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The Everywhere Man
The consummate player and the ultimate showman, Michael Jordan has captivated
America and is about to conquer the world alone on the mountaintop Michael
Jordan, a singular sportsman and athlete, stands at the pinnacle of his game
By Jack
McCallum
Issue date: December 23,
1991
 At the relatively tender age of 28, he stands alone on mountaintop,
unquestionably the most famous athlete on the planet and one of its most famous
citizens of any kind. We've heard it so often that it's now a cliche, though
nonetheless accurate: He transcends sports. He keeps a championship ring on his
dresser at home and will be making room for another if his team (18-3 at week's
end) plays the next six months of the season the way it has played the first
two. A two-time MVP, he was probably the best player in the world even before
Magic Johnson's retirement, but now the subject isn't even worth
debating.
He will earn about $25 million in 1992, only $3.8 million of it from his day job
-- the rest, an astonishing $21.2 million, from a flood of endorsements. His
name and his face are on sneakers, sandwiches, soft drinks and cereal boxes, to
mention just a few items. He has a lovely and loving wife, two adorable sons and
a relationship with his parents that is so good, the sappiest sitcom wouldn't
touch it. He is bothered somewhat by tendinitis and a bone spur in his left knee
but is otherwise in outstanding health. He has trouble off the tee from time to
time, but his handicap is still in single figures and any number of professional
tutors are at his beck and
call.
And, so, despite a few esthetic drawbacks -- near baldness, skinny legs, overly
long basketball trunks and the continuing tendency to stick out his tongue -- we
honor Michael Jeffrey Jordan as our Sportsman of the Year for
1991.
It is a virtual certainty that since the award originated in 1954, no athlete
has been as popular on a worldwide scale as Jordan is now and, for that matter,
has been for the last several years. He has surpassed every standard by which we
gauge the fame of an athlete and, with few exceptions, has handled the adulation
with a preternatural grace and ease that have cut across lines of race, age and
gender.
"He has a level of popularity and a value as a commercial spokesman that is
almost beyond comprehension," says Nova Lanktree, director of the Burns Sports
Service in Chicago, an organization that has been lining up athletes for
commercials and tracking their popularity for more than two decades. "It is a
singular phenomenon. It never happened before and may not ever happen
again."
Although it is the singularity of Jordan that is so often celebrated -- no one
dunks, smiles or sells sneakers the way he does -- it is no coincidence that he
is being honored by SI only after his team, the Chicago Bulls, won a
championship. Jordan's seven-year NBA career has been, curiously, both a rocket
to stardom and a struggle for vindication. To many NBA observers, the Bulls
had to win it all before Jordan could conclusively prove that he was more than a
high-flying sideshow or a long, loud ring of the cash register. They did. And so
he
did.
Superstars should be judged, first and foremost, for their consistency, their
ability to produce over the long haul, as Jordan most assuredly has (he has
averaged between 22.7 and 37.1 points in each of his eight seasons). But the
most unforgettable of the breed also offer a collection of moments, rare and
incandescent, and Jordan has given us a wide assortment of those: writhing and
twisting his way through the Celtics to score 49 and 63 points at Boston Garden
in the 1986 playoffs; exploding for 40 points to win the MVP award at his
"home" All-Star game at Chicago Stadium in '88; dribbling the length of the
floor, pulling up and hitting a 14-foot jump shot to send Game 3 of last year's
Finals, which the Bulls went on to win, into
overtime.
Is Jordan the greatest ever? A definitive answer is impossible, of course, as it
has been whenever the question has been applied to Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar
Robertson, Larry Bird or Magic. But a case can certainly be made. Of that
distinguished quartet, only Chamberlain could begin to match Jordan's pure
athleticism, but put that aside for a moment and consider his basketball skills
and the way he plays the
game:
Jordan is now a better shooter than Bird, not from long range, certainly, but
from 20 feet in. "I don't do much shooting in the summer anymore, so I don't
completely understand it myself," says Jordan. "But it's a fact. Everything
about it -- my mechanics, when to take the shot, the release -- feels better and
smoother."
He is not a better passer than the Magic of the 1980s, but were the Bulls, like
the Lakers, a fast-break team and were Jordan, like Magic, a point guard, he
very well might be. And in half-court situations, when called upon to give up
the ball under pressure and find the open man at the last conceivable second, he
is without
peer.
Jordan never put up rebounding numbers from the backcourt like those of
Robertson, who averaged 7.5 per game over 14 seasons. But the Big O played in an
era when, at 6 ft. 5 in., he was often among the bigger players on the floor,
while Jordan, in the era of the seven-footer, is no worse than the second-best
rebounding guard in today's game (behind the Portland Trail Blazers' Clyde
Drexler). Jordan and Robertson are similar in a way, dynamic, demanding and
fearless leaders who command nothing less than total respect on the floor. But
Robertson, though a superb athlete, was subject to the laws of gravity (as
Jordan is not) and was never nearly as
exciting.
Can Jordan dominate a game in the manner of Chamberlain -- he of the 100- point
game and the 50.4-point scoring average (in 1961-62)? Not when today's
double-teaming and trapping can take the ball out of one man's hands for long
stretches of the game. But by dint of nonstop effort, a rage to play that Wilt
never possessed, Jordan comes close. "Every single game, Jordan plays every
single play like it's his last," says Los Angeles Clippers guard Doc Rivers.
Then, too, Wilt never provided the level of anticipation that Jordan does merely
by touching the ball. Out comes the tongue, from side to side goes the head, and
down goes the ball in a hard dribble. What's going to happen? What will he do
now? Julius Erving came close to inspiring that same edge-of-the-seat drama, but
the Doctor never had Jordan's offensive repertoire, lacking mainly the pull-up
jumper that makes the contemporary Jordan more unstoppable than
ever.
It might be hard to fathom because he has been a household name for so long, but
Jordan is now at the absolute peak of his career and could be the league's MVP
for another three or four years. His contract (as presently structured, anyway)
extends to the end of the 1995-96 season, after which he says he'll retire.
Maybe. So, barring injury, look for, at a minimum, another 12,000 points, 1,800
rebounds, 1,000 steals, and five million tongue-waggings from the wondrous
athletic machine that is Air
Jordan.
"Michael -- he's the best," says San Antonio Spurs coach Larry Brown. "I grew
up with Connie Hawkins. I saw Julius at his peak. No one went through the ACC
like David Thompson. I love Magic and Larry. But Michael, as far as what I've
seen. . . ." Brown stops and shakes his head. "I'd pay money to see him play.
I'd pay money to see him
practice."
There are times when his teammates would no doubt pay money so that Jordan would
not practice. His almost psychotic competitiveness in even the most casual
practice situation has caused some strain over the years, much of which has been
chronicled in The Jordan Rules, the best-seller written by the Chicago
Tribune's Sam Smith. But, ultimately, what hath it wrought? A much grittier
Chicago team, that's certain. The Bulls had won 17 of their last 18 games
through
Sunday.
Jordan is, as usual, playing superbly. Never mind the scoring, a category in
which he has led the NBA for the last five seasons and in which he is leading
again, with a 29.5 average, or the shooting percentage (.531, second in the
league among guards). He and forwards Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant have
become like a Bermuda Triangle on defense, swallowing up offenses with their
court-covering capabilities, and that is why Chicago is clearly the best team in
the NBA. Jordan's detractors would theorize that he has now stepped back and
given players like Pippen and Grant the chance to breathe and make a name for
themselves. But in point of fact, Jordan's own will to succeed, as thorny as it
may sometimes be, has inspired his teammates to reach their
potential.
"I look forward to playing now, more than ever, " Jordan said recently,
relaxing in his hotel suite in Berkeley, Calif., before a game against the
Golden State Warriors. "It's the only place I can get relief from what's
happening off the court. It's always been that way to a certain extent, but it's
even more so now. Basketball is my escape, my refuge. It seems that everything
else is so . . . so busy and
complicated."
Busy he's used to. Complicated, maybe not. For perhaps the first time in his
life, Jordan is sensing a backlash against his fame, a subtle dissatisfaction
with the whole idea of Michael Jordan. He has heard it in all the talk about
The Jordan Rules, he has read it in letters to the editor, read it
between the lines. "Signs are starting to show that people are tired of hearing
about Michael Jordan's positive image and Michael Jordan's positive influence,"
said Mr. Positive Image and Positive Influence. "Five, six, seven years at the
pinnacle of success, and it's got to start turning around. I've always tried to
project everything positive. People say you need role models in the world, and
people were asking for them, and I never thought a role model should be
negative. If you wanted negativity, then you wouldn't have asked for Michael
Jordan. You might've asked for Mike Tyson or somebody
else.
"In retrospect, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should've shown some negativity, so
people had a sense of me as a human being. I could've been more honest, I guess,
about some of the mistakes I made. Like what? Well, I did hit [teammate] Will
Perdue in the face. That was a mistake, and I could've talked about it [as Smith
did in The Jordan Rules]. I've made some bad | endorsements, like Time
Jordan [a watch deal Jordan signed with a Canadian company, Excelsior, that
never got ticking]. But what do you know when you're 21 and 22 going through all
this? You mature as you go through it all, but you're not mature when it
starts."
There are not many 28-year-old multimillionaires who are forced into such
introspection about their images, and in all likelihood, a more cautious, less
childlike Jordan will evolve out of his self-examination. David Burns, president
of Burns Sports Service, says he doesn't see any backlash against Jordan: "He's
as wildly popular as ever and still worth every dollar any advertiser wants to
pay him." But Jordan feels it is better to hear the whistle in the distance
than to get run over by the train, and as a remedy for overkill, he's talking
about reducing his off-the-court commitments, taking a step back, becoming a
more private
person.
"I don't need my name in lights to keep going," says Jordan. "I know people
think I do, but I don't. If you told me in college that within a year my face
would be all over the world and millions of people would know my name, I'd have
said you were crazy. I certainly didn't turn it down when it came my way, but I
didn't ask for
it, either."
He sure got it, though, and now any conversation about him tends to sound like a
global marketing report. Remember the cynical bumper sticker that came along in
the Acquisitive Eighties? THE ONE WITH THE MOST TOYS IN THE END WINS. Well,
Jordan has the most toys. Game's over. He's won. So, let's just enjoy the
world's best basketball player at the height of his
powers.
The game, after all, is what made Jordan what he is today, and fortunately, the
game is still what he lives and breathes for. Already this season he has talked
trash with the Warriors' Tim Hardaway; shot (and made) a free throw with his
eyes closed to have some fun with Denver Nugget rookie Dikembe Mutombo; and
driven to distraction his hated rivals, the Pistons, with his usual dazzling
all-around game. He may talk about stepping out of the spotlight, but it's not
going to happen for a while, not so long as there's an acrobatic slam-dunk left
in his Air Jordans and a competitive muscle twitching in his body. The view from
the mountaintop is breathtaking, and there's no place that Michael Jordan would
rather be. Look up and revel in him, for his equal will not soon be
along.
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