How many championships WOULD the Bulls have won with Elon Musk? A scientific investigation

Scottie Pippen has turned engagement farmer in an effort to promote a shitcoin. It’s one hell of a fall for an NBA Hall of Famer, but getting noticed by Elon Musk seems to be a favored way for desperate people to make money these days with their verified Twitter accounts.

This weekend the bootlicking went beyond the pale with one of the stupidest questions and images to ever grace social media.

It’s one thing for a delusional idiot to tweet like this, but Scottie knows the NBA and he knows damn well how stupid this is. In fact, anyone who has watched two seconds of NBA basketball in their lives knows how moronic this lob is, unless you worship the ground Elon walks on.

Let’s break this down with science though. How would Elon Musk have faired on the 1995-98 Bulls, amidst Jordan’s second three-peat after returning from retirement?

What do we know about Elon Musk, the athlete?

It comes down to this really.

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The key to this image is the bunting, which I have isolated as the “Full Flats with Stars & Stripes,” sold for $122.68 on the website “Flag and Banner.” Elon was directly in line with the patriotic bunting when he jumped, and that means we can use this to determine his vertical leap.

Flag and Banner list the bunting as having a three foot height, or 36”. From image analysis we can directly determine the height of each banner section. It’s roughly 0.42 inches per pixel from the top of the banner to the bottom of the Flag and Banner preview image. Elon’s heel falls approximately three pixels below the blue starred section of the banner. This means that projecting Elon’s vert onto the banner gives us a vertical leap of 33 pixels, or a vertical leap of 13.86 inches.

Elon Musk is listed at 6’2, which we’ll take as fact. The last part of the equation is working out Elon’s wingspan. Thankfully this photo of him with Ghislaine Maxwell is perfect to work out his arm length.

Elon most likely wears a 42 long tuxedo coat, which has a sleeve inseam of 23” and a chest width of 19.5. With Elon’s fingertips falling just below the bottom line of the coat we can calculate his total wingspan to be roughly 5’11, though we’ll round up to an even six feet to be safe.

This means that the amount of effective height a jumping Elon Musk can contest a shot at is 9’2.

So where does Elon fit into the rotation?

Musk is a critical part of the Bulls’ chances In Scottie’s assertion. That means he has to be a starter. If we look at the 1995 Chicago Bulls roster there’s only one place he fits, and that’s point guard. Obviously his height and general lack of athleticism wouldn’t allow him to contest anything around the rim, so unfortunately for Ron Harper he’s getting bounced out of the starting lineup, Steve Kerr’s minutes drop too — and the Bulls have a lineup of:

PG: Elon Musk
SG: Michael Jordan
SF Scottie Pippen
PF: Dennis Rodman
C: Luc Longley

The result of this?

Let’s just be real here: Elon would average 0.0 points in the NBA. This is a raw production drop of 8.4 points per game from the point guard position, which really wasn’t an emphasis of the Bulls’ offense.

The main problem for Chicago is on the defensive end, where Harper was four-time NBA All-Defensive team player. You’re replacing a guy who could lock down opposing point guards with … Elon Musk.

Let’s assume the entire regular season went to plan. The Bulls still manage to win 72 games and go all the way to the NBA Finals against the Seattle Supersonics. It’s here that everything goes to hell.

Elon Musk is now tasked with guarding Gary Payton. NBA Hall of Famer Gary Payton. The same Gary Payton who averaged 18.0 points in the series when he was being guarded primarily by Ron Harper, who allowed 106 points per 100 defensive possessions during this series.

Musk would be the worst defender on the Bulls, and the damage he would cause by allowing Payton to breeze by him on almost every possession is incalculable. It’s safe to estimate that GARY PAYTON would score at least 30 points per game in this series with Musk guarding him, and that might be conservative. Sure, we could assume that MJ comes over to double Payton (because at this point he has to), which would leave open Hersey Hawkins, who was the Sonics best perimeter shooter during the 1995-96 season.

If we take into account the additional 12 points a game from Payton, as well as the loss of 6.5 points that Harper scored in the series we have a -18.5 point swing for the Bulls. Here’s what happens in that series.

Game 1: Sonics win 102-101 (Bulls won 107-90)
Game 2: Sonics win 100-85 (Bulls won 92-98)
Game 3: Bulls win 101-98 (Bulls won 108-86)
Game 4: Sonics win 119-80 (Sonics won 107-86)
Game 5: Sonics win 101-72 (Sonics won 89-78)

Sonics win 1995-96 NBA Championship (4-1)

So, what about the two years following? Oh, my sweet summer child… it gets so much worse. In both 96-97 and 97-98 the Bulls faced the Utah Jazz. Now you’re asking Elon Musk to guard John Stockton, who shot 40% from three during the series.

Both series were closer than the Bulls-Sonics from 95-96. Stockton just lights up Elon from beyond the arc, and quick estimations tell me the Jazz sweep the Bulls in both series.

So to answer Scottie Pippen’s question…

“How many championships would we have won with Elon Musk?”

Negative six. Six fewer. Neither of the two three peats happen. The entire world wonders why a slow, unathletic billionaire is playing point guard for the Chicago Bulls. The entire dynasty crashes down. Phil Jackson is regarded as the worst coach in NBA history for starting someone as bad as Elon at the point. Jordan likely never returns from his retirement, knowing it would mean playing with Elon again.

I hope that answers your question, Scottie.