA-level talent. And in scoring 32 points on 10-of-11 shooting (and 12-of-13 from the free throw line), he began to show exactly why he would become the greatest basketball player to ever live.

In his first preseason, Jordan averaged 22.7 points per game on over 50 percent shooting from the field, foreshadowing what may have been one of the most impressive rookie seasons of all-time.

MJ’s rookie season for reference:

Season	Pos	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	FT	FTA	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
1984-85 ★	SG	82	82	38.3	10.2	19.8	.515	7.7	9.1	.845	6.5	5.9	2.4	0.8	3.5	3.5	28.2

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/20/2015.

The rest, of course, was history. And now, thanks, to Todd Spehr and Basketball-Reference, we have it in its entirety.

You can find the complete game logs from Jordan’s pre-NBA career and his summer/preseason games here.

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