Melissa Isaacson Sports Talk
Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/basketball/bulls/
April 7, 2009
Michael Jordan en route to winning the 1987 NBA All-Star Slam Dunk contest in the Kingdome in Seattle. (AP)
Sure to be overshadowed before the day was through by the Cubs' season opener, the NCAA national championship game, heck, maybe even "Dancing with the Stars," the announcement Monday morning that Michael Jordan was elected to the Hall of Fame Class of 2009 felt downright anticlimactic.
"Michael, you may have had a hunch this day would come," Jim Nantz said with an almost apologetic smile at the news conference.
It was ironic in a way, and yet perfectly appropriate for a player who actually transcends the highest honor in the game.
Great athletes always get better as the years roll by, just as stories get funnier and our dearly departed get smarter. It's not that we didn't give Jordan his proper due when he was still active. Quite the contrary.
We all recognized what we were witnessing, the scope of his greatness, the legacy he would leave. We wrote sonnets, expressed awe at the highlights, even built statues, though the Bulls could be forgiven for their prematurity on that one.
Distracting as it was, three retirements allowed us to take stock, though his last in 2003 after a rather ill-fated two-year stint with the Washington Wizards, was as forgettable in Chicago as it was regrettable for him.
But now, six years after his final game, Jordan, at 46, is at the point where his career should be properly summed up, this time with the luxury of more careful consideration, less emotion. Kobe Bryant's career has since matured, LeBron James is at or near his peak, Dwyane Wade is fully developed.
Michael Jordan at the Chicago Bulls Grant Park rally with Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, Ron Harper and Phil Jackson.
(Tribune photo by Charles Cherney / June 16, 1997)
It seems only fair to hold Jordan up to the greatest players of today, to see if we got carried away, if time and perspective has changed anything.
Thing was, though his athleticism was obviously considerable, Jordan was never considered the most gifted in the game. He was a kid who did not make the high school varsity as a sophomore, unlike many future stars; who came back to win a national championship as a freshman for North Carolina; a player who had to learn how to post up in the NBA and became one of the best; who had to learn how to shoot and became Mr. Clutch.
But asked Monday for his favorite moment in his pro career, Jordan pulled one out that no one could have expected.
"It was the third game of my rookie season and I was coming to a program that, we were rebounding, we were coming from the bottom and trying to work our way up to the top," Jordan said.
His memory was impressive in that it was indeed the third game of the '84 season, but he incorrectly recalled the Bulls coming from 16 points behind to win. Doesn't matter. What mattered is that at 21, Jordan, as he would so many times in his career, as he would have to do in lifting the franchise to new levels, carried his team to victory.
What mattered was that Jordan scored 13 of his team's final 17 and 22 of his game-high 37 in the fourth to give the Bulls a six-point victory.
The Bulls also erected a new stadium and a statue to Jordan during his first retirement in 1993.
The Bulls had actually trailed by nine points early in the final quarter and by six with less than five minutes to play. But they had lost to the Bucks by two points two nights earlier in Milwaukee. And Jordan wasn't going to lose again.
"From that point forward, I think the fans of Chicago believed that things had turned positively for the city and we actually did if you look at that," Jordan said. "That game, I think signified a change in Chicago. Those games are not always going to be a loss. As long as there's still time on the clock, you can still win the game, and from that point on, I felt like that's the type of attitude I wanted to bring to the city."
In an interview with the Charlotte Observer, former North Carolina teammate James Worthy called Jordan "a sore loser."
And maybe that's the most fitting epitaph of all. Oh yeah, and the one on that statue:
The best there ever was. The best there ever will be.
misaacson@tribune.com
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