MJ: 'I knew it had to end'
Posted: Thursday January 14, 1999 03:00 PM
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No one will ever do it quite like Mike AP |
ATLANTA (CNN/SI) -- It is being trumpeted as the end of an era, the final
act of the greatest sportsman of our time.
But now that Michael Jordan
has announced his retirement, in maybe the most publicized farewell in
sports history, it somehow seems to be more than that.
Now, a shaky league seems destined to plunge further into uncertainty. Now,
the most highly recognized athlete ever to play a game slips farther from
the unceasing glare of public life.
"Everyone has [his] own reasons," said Jordan, resplendent as always in a
charcoal suit and gold tie while sitting next to his wife Juanita in a
packed press conference at the United Center in Chicago. "The game is
bigger than Michael Jordan."
Jordan said that he'd turned to his wife while walking to the press
conference and said the farewell reminded him of getting married.
"It was a difficult [decision], because you're giving up something you
truly, truly love," he told the room, which included Chicago Bulls owner Jerry
Reinsdorf and NBA Commissioner David Stern. "But for the sake of the mental
challenges that Michael Jordan needs ... I don't want to fool myself that
I'm 100 percent up to the challenge."
Others, however, seemed to disagree, noting Jordan's special place in the
sport.
Stern called Jordan "the greatest" to ever play the game. And Reinsdorf
announced that Jordan's No. 23 would again be raised to the rafters -- the
jersey joining the superstar in retirement.
"There will never be another Michael Jordan," Atlanta Hawks coach Lenny
Wilkens, who has won more games than any coach in NBA history, said
earlier. "There will be great players who come through this league. But
never another Jordan."
Michael Jeffrey Jordan, 35, retires with the most impressive credentials
any basketball player ever had. Ten times he led the league in scoring, the
most of any player ever. His career average of 31.5 points per game is the
best in league history. His six championships with the Bulls trail only
that of Boston
Celtics great Bill Russell.
He was MVP of the NBA Finals six times, a league record, and MVP of the
league five times, second to Russell. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt
Chamberlain, two centers, have scored more than the 29,277 points that
Jordan, officially listed as a 6-foot-6 guard, scored in his 13 NBA
seasons.
Yet Jordan's legacy lies far beyond the numbers. It lies with what he did
for the game off the court, and how he played on it.
Jordan's good looks and his disarming smile made him bankable beyond
anyone's belief, and he became the richest athlete ever because of it,
paving the endorsement way for countless other high-profile athletes. But
it was his burning competitiveness and an uncompromising will on the court
that made Jordan the champion he is.
There is a now nearly forgotten freeze-frame of Jordan -- eyes burning,
mouth forming angry words, hands balled into fists -- stalking Indiana's Reggie Miller
during a much-publicized fight in a game against the Pacers in 1993 that
perhaps best epitomizes Jordan.
It showed, more than any picture of a high-flying dunk or a twisting,
impossible layup, what made Jordan the player he is: His finesse and
artistry, his incomparable athleticism, always has been fused with a
strength of will and body unlike that seen in any player ever.
And now, still at the top of his game, still the best player in a sport
that badly needs him, he is walking away from it all.
"Basketball, to me, was the first stage in my life. It got me to this
point," Jordan told the press Wednesday. "And I knew it had to end."
Said New York Knicks
guard Charlie
Ward: "He brought a lot to the game. And he's going to take a lot out."
This is the second time Jordan has retired in the past five years, but
there is little doubt that this one will stick. When he first retired in
October 1993, shortly after his father's brutal murder and amid news that
gambling debts were much deeper than had been rumored, many fans wondered
whether that was really it for the man dubbed as "Air."
After his failed attempt at a career in baseball, they discovered it was
not. In 1995, Jordan released a short fax through the NBA office.
"I'm back," is all it said.
He won three of his six titles after his comeback.
Through all his success, through all the game-winning shots and
championship rings, though, Jordan has remained an intensely private man,
guarding his family and his personal life with vigor. A book, "The Jordan
Rules," chronicled the 1990-91 team and painted a picture of an
uncompromising man who demanded perfection from everyone around him. He has
been hounded by rumors of excessive gambling since before his first
retirement.
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Players, coaches
react |
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"It's sad for everyone to see the greatest basketball player in the world
come to that conclusion. There comes a time in every player's career that
they have to make that decision, and he feels it's his time." - Indiana Pacers coach
Larry Bird.
"We look forward to seeing him sometime in late March when he makes his
return again in Market Square Arena." - Bird joking about Jordan's
return.
"What more can he accomplish? He's won six championships, a bunch of
MVPs,! ! two Olympic titles. He's at the very top. ... Maybe he feels like
he's had enough." - Atlanta Hawks coach Lenny Wilkens.
"I don't think anyone's ready to take the baton. Michael is the Babe Ruth
and that's the truth. If we're waiting for one guy, we're going to be
waiting for a long, long time." - Turner Sports analyst and former
player Doc Rivers.
"The sad thing, where basketball is now, Michael Jordan is desperately
needed. Some fans have probably been lost, and he could help bring them
back." - Los Angeles
Lakers guard Eddie Jones.
"He dropped hints last season and last summer that this would probably be
his last go-around. Ending on top was how he wants to do it and that's
about the best way you can do it." - Bulls free agent Dickey Simpkins.
"The NBA, the fans, the players, the coaches, American society and history
are losing the greatest influence that sports has ever had. ... He has had
the most influence of any living athlete in the history of any sport when
it comes to the toy department of human affairs." - Miami Heat coach Pat
Riley.
"We have all been fortunate to have been a part of one of the most magical
rides in sports history. Now, with the NBA and the other television
partners, we have to reintroduce the new generation of stars in the NBA."
- NBC sports chairman Dick Ebersol.
"If he's finished, we're the ones who are at a loss, the fans who enjoyed
him and the players who played with him and against him." - Phoenix Suns owner Jerry
Colangelo.
"I'll tell my grandchildren I got to play against him. I'm going to miss
seeing his aer! ! ial, acrobatic moves." - Los Angeles Lakers
center Shaquille
O'Neal.
"He's what basketball should be about. He's a good role model for kids. He
exemplifies what a basketball player should be [with] the hard work and
dedication he puts toward the game." - Paul Pierce.
"I feel responsible as a young player to try to carry on the tradition
that he and other players have developed, both on and off the court."
- Lakers guard Kobe Bryant.
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Still, his popularity has grown to unprecedented heights.
Jordan's sense of style -- he made shaved heads fashionable, showed it was
OK to wear baggy shorts and earrings and slip on garish sneakers -- has
made him a successful hawker of products as diverse as underwear and
hamburgers, as different as cologne and long-distance services. His
endorsements long ago outpaced the money he made from playing basketball --
which, by the way, was an astonishing $33 million last year, most in the
league.
By some estimates, he is worth more than $500 million. By others, he has
been worth more than $10 billion to the economy since joining the NBA in
1984, including an extra $165 million in ticket sales and an extra $366
million in added TV money and the sale of merchandise.
For some, he will be remembered for that at least as much as for what he
did with a basketball.
"You can just credit Michael for a great deal of this league's success,
without a doubt," said Miami Heat center Alonzo
Mourning.
So, what next for Jordan? And what of the NBA, which sits now at the lowest
point in its history after recently settling a labor dispute that cost the
league nearly $1 billion?
The league, it seems, will live on, if not thrive, while it searches for
the next Jordan, a player who can be a success on the court and an agile
representative off it. Without Jordan carrying the Bulls, the league
certainly will be more competitive, much to the relief of some players.
"No," said Miami Heat forward Dan Majerle, when
asked if he'll miss Jordan. "Give somebody else a chance to win."
Jordan, of course, will not lack for money or challenges. He has his own
line of apparel now, a spinoff of the successful Air Jordan line he
championed for Nike, and he promises to be actively involved in the
development and marketing of that. He will continue to be a hot endorser of
several other products.
Some have suggested he has his eyes set on a career as a senior golfer,
though that has to be more than 14 years away.
"For the most part," Jordan said, "I'm just going to enjoy life."
Whatever he does, Jordan's ride with the NBA -- and the NBA's ride on
Jordan -- is over.
"I think this is probably what's best for him," former teammate B.J.
Armstrong, now with the Charlotte Hornets,
said. "He'll be successful. He'll manage to live and be successful in
anything he does."
Outside the United Center in Chicago sits a 12-foot high bronze statue of
Jordan -- legs splayed, flying in for another soaring dunk. The statue was
commissioned after Jordan's first retirement, but has stood for the past
four years as a monument to a living legend.
On the 5-foot high granite base are inscribed the words that may best
describe the man who redefined the game of basketball and became the most
beloved athlete in a nation where athletes are often deified.
"The best there ever was," it reads. "The best there ever will be."
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