How Much is Michael Jordan Worth in Today’s NBA?
Using random forests to predict MJ’s value in the modern game
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ESPN’s The Last Dance, the long-anticipated documentary which details the ins-and-outs of Michael Jordan’s sixth and final NBA championship in 1998 with the Chicago Bulls, left me really intrigued and wanting to know more. Being barely a year old by the time Jordan completed his last season with the Bulls, I have never truly experienced the magic of His Airness himself — how he has managed to completely dominate an era and earn legendary status as the Greatest of All Time.
Whether it’s leading the Bulls to a 72–10 record during the 1995–96 season, winning a total of 5 MVP awards or creating a shoe brand that has transformed popular culture over the years, there is widespread belief that no one will ever come close to reaching his level of greatness.
But how would Jordan compare with the players currently in the NBA today, a league which I have gotten to know so well over the years? Using analytics, I hope to find just how much MJ would be valued by a team based purely on the stats that he can deliver night in, night out.
Problem Introduction
For the purposes of this analysis, I will use a player’s salary as a metric to measure how valuable a player is. I am aware that so many players in the league are overpaid (looking at you, Andrew Wiggins) or underpaid, but I wanted to know just how much Jordan would be paid in today’s league and be able to compare his projected salary to the superstars of my time. I will apply a random forest algorithm to a dataset containing all NBA players from the 2019–2020 season, validate the accuracy of the model then test it on a new dataset containing all players in the 1997–1998 season, the season when Jordan won his final championship and respectfully earned his godlike status.
Diving into the Data
For this analysis, I retrieved NBA player data for both the 2019–20 and 1997–98 regular seasons from Basketball Reference and self-selected basic and advanced statistics…
