Michael
Jordan is arguably the best athlete to ever play team
sports. His million-dollar smile, his athletic achievements
and his charisma have also made him one of the most
famous (and richest) athletes in the world. Michael
Jordan has become so "likeable" that 50%
of children in the US voted him their idol. Every
time he flashes his killer smile, his cash register
rings KA-CHING! KA-CHING! If you look at talent from
a basketball perspective, there is no doubt that he
is the best. As for his acting skills, he needn't
clear out shelf space for an Oscar quite yet.
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963, in
Brooklyn, NY) is a former National Basketball Association
player, by many accounts the best in history. An unstoppable
force at both ends of the floor, Jordan ended a career
of 15 full seasons with a regular-season scoring average
of 30.12 points per game, the highest in NBA history
(fractionally ahead of Wilt Chamberlain's 30.06).
He won six championships, notched 10 scoring titles,
and was league MVP five times. He was named to the
All-Defensive First Team more than any other player,
and led the league in steals three times. In 1991,
he was named Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman
of the Year."
Jordan remains the ultimate postseason performer,
holding playoff records for most points in a single
game (63), most points per game (33.4), most points
per game in a Finals series (41.0, against the 1993
Phoenix Suns), and total points scored (541).
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Jordan was born to Delores and James Jordan in Brooklyn,
New York but spent his childhood in Wilmington, North
Carolina. He was educated at Emsley A. Laney High
School and later at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, where he was a geography major. Jordan
played basketball for Laney High School in Wilmington,
North Carolina. Ironically, Jordan was cut from the
varsity team as a sophomore. Instead of giving up
after failing to make the team, Jordan used it to
spur himself to greater achievements, practicing hour
after hour on the court. "Whenever I was working
out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I'd
close my eyes and see that list in the locker room
without my name on it," Jordan said, "and
that usually got me going again." He eventually
made the team and led it to the state championship.
Between
the 10th and 11th grade, Jordan grew from 5'11"
to 6'3", and because he had improved greatly
as a player, he made the varsity team the following
year. Jordan played so well in his junior season that
he was invited to attend the Five-Star Camp in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, during the summer before his senior
year. By the time Jordan was finishing his senior
year at Laney; he had grown to 6'5" and attained
a basketball scholarship from the University of North
Carolina.
Jordan has two older brothers (Larry and James), one
older sister (Delores) and one younger sister (Roslyn).
James R. Jordan is a Sergeant Major in the 35th Signal
Brigade of the XVIII Airborne Corps in the U.S. Army.
James R. gained certain celebrity himself when he
announced, at the age of 47, that he intended to stay
in Iraq until the Iraqi invasion ends. Michael Jordan
currently lives in Highland Park, Illinois.
As a UNC freshman, Jordan was an exciting, but not
dominant, player. He ended the 1982 year in grand
style, hitting the winning shot in the 1982 NCAA championship
game. By his sophomore year, he was clearly the team's
biggest star; as a junior, he was named the national
player of the year. He was selected by the Chicago
Bulls in the first round of the 1984 NBA Draft as
the third pick overall.
Jordan played 13 seasons for the Bulls, generally
as a shooting guard. But his height (6'6", or
1.98 m), skills, and physical conditioning made him
a versatile threat who could also play point guard
and small forward. He won six NBA Championships (1991-1993
and 1996-1998) and was league MVP five times (1988,
1991, 1992, 1996 and 1998). He was also named Rookie
of the Year (1985) and Defensive Player of the Year
(1988), and won the Finals MVP award every year the
Bulls reached the Finals -- a feat not likely to ever
be duplicated. He also earned the elusive MVP triple
crown (league, finals, all-star game) twice when he
won All-Star MVP in both 1996 and 1998 (he also won
in 1988). Only Willis Reed (1970) and Shaquille O'Neal
(2000) have won all three MVP awards in the same season.
In 1997, he also recorded the All-Star Game's only
triple-double.
Jordan's
father, James, was murdered in August 1993. While
returning from the funeral of a friend, he decided
to pull over onto the side of an interstate highway
in North Carolina for a nap. While he was sleeping,
two local criminals killed him and stole his Lexus
(a gift from Michael), but the perpetrators were quickly
found because they had made several calls from his
cell phone. Michael and family did not immediately
file a missing persons report, because the elder Jordan
frequently took long trips by himself. By the time
a report was filed, James' body, found bloated and
floating in a river, had been cremated per local health
laws as a John Doe. Media outlets initially tried
connecting James' murder to Michael's alleged gambling
habit, which had been widely publicized when Michael
admitted to losing tens of thousands of dollars betting
on his golf games.
Michael retired from basketball two days before the
1993-94 NBA season to pursue an unspectacular professional
baseball career for the Birmingham Barons, a Chicago
White Sox farm team. Many interpreted this pursuit
of another childhood dream as a way to grieve. He
batted .202 with 3 HR, 51 RBI, 30 SB (tied-5th in
Southern League), 11 errors and 6 outfield assists.
He led the club with 11 bases-loaded RBI and 25 RBI
with runners in scoring position and two outs. He
was never called up to the majors. By November of
1994, the Bulls had retired his number and erected
a life-size statue of him in front of the United Center.
He ended his basketball retirement on March 19, 1995
by rejoining the Bulls. On March 18, 1995, Jordan
announced "I'm back!" He ended his short-lived
career with baseball and rejoined the Bulls near the
end of the 1994-1995 regular season, eventually losing
to the Orlando Magic in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
"He didn't look like the old Michael Jordan,”
said Orlando's Nick Anderson.
Jordan once again had something to prove to the world,
that he was still the greatest basketball player to
ever play the game, and that he would be even greater
in the season to come. Michael Jordan led the Bulls
to an astonishing 72-10 record, the best regular season
in the history of the NBA. Jordan led the league in
scoring with 30.4 points per game, was named the All-Star
MVP, the league MVP and the NBA Finals MVP, as they
went on to win their fourth NBA championship (1996).
He was selected in 1996 as one of the 50 Greatest
Players in NBA History.
Jordan and the Bulls continued their dominance into
the next two seasons, winning two more consecutive
championships (1997 and 1998), becoming the first
team in NBA history to repeat-the-three peat (1991-1993,
1996-1998). Jordan earned All-Star MVP and league
MVP honors in 1998, led the league in scoring in all
three years of his comeback (1996, 1997, and 1998)
and won six NBA Finals MVP awards for every Finals
the Bulls have competed in. After three more consecutive
NBA titles between 1996 and 1998, Jordan decided to
retire again on January 13, 1999.
In 2001, he came out of retirement a second time to
play for the Washington Wizards, though his skills
were noticeably diminished by age. Yet despite an
injury-plagued 2001-02 season, he still averaged nearly
23 points per game. He returned for the 2002-03 season
and averaged 20 points. Playing in his 13th and final
NBA All-Star Game, he embarrassingly missed an uncontested
slam dunk -- formerly the hallmark of his career --
in front of a stunned national television audience.
Ironically, Jordan achieved another moment in his
spectacular career, scoring his 30,000th career point
on January 4, 2002 against his former team, the Chicago
Bulls. At the end of that season, he retired for the
third and final time.
Jordan played on two Olympic gold medal-winning American
basketball teams: as a college player in the 1984
Summer Olympics, and in the 1992 Summer Olympics as
a member of the original "Dream Team," with
other legends such as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
In the summer of 1984, Jordan played on the US Men's
Olympic Basketball Team under head coach Bobby Knight.
The team had such college players as Jordan, Patrick
Ewing, Chris Mullin (NBA players weren't allowed to
compete in the Games until 1992). Jordan's plays quickly
awed the other teams. He scored 14 points against
China, 20 against Canada and 16 against Uruguay. The
US won all eight of the games by an average of 32.1
points per game. Jordan led the team in scoring with
an average of 17.1 points per game. Two months after
the Olympics, Jordan played his first regular-season
game with the Chicago Bulls. Jordan immediately proved
that he belonged in the big leagues and his acrobatic
moves and hang-time won him the infamous nickname
Air Jordan. His basketball skills and allure made
him the perfect key figure to market both Nike products
and the NBA. It is also well known that Jordan kept
guard Isiah Thomas off the roster. During Jordan's
first All-Star game, Thomas is said to have orchestrated
a "freeze-out" of Jordan—in other
words, he convinced other veteran All-Stars to not
pass the ball to this cocky rookie. Some allege Thomas'
plan even extended to players on the opposing Western
Conference team, although it's admittedly hard to
see how; Johnson is generally believed to have been
a party to the freeze-out. However, by the time of
the 1992 Olympics, Johnson had worked to heal the
breach between him and Jordan, unlike Thomas.
“I can accept failure, but I can't accept
not trying.“
- Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan earns an estimated $40 million just
from endorsements from such companies as Nike, Rayovac,
Gatorade, Ballpark, Hanes, Coach Leather products,
Wheaties, his own Cologne, WorldCom telephone service,
Upper Deck, Oakley sunglasses, Wilson signature basketballs,
watches & equipments, Chicago Chevy dealers, &
NBA Entertainment/CBS-Fox home videos and now his
Jordan now has his own line of clothes!
