The Rahooligan: Being Like Mike All Over Again

Michael Jordan never goes out of style.

Think about it for a second. During yesterday’s press conference when Mike met the media for the first time since officially announcing his (new) comeback, it was obvious that he was going to be THE story in the NBA for as long as he wants—and that his new Wizards jersey would be the year’s hot-selling item.

There hadn’t been that large a press conference for professional basketball since Jordan announced he was going to buy the Washington Wizards last year.

Whether or not you like the idea of His Airness returning to the NBA in a Wizards’ jersey for the next two years (this writer does), you have to admit that nothing is as compelling in the game of basketball as watching Jordan.

His staying power is incredible. MJ has been a star since 1983. Consider how long ago that was—most of us at Harvard were in diapers, and the Oscar for Best Picture went to Terms of Endearment.

Yeah, I’d say times have changed. But the coolness of “being like Mike” hasn’t.

Once Jordan got some other stars around him and made the Chicago Bulls a championship contender in the late 1980s, the league was his. There hasn’t been a player since—not Hakeem Olajuwon, not Shaquille O’Neal, not Allen Iverson—who has even been close to pushing Jordan off the front page.

During the “first retirement” from 1993-95 when Jordan left after three straight championships and his father’s murder, there was a slight chance his time was over. Suddenly, you no longer saw him hawking Hanes or Gatorade, the Bulls retired his number and there was even a statue built of him outside the United Center.

Usually, statues are built for the dead or dying.

But the “under-the-radar” act didn’t last for long—the fans and the media couldn’t let it. When Jordan decided to take a shot at minor-league baseball, it seemed his every at-bat was more closely scrutinized than the NBA finals between the Houston Rockets and New York Knicks.

Upon making his return to the Bulls in the first “un-retirement”, MJ found himself back in the familiar role of the league’s best player and most well-liked personality. He didn’t even have to work at getting that reputation back since no other player had stepped up in the interim.

For the next three seasons, Michael Jordan was in style as if he had never left. Who will soon forget the many memorable moments—his insistence on wearing No. 23 even after being fined, dropping 55 points on the Knicks, and of course, fighting off the flu to lead the Bulls to yet another championship?

“The Shot” over Bryon Russell is still the defining moment of Jordan’s storied career.

So when he retired again in 1998, claiming he was “99.9 percent” gone, we believed it to be true and started to give other players a chance to keep us interested. Please, we all begged, make us want to keep watching the NBA.

A few decent guys tried and failed. Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, and O’Neal, for example. A few bad apples also tried—Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Iverson—but it didn’t stick.

I know I was not alone when I heard the NBA owners were definitely going to lock out the players and jumped for joy. With the 1998-99 season sure to be shortened, maybe, just maybe, Jordan would want to play one last time?

The intense speculation surrounding the possibility of a short Jordan return overshadowed the actual story of the lockout. It had only been six months, but already most fans, reporters and, more generally, Americans everywhere realized the true post-Jordan NBA world would need years before it was fun again.

We all still wanted to be like Mike.

Unfortunately, Jordan had no plans then to return, and a thumb injury would have prevented it anyway. Still, after the first retirement-unretirement incident, we kept our eyes on him all the time.

There’s really no secret to his appeal. First of all, he’s undoubtedly (I will never back down from this position) the greatest basketball player ever. Secondly, he’s assertive and intimidating on the court, but humble and hard-working off it.

And at one point in his career, he was the world’s biggest superstar—every woman wanted him, and every man wanted to be him.

So for all the Jordan-haters out there, excuse the rest of us for having followed his every move since 1998—from the charity golf tournaments to the Wizards boardrooms, from the Space Jam redux commercials to his political endorsement of Bill Bradley.

You can watch Latrell Sprewell and John Stockton all you want on the court, but that’s still less captivating than Jordan’s off-court machinations.

Now, I’m a life-long Bulls fan, and watching the current Chicago crop of hapless tykes disheartens me. I’ve been looking for a team I can root for once the Bulls are mathematically out of the playoffs, which is usually by December. The Sacramento Kings have come close, but now I can sincerely root for Jordan’s Wizards.

Less than five years ago I wouldn’t have considered buying the jersey of a team that used to be called the “Bullets”. But put “Jordan” on the back, and now I’m styling.