Michael Jordan unenviable awful performance still the worst in NBA history
Looking at Jordan's statistics, the 1989-90 campaign marked the first time he had shot better than 30% from three-point range
The Magic Johnson and Larry Bird rivalry might have helped bring new life to a then-struggling NBA, but they weren't the only players who transformed the league's image and took it to hitherto unheard-of popularity in the 1980s and beyond.
As the respective on-court leaders of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, Johnson and Bird were consummate team players.
But when it came to individual greatness, Michael Jordan was head and shoulders above everyone else in the NBA, even when he was lighting up defenses to the tune of more than 28 points per game as a Chicago Bulls rookie.
That said, MJ was also someone who could make his teammates better, and that was evident when the Bulls went on to win six championships (via two separate three-peats) in the 1990s.
Of course, not even a player thought of by many to be the greatest of all time can be considered perfect. Even Air Jordan had some chinks in his proverbial armor, and while he has a plethora of NBA records to his name and was unmatched on both ends of the floor for huge chunks of his career, he did have a few off-nights back in the day.
Furthermore, he also had at least one notable weakness in his skillset. Granted, it wouldn't have been a weakness for most other players, but it did manifest in one of those rare off-nights, and the all-time worst performance in the history of a certain NBA event.
Jordan's status as an all-time worst performer didn't take place in any kind of in-game setting, whether in the regular season or the playoffs. Instead, it happened in 1990 at the NBA's annual three-point contest during All-Star Weekend, where he still holds the record for lowest shooting percentage at 5-for-30 (16.67%).
Prior to recent tweaks that allowed players to score more than just 30 points at the end of each round (while giving them more time to do so), the classic rules of the contest stated that players have 60 seconds to shoot five three-point attempts each from five different spots on the floor.
That's good for a maximum of 25 attempts each, with the fifth attempt per spot, the "money ball," counting as two points instead of one if converted. With that in mind, it may be hard to fathom for some fans how MJ, who shot a well-above-average 37.6% from beyond the arc in the 1989-90 season, could only score five points out of a maximum of 30.
Looking at Jordan's statistics, the 1989-90 campaign marked the first time he had shot better than 30% from three-point range, and that season was followed up by a pair of campaigns where he converted on 31.2% and 27% of his three-point attempts. And while it's fair to say those numbers would have likely been better had he played in today's three-point-heavy era. the fact is that he never attempted more than 3.6 treys per game throughout his career — the man was no Reggie Miller or Dale Ellis as a star player from the era whose three-point shooting was his calling card.
