by Sam Smith
Baseball would have to wait.
The events surrounding the death of James Jordan—known as “Pops” to Jordan, and more of a brother than a father to Michael—were hazy to many, if not to the local police in North Carolina. Cumberland County police said Larry Martin Demery of Rowland, N.C., and Daniel Andre Green of Lumberton, N.C., both eighteen, came across James Jordan sleeping in his $50,000 red Lexus with the vanity license plate UNC 23. The car allegedly was parked along U.S. 74 near its intersection with 1-95. A Quality Inn motel was just a few hundred yards away. James Jordan apparently got off the road to take a nap, although he’d not been driving long on his way to Charlotte. The pair, reportedly attempting to rob James Jordan, shot him in the chest with a .38-caliber handgun and drove off with the car. James Jordan was to turn fifty-six on July 31. Supposedly, the two made calls on James Jordan’s cellular phone to 900 sex numbers and friends, and that’s how they were traced. Police said the two drove James Jordan just over the border into South Carolina and dumped his body into Gun Swamp Creek.
It was there, on August 3, that a local fisherman, Hal Locklear, spotted a body stuck on a tree trunk. Police labeled the fully clothed but deteriorated body a John Doe despite thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive dental work. Although the car was found August 5 by Cumberland County police, South Carolina authorities said they had no connection with the body and cremated it August 6. The car was identified as belonging to James Jordan August 12, and it was not until then the Jordan family filed a missing persons report.
Green, who was on parole from an armed robbery conviction, and Demery, who was awaiting trial on an armed robbery charge, both denied killing James Jordan—they said they found the body in the car—and police said they could not conclusively match the .38-caliber pistol found in Green’s house trailer with the bullet that killed James Jordan. But both were being held for the murder since being arrested August 15.
“Two years ago,” said Michael Jordan, he and his father had talked about Jordan’s trying a major league baseball career. James, in fact, had counseled Michael to quit basketball after the Bulls won their first NBA championship in 1991. But Michael wasn’t ready.
“This is something my father always wanted me to do,” Michael explained about the chance to play major league baseball. Father and son playing catch. Life in every backyard in America. James and Michael. That’s how it was in Wilmington, N.C., in the mid-1970s. Then, it was just a kid dreaming about major league baseball, like millions of other kids. In 1994 it is a man still dreaming about it.
Michael Jordan was thirty, retired, and getting up 6 A.M. every day to work with Jim Darrah, athletic director at the Illinois Institute of Technology, across the highway from Comiskey Park on Chicago’s near South Side. Darrah had coached actors Tom Hanks and Madonna for the movie A League of Their Own. Now, in January 1994, Darrah was working with a really big star.
“My father thought I could be a major league baseball player,” Jordan said in January after one of those workouts. “And I’m sure right now he can see me trying. I’m sure he’s watching every move that I make.”
And so began Michael Jordan’s professional baseball career, which led to an invitation to White Sox spring training, where Jordan attracted crowds of fans and media while accumulating very few base hits. After about a month of unsure swings, some three hits in twenty at bats—most balls Jordan hit being pop-ups and bouncers—Jordan was shipped out to the White Sox’ minor league Birmingham affiliate for reassignment. He hoped that he’d get recalled to the majors by September 1, when the rosters are expanded for the last month of the season. “I’m learning a lot every day,” he said, “and I’m not going to quit. I’m enjoying what I do. And isn’t that what retirement is all about?”
Jordan faced considerable criticism for his foray into baseball, which mounted as his skills proved wanting. The crosstown Cubs, being deprived of the winter spotlight in the Chicago media by almost daily reports of Jordan’s progress, proposed a publicity stunt to have Bozo the Clown, a local kids’ TV figure, try out for the team. Bozo’s station nixed the idea. Baseball legend Pete Rose and numerous major leaguers mocked Jordan’s audacity to think he could walk into baseball as an untried thirty-year-old and make the major leagues. But Jordan received the editorial support of Chicago’s largest newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, as well as its famous columnist, Mike Royko, who noted it was just baseball, after all.
Ironically, as Jordan patrolled the outfield in the White Sox’ Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, Fla. February 15, his first day of spring training, he galloped several times in front of an advertising sign for an air-conditioning company that read UNIQUE AIR. That was no lie.
Angry teammates, a federal subpoena, and a shrinking desire met Michael Jordan when he arrived at Bulls training camp for what he and his teammates hoped would be a history-making season in 1992. The Bulls were trying to become the first NBA team since the great Celtics’ dynasty of the 1960s to win three straight NBA titles. Jordan and teammate Scottie Pippen were coming off a summer with the U.S. Olympic basketball Dream Team’s sweep to a gold medal. In an ironic—if unintended—symbolic moment, Jordan had draped himself in the American flag at the gold medal award ceremony. The all-American boy? Hardly. Jordan didn’t want the logo of a competing sneaker manufacturer showing. It’s all business, it seems.
Then, feeling the pangs of withdrawal that would overcome him a year later, Jordan said a few weeks before training camp opened that he wasn’t sure he’d even come to training camp, because he was tired from the Olympic experience. This, of course, was met with the usual disdain from teammates for Jordan’s rules. Horace Grant would leave practice in protest a few days after the opening of camp, while private grumbling went on all around.
But Jordan had little concern for that. He admitted that he was losing interest in basketball. “It’s a critical concern for me now,” Jordan said as the Bulls opened training camp in what he said would be his final comments for at least a week or more, depending on when he felt like returning. “I’ve never gone through anything like this in my career. All my life, I’ve been playing basketball, and it’s been a joy. But it isn’t now. One day I’m fine. The next day I don’t want to see a basketball.”
That’s perhaps because Jordan was about to see the walls of the federal courthouse in Charlotte, N.C., to testify in the money laundering trial of James “Slim” Bouler, the convicted drug dealer to whom Jordan lost $57,000 the year before. For the past year, Jordan had maintained that the money was a loan for a driving range. But brought into court, Jordan admitted he’d been lying and it was, indeed, money lost gambling.
Although gambling is illegal in South Carolina, where the events occurred, Jordan was not a subject of the investigation. And, in fact, he was a celebrity even in the courthouse.
“Are you the guy on the Wheaties box?” asked defense attorney James Wyatt in questioning Jordan.
“Yes,” replied Jordan, who told U.S. Attorney Frank Whitney he lied about the money because he was embarrassed about his connections to gambling.
He said he was through with that kind of high-stakes gambling. “Winning is great,” said Jordan. “But when you lose that amount and get all the abuse I got, it ain’t worth it any longer. If any problems occur on this team, it won’t be because of me. I won’t compete on the golf course again.”
The events of the coming season, however, would show Jordan’s habits had yet to change.
Jordan returned a week into training camp, saying he had rediscovered his hunger for the game. He had spent the week on the West Coast, shooting TV commercials for sponsors, and said he was now ready for basketball. “Hopefully, we can win nine, ten, eleven titles in a row,” Jordan said. “The question is where we stand as a team in history. I think we can look forward, and I’m not guaranteeing anything, but if we can put this thing together, we can make our own mark in history.”
They were playing the theme music from the movie
Poltergeist in the Richfield Coliseum November 6 when the Bulls opened the 1992–93 season against the Cleveland Cavaliers, whom they’d defeated in the Eastern Conference finals the previous spring. And once again, as it would continue to be, it was a horrifying experience for the Cavaliers, defeated by the Bulls in three of the last six seasons. “They’re baaaaacccck!” It was clearly about the Bulls.
The Bulls defeated the Cavaliers and then went home to receive their championship rings the following night before playing Atlanta. “A dynasty,” Reinsdorf responded in answer to a question about what the Bulls were becoming. “We’re not there yet, but if we were to win three in a row …”
The Bulls would lose that night, but the best sign they were on the way to becoming that dynasty was just before the ring ceremony in the adoring Chicago Stadium. Reinsdorf, again, had rings made for the entire Bulls staff, numbering about one hundred, instead of just for the players and basketball staff.
“There should be twenty rings, tops,” Jordan complained in the locker room before the game. “Everyone else should get something else. We were the ones who sweated for it.”
Embittered and resentful. The Bulls were at the top of their game.
The league’s dream matchup to close the regular season never occurred, as the Knicks recovered from an ugly brawl in Phoenix, which reinforced their reputation as the league’s reigning bullies, to wrap up the best record in the conference when the Bulls suffered losses down the stretch in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Charlotte.
The Suns had long locked up the best record in the Western Conference. Charles Barkley had broken out early and would easily win the Most Valuable Player award for the first time. The Suns looked like the likely Western Conference representative in the Finals. But the Bulls were not looking like they’d represent the East. In an anticlimactic finish, the Bulls closed the season with an 89–84 loss in New York to finish the regular season 57–25, the first time they failed to win at least sixty games in the last three seasons.
Which only provided the impetus and motivation Jordan was seeking. “We’re the underdogs,” he said with only the slightest trace of hyperbole. “It’s not a bad position to be in. We thrive on that. Teams feel we’re weaker and we’re cracking a little bit. We’ve shown some signs of vulnerability. But it’s a matter of championships now. Winning again would add to the legend of this team. The last time it was done, you had eight teams in the league. Now you have twenty-eight. And there’s more parity. Along with the fact that the same guys who are here might not be here next year. So we’ve got to enjoy this opportunity while we can. The only reason I still play is because I want to win championships. How many? I don’t know. It depends on how long I still feel I love the game.”
The Hawks, not unexpectedly, turned out to be just a bug flying around a zapper light. They’d kill themselves if someone didn’t get there first, and they went out in three straight. Meanwhile, the Knicks were struggling with the Indiana Pacers, again losing their composure when John Starks head-butted Reggie Miller during Game 3 and the Knicks lost.
In the Western Conference, Phoenix was on the verge of losing to the Lakers after dropping the first two games of the best-of-five miniseries. They recovered to win in five games, but suddenly looked vulnerable. And so the Bulls were favorites again, driving the point home by sweeping the Cavs in the conference semifinals.
Say it twice: New York, New York. It was time.
Pat Riley had recalled when before the 1992–93 season the Knicks’ marketing department was looking to come up with a campaign for the coming season. “The first artwork they had me look at,” said Riley, “was looking down on a basketball court. There was a hoop, and inside the foul circle was a chalk outline of a dead person. I said I didn’t know if we wanted to go that far.” But that’s what this Eastern Conference finals series was to be, a test of survival. Both teams knew that the winner, undoubtedly, would be the next NBA champion. It would be best-of-seven for the entire season.
For the first two games, the series was a stark—perhaps Starks—contrast. John Starks, the often maniacal Knick shooting guard, would twice best the holiest guard of them all, Michael Jordan. In Game 1, Jordan would shoot 3 of 13 in the second half and not score in the final 6:32 as the Knicks won, 98–90. One New York newspaper headlined: JORDAN; GOAT. Meanwhile, Starks scored 25 points, including 13 in the final quarter. The media were full of stories about how the former CBA player who bounced in and out of colleges was now dominating the world basketball stage. “Just like anyone else,” Starks conceded, “I’ve always been in awe of Michael Jordan. But I always dreamed about situations like this, being in an important game, and I knew 1 could surprise people.”
The surprises would continue in the Knicks’ 96–91 Game 2 victory that Starks sealed with a thundering dunk along the baseline over Horace Grant to assure a victory after the Knicks had let a 14-point fourth-quarter lead dwindle to 3 even after Scottie Pippen had been ejected from the game for throwing the ball at referee Bill Oakes.
“Basketball is not a wrestling match,” Jackson complained and warned afterward. “They’re not going to be able to play their style on our floor.”
Thanks to the TV schedule, the Bulls had a break before going home. They’d have three days off until the series resumed on Memorial Day weekend in Chicago Stadium.
Jordan was not about to give up, despite another poor shooting game, the Knicks bumping and pushing him into a 12-for-32 night. “It’s a great challenge,” said Jordan. “We just have to win one and then concentrate on the one after that. We’ll look at one game now.”
Not content to wait out the three days, The New York Times, of all newspapers, offered up a hysterical story about Jordan’s going to Atlantic City until 2:30 A.M. the night before Game 2. An angry Jordan said he was back in his room by 1 A.M., which few of his teammates even believed. “The surprise,” said one, “was that he might be in by two-thirty. Or many of us, for that matter.”
What the media and fans often forget is that basketball players live like night-shift workers. They sleep by day and work at night. They have to be at their most productive between 8 and 10 P.M. So one doesn’t do his best work at that time and then get to bed by midnight. Virtually all NBA players nap in the afternoons, so staying up late is routine. Jordan rarely got to bed before 4 or 5 A.M. and usually was involved in long card games in his room. As a change of pace, his father, James, suggested they take a group and ride down to Atlantic City. After all, Jordan can’t casually walk the streets in New York.
Linked with that came Michael & Me: Our Gambling Addiction, a book by Richard Esquinas, a gambling buddy of Jordan’s. Esquinas claimed he was a compulsive gambler looking for help and had won $1.3 million from Jordan gambling. Jordan denied the size of the wager, but not that he lost money to Esquinas. Friends close to Jordan said the $1 million-plus figure was not out of line, and Esquinas had decided to write the book because Jordan would pay only $300,000 of the debt. Jordan, in fact, had a well-earned reputation around the Bulls for not paying his gambling debts and was always dashing off after losing at pool and leaving $50 or $100 unpaid. Corey Williams, a rookie, always beat Jordan at pool, but was always afraid to ask for the money. For the younger players, it was worth the money to play with Jordan. The veterans never did much with him, anyway.
But the media feasted on the morsels for a few days, since there was little of basketball significance to report. Did Jordan have a gambling problem? Did he need counseling? In retrospect, it turned out to be the turning point against the Knicks. The New York newspapers, as the Bulls left town after Game 2, were filled with theses on how the Bulls had lost their cool, pointing to Pippen’s ejection; how Jordan couldn’t stand the pressure defense; how Horace Grant was folding up, complaining about injuries. So Jordan stopped talking to the media, and the Bulls, as usual, followed. “It was really just a way for us to relax,” said Grant.
But the media boycott seemed to allow the Bulls to
unite as a group in a sort of us-against-the world mentality at a time when even they had begun to doubt whether they could recover from a 2–0 deficit. And they did it as a team. Jordan, again shooting poorly, penetrated and passed, allowing Pippen to hit for 29 while Jordan came up with 11 assists. The Knicks played tentatively, almost expecting defeat, and were blown out by 20, trailing by 19 at halftime and 26 in the third quarter, when most of the starters took off for the rest of the game.
Then it was time for Jordan to get his payback. The Bulls were back in the series, so Jordan put an end to the John Starks story, if not the Knicks. With Starks jumping in his face and trying to push him around, Jordan flicked him off and scored 54 points as the Bulls evened the series with a 105–95 win. The NBA was not amused by the Bulls’ silent treatment, and fined the club $25,000. “It was a good day for the Tar Heels on our team,” said Bulls backup Scott Williams. “I think me and Michael combined for fifty-five.”
And so it came down to Game 5. The Bulls won it, fighting off a furious Knicks rally down the stretch. Charles Smith had the ball and was about to make what seemed like the game-winning layup. But Smith and the Knicks came up short, losing 97–94, as they missed fifteen free throws in the game.
There would be no more after Game 6. “We didn’t know if we could win,” said Knicks president Dave Checketts. The Bulls, predictably, won Game 6 back home, 96–88, for a four-game sweep after dropping the first two, and all the Knicks really could hope for now was for Michael Jordan to retire.
If the conference finals was high drama, the NBA Finals were situation comedy. Jordan returned to the land of the verbal with an interview on NBC-TV, while Charles Barkley talked to everyone. Jordan continued to brood throughout the Finals, while Barkley was steppin’ out. He did so in Chicago, boasting about staying out all night during the break in Chicago between Games 3 and 4. Barkley addressed reports he’d been seen with Madonna; defended teammate Kevin Johnson, who was booed at home after poor games to start the series; defended Jordan’s gambling; and chastised the media and generally enjoyed himself through endless rounds of interviews.