OT: My summer of Jordan

[Hatertots]

I'm a Hawks fan by birth, but like many my age, I grew up watching MJ on WGN. After this season's finals ended, I still thirsted for more high quality basketball. So I took to the Internet in search of the best basketball I ever had the blessing to watch: the Jordan era Bulls of the first threepeat.

Well provisioned with Doritos and Blue Bell ice cream and.. uh... greenery, I set off on a trip down memory lane. The following is an account of the glorious homecoming to the bosom of my NBA youth.

*Although this post isn't about the Hawks, I figured we're at a slow time in Hawks news and maybe some of you also watched MJ as kids and might get a kick out of it. If the Mods decide it needs moving, that's cool, just trying to add a little change of pace.*




‘Coming Home to the Church of Jordan’ or ‘How I Spent My Summer’

I have to confess my sin: I forgot about Michael Jordan.

Not in the literal sense, of course, that’s impossible. If the man’s no longer an omnipresent media monsoon like during his heyday, then he’s at least a serious tropical storm. How many other athletes who haven’t played a meaningful game in ten years star in commercials opposite Charlie Sheen? It’s safe to say no one could forget the name Michael Jordan.

No, I committed a far worse sin. I forgot about the player.

In the 12 years since the world’s greatest shoe salesman led Chicago to the last of its six NBA titles, many a young baller has worn the weighty mantle of ‘the next Jordan.’ Young talents like Kevin Garnett, Vince Carter and most recently (and notably) Kobe Bryant have struggled to live up to our impossible expectations.

And if last season’s finals forever dispelled the myth that Kobe (or anyone else) is in fact like Mike, then the series also underscores the fundamental importance of realizing that Kobe isn’t to blame. He’s a fantastic player, one of the best in the NBA today, and he isn’t the first great player to suffer from comparison to Jordan (ask Scottie). Simply put, it’s not his fault he isn’t the greatest player of all time.

It’s our fault for forgetting that Michael Jordan, and only Michael Jordan, is.

It makes sense to excuse younger fans of the game for this mistake. After all, they were either small children or not yet born during the first reign of His Airness. If you’re under 25, you probably best remember the era of King Jordan the Second, the slightly-past-his-prime MJ who crushed the hopes and dreams of other Hall-of-Famers-to-be with his demoralizing fade aways and turn around jumpers during the second three-peat. It cannot be denied, that Michael Jordan was great.

But the Jordan of the original trilogy- the forgotten Jordan- has no peer. At the height of Jordan’s awesome powers, we basketball fans were treated to something we’d never seen before or since. We witnessed a man playing the game as well as it could be played. He could shoot the three. He could post up. Of course he had the fade away and the turn around. And he could dunk. Oh, sweet Jesus, Jordan would flick his tongue out like a striking cobra and dunk with a ferocity that might’ve legally constituted assault and battery, all while making it seem effortless. Jordan, with his combination of elite physical gifts and a pathological need to dominate, wasn’t merely great, he was damn near perfect.

The results of that marriage speak for themselves: Six NBA titles and one NCAA title. 14 MVP awards: six in the finals, five in the regular season, and three in the All-Star game, which he appeared in 14 times. Ten All-NBA first team selections. A career decorated with awards and honors built upon 32,292 points racked up at nearly a 50% shooting clip.

But if the numbers paint a picture as beautiful as any Rembrandt, they don’t tell the entire story. Only by watching the games does the difference between greatness and perfection become clear. Jordan moved on the court like a stalking panther, measuring up the kill with patience and precision. He could blow past his defender for an electrifying dunk on one possession and deliver a no look pass (in mid-air!) to the open man with rifle speed and accuracy on the next one. And when his man sagged off- just for a fraction of a second- he could bury the three-pointer like a dagger. Like Jack the Ripper, Jordan lived to cut your heart out.

When Jordan took the court, the impossible didn’t just seem possible, it seemed probable. You waited in anticipation of seeing something legendary unfold before your eyes, like the layup he needlessly switched to his left hand in game two of the series against the Lakers, a signature Jordan moment that capped off a streak of 13 consecutive made field goals. In the finals. Against Magic’s Lakers. Great players make you hope for transcendent moments. Jordan made you expect them.

Re-watching those first three championship series over the summer simultaneously dismissed the notion that Jordan’s preeminence somehow stemmed from sentimental remembrances of my childhood while steeping me in that very same sentimentality as the memories came rushing back. Like the time I faked a stomach ache to get out of going out to dinner with Mom and Dad to stay home and watch game one of the 1992 finals. And Jordan rewarded that trickery with a 35 point first half performance that left even MJ famously shrugging in disbelief as the threes rained down like manna from Heaven. Sixteen years later, I still find myself jumping up out of my seat and pumping my fist as Jordan dismantles the Blazers.

That feeling of awe in the presence of the master, the joy of watching a thing done with the utmost excellence, is what in my mind separates Jordan from everyone else, not his statistics or titles. In the end, experiencing that feeling again brought me back to basketball’s true faith and redeemed me from my idolatry. Perhaps, like me, you have forgotten the story and the glory of the Greatest Of All Time. Or perhaps you didn’t catch it the first time around. Whatever the case, a little poking around on the Internet can turn up almost every major moment of Jordan’s playoff career. If it’s been awhile since you’ve seen Air Jordan take flight (or only know him from grainy highlight clips on youtube) then you owe it to yourself to take the time to find some of his greatest hits.

Always a clutch performer, Michael Jordan won’t disappoint.

[mattlanta]

Why couldn't this just be posted over at General NBA or something.