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Saw a topic about this on the heat.com forums, and wanted to see what you guys thought.

I think we need to unretire Jordan's #23 and take the jersey down from the AAA rafters. I understand why Riley did it at the time, but Heat history is being written as we speak and a Bulls jersey has no place in our arena. I don't think it will ever happen while Riley is with the organization, but I'd like for it to happen some day, some how.

What do you think?

I agree. I don't care if Gandhi played for the Bulls I am not cool with another NBA team's jersey in our house. Marino is cool though.

I'l say the same thing I said on the other forums. They didn't retire a Bull's Jersey, they retired MJ's jersey. At the time a lot of people felt the #23 should be retired from the NBA as a whole (Riley being one). The idea was to start a trend, but mostly to give respect where it's due (regardless of team/franchise association), which is something people could learn from now a days. I would, as a player, have no beef with something like MJ's legacy and greatness to look up to, and remind me to play hard every game, every minute.

I don't want anyone, including Lebron wearing it. I'm glad Lebron no longer wears it and is focused on creating his own legacy not trying to replicate or 1up an icon the way Kobe did.

I have no issues with it.

I'm sorry, but the number 23 is just that...a number. Jordan's legacy and contributions to the game are undisputable, but he's not bigger than the game itself. He's not going to be "the GOAT" forever, players will surpass him in both talent and legacy in years to come. And he certainly hasn't done anything for the Heat franchise that we all support and love.

In the end, it's not a huge deal and has no effect on the goals and aspirations of the Heat team and organization. But I'd like for the number to be unretired, if only to put greater emphasis on actual Miami Heat culture, history, and tradition in our rafters.

I have no problem with the Heat retiring MJ's number.In fact,I think the NBA should "universally" retire his number, like MLB did for Jackie Robinson.

I agree. I don't want any other teams jersey being retired in the AAA. I remember Celtics fans were laughing at us on their board for having MJ's jersey retired in the rafters...

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1239870&start=15

I respect MJ but at the same time we've got 3 HOF's on our team right now and a team that has done something that even Jordan's Bulls couldn't do and that's win 27 straight games & counting...

Some seriously insecure pepole in this forum - always worring about what some idiots in the GB said, Celticds fans said that..Skip Bayless said that..WHO GIVES A ****...grow some **** balls and stop listening to what every idiot/hater/other teams fans say.

About MJ - he's the GOAT, it's about the guy and what he did for basketball and not about his former team. Dont see a reason to take his jersey down but whatever, dont really care.

I'm the minority in this.

I thought it was real great of Pat Riley to pay tribute to the GOAT and a real class act when you consider the Bulls and Heat were both rivals at that time.

Even LeBron James came to the same conclusion and said on Natl TV after a Heat-Cavs game in 09-10 that no one should ever wear the number 23 as respect for MJ and he would be switching numbers the next season.

Also, the kind gesture did not go unappreciated by the basketball gods and we've been rewarded handsomely for it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-pffU5Qbpg[/youtube]

420 wrote:I'm the minority in this.

I thought it was real great of Pat Riley to pay tribute to the GOAT and a real class act when you consider the Bulls and Heat were both rivals at that time.

Even LeBron James came to the same conclusion and said on Natl TV after a Heat-Cavs game in 09-10 that no one should ever wear the number 23 as respect for MJ and he would be switching numbers the next season.

Also, the kind gesture did not go unappreciated by the basketball gods and we've been rewarded handsomely for it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-pffU5Qbpg[/youtube]

you are in the minority because you are unbias.


Jordan is the GOAT, Riley did what the nba shouldve done already. good job by him. leave it be, no one will surpass him as GOAT. his legacy goes beyond the nba.

kevin2323 wrote:you are in the minority because you are unbias.


Jordan is the GOAT, Riley did what the nba shouldve done already. good job by him. leave it be, no one will surpass him as GOAT. his legacy goes beyond the nba.

Thanks man. Good point on Riles doing what the NBA should've done a long time ago.

I don't think they should unretire his jersey because it would be unprofessional to do it. With that being said, I don't think they should have ever retired his jersey in the first place.

I hate how Michael Jordan gets treated like the Dalai Lama. People act as if he is some untouchable god that will never be surpassed, when in reality Lebron does have a shot at surpassing him.

Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all-time at the moment, but I bet like 90% of the people that think that are incapable of explaining why. They usually just go "Dude, It's Michael Jordan." "Duh, it's Michael Jordan." "He is the greatest of all-time because.........he is Michael Jordan."

It is honestly disrespectful to other great players like Russell, Magic, Kareem, etc. to say stuff like that. It kind of makes Lebron's jersey change stupid too because he changed his number from 23 to 6, so instead of disrespecting Jordan, he decides to disrespect Russell and Erving instead.

Why? How would you look retiring a jersey and then unretiring it? Just leave it there. Never agreed with it in the first place but what has been done has been done. Let it go.

Meh, what's done is done, taking it down now would be almost as stupid as putting it up in the first place...

I have no problem with MJ being in the rafters, because it doesn't effect me or this team in any way, but I think that retiring jerseys should be something really special and universal, reserved for the best players and legends of the game of each individual franchise. You see the Lakers retiring Wilt, West, Baylor, Goodrich, Kareem, Magic, Wilkes, Worthy, Shaq. These guys either played the majority of their career as Laker players or had massive contributions to the team's overall legacy, but mostly did both. That is what warrants jersey retirements for me. Now, every franchise doesn't have the history Lakers & Boston has, that much is clear, and every franchise has their own 'rule of honoring', but seeing teams retire players like Jeff Hornacek (courtesy of the Utah Jazz) for example is really puzzling. Not only was Hornacek NOT an elite player, he didn't even win any chips in Utah and he played like 6 seasons there. What the hell?

Next thing I know, the Heat will be retiring Haslem's jersey... I can already picture this. Now, I love UD, he's won 2 chips here (possibly will win even more) and is a long time Heat player. Leads the Heat franchise in rebounds... But at the end of the day, he's still a role player, and role players, in my mind, have no business having their jerseys in the rafters. No disrespect, it is how it is.

Right now, the only guy deserving of his jerseys in the rafters for Miami is Zo. A champion, 10 years with the Heat, franchise player, one of the best defenders of all-time. Jordan wasn't a Heat and Marino has nothing to do with basketball. Tim Hardaway was only a two-time All-Star with the Heat in his 5 years, how is that jersey retirement material? Even Shaq has a better resume as a Heat player than him, should we retire Shaq as well then? See, when you lower the bar, you can sneak a lot of players on there.

Zo, Wade, LeBron & Bosh, those guys should be in the rafters, everybody else... no.

It would be so unbelievably lame to un-retire someone's number lol

I never liked the idea of retiring the number, and hate it to this day. However, unretiring a number would be worse than retiring it in the first place. It would be a bad look for us as a franchise. The justification for it was sound, even if I don't like it. PEACE.

LOL funny how you guys are posting in here right after a loss to the Bulls

Let it go guys, no point in unretiring it. As others have said, unretiring it would be WORSE than retiring it.

That would be a dumb move and disrespectful.

Unretiring a number is not some unheard of concept: http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/i ... ey-numbers

Do you hear anyone calling the University of Michigan "disrespectful" or "dumb"? And the players they unretired actually played for their team...

(I would have used the Marlins as an example of unretiring a number, but that's an organization that's anything but classy Nevertheless, once they did it, people talked about it for maybe a couple of days, and then promptly forgot about it.)

I just really love the Heat and really hate the Bulls. Maybe if Jordan played for the Knicks and there was a New York jersey in our rafters, people would feel differently.

Is it really retired though? I think if LeBron came over from Cleveland wanting to wear #23, he'd be wearing it. Marino's number is "retired" too but Mike is still wearing the number. If it's not hanging next to Tim and Zo's banners, it's not really retired in my book.