In March 1985, Gierszewski pleaded guilty to embezzlement. He was fined $1,000 and given a suspended jail sentence. Three weeks later, James Jordan entered his own guilty plea and was handed a similar suspended sentence and fine.
“He shoulda went to prison for what he got involved in,” Dick Neher said in 2012. “Because of Mike, he got out of it.”
Each man could have gone to jail for ten years with the felony conviction. The case effectively ended James Jordan’s employment at General Electric. Neher, also a supervisor at the plant, said the situation was much more involved than authorities revealed. “He was in charge of our company store,” Neher explained. The company store served as a club for employees, where they could purchase refrigerators, TVs, toasters, tools, and various items at discount. As manager, James Jordan would reroute merchandise meant for the store, Neher said. “He’d check it in and it would never make it to the store. He was stealing it. I assume he was selling it. They charged him with stealing about $7,000. It was much more widespread. Other people were doing it, too.”
Obviously the family’s determination to attend each of Michael’s games around the country, even internationally, had put pressure on the father to pay for it all. “Put all that aside, you’d never find a better guy,” Neher said, recalling James Jordan’s good deeds in the community and his willingness to volunteer his time in building a field for youth baseball.
It was around this time that their oldest daughter, Sis, began exploring her options for filing charges and a lawsuit against her parents regarding her sexual abuse claims. Her marriage had fallen apart, and for a time she had checked herself into the mental health ward of a local hospital. An older male relative had visited and informed her that her grandparents were deeply troubled by her circumstances. Sis wrote in her book that she checked herself out and went to visit with Medward and Rosabell Jordan.
“What is wrong with you, girl?” they asked.
Sis wrote that with Michael’s sudden rise in basketball, her parents hardly found time for visiting with the elderly grandparents in Teachey. More and more, Medward had taken to quietly passing time on the front porch of his house on Calico Bay Road, and it was as if the Jordans were embarrassed by the “country ways” of James’s parents, now that they were associating with the Carolina basketball crowd, their older daughter said. It was a common scenario for families to get caught up in the whirlwind surrounding prominent young athletes as they advanced through the levels of their sport, and the Jordans had found themselves in the brightest of spotlights. Everyone in basketball-crazy North Carolina followed the Tar Heels as if they were the reality television of the day.
The Jordans had endured three years of constant travel and competition, and relentless media exposure. On game days, they had left Wilmington usually at three in the afternoon to make a night game. They’d visit with their son briefly after the game, then make it home in time to watch a videotape of the game. They were usually too keyed up to sleep, Deloris Jordan explained. “We videotaped all the games so that Michael could see them when he got home. He’d sit there and say, ‘Did I really do that?’ See, when he’s playing, he’s so into the game and what’s going on around him that he didn’t remember some of those things.”
They formed bonds with the parents of the other Carolina players, and they’d spend time together at the games and on the many road trips. One such night during the 1982 regional playoffs the Jordans described as magical. “Sam Perkins’s folks, the Elacquas, were there, and the Braddocks, the Petersons, the Worthys, the Dohertys, and the coaches and their wives,” Deloris Jordan recalled in 1984. “We had gone out and gotten a bunch of Chinese food and we ate that all night.”
“About three or four a.m.,” her husband chimed in, “I’ll never forget it. We were all in the street singing the Carolina song, acting like a bunch of kids, but we really enjoyed every minute of it.”
The shock for them all in May 1984 was that it had passed so quickly.
“We don’t feel cheated one bit,” James Jordan said. “We’ve been to every one of the games he’s played in. It’s not worth any amount of money anybody can give you. These have been good years for Michael, and they have been good years for the Jordan family.… I’m convinced that you couldn’t have taken a kid and gone out and had a script written and gotten a producer and a director and told him to ‘play this through your life,’ that you couldn’t have planned a more perfect life than the one Michael’s had.”
PART V
THE ROOKIE
Chapter 14
GOLD RUSH
JORDAN SELECTED DONALD Dell of ProServ out of Washington, DC, as an agent in July. Even before the official hiring, David Falk, who worked with Dell and ProServ, had begun exploring Jordan’s options in the upcoming draft. Contrary to what Jordan had expected, Philadelphia’s record improved a bit that spring, while the Chicago Bulls suffered two late losses to the New York Knicks that improved their draft status. Critics cracked that the Bulls were simply making their way through yet another disastrous season, only to follow it up with equally disastrous draft picks.
The architect of these failed draft selections was the team’s general manager, Rod Thorn, a self-deprecating gentleman of the Southern Appalachians who admitted freely the team’s longtime struggles in drafting and finding players. In 1979, the Bulls had a fifty-fifty chance of drafting Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who had just led Michigan State to the NCAA title. They again had a terrible record and had to flip a coin with the Los Angeles Lakers for the right to pick first. Rod Thorn called heads, following a suggestion based on fan polling. Tails it was.
Thorn lost Magic Johnson to the coin flip, then overlooked Sidney Moncrief in the draft itself to take David Greenwood out of UCLA. Although he was troubled by injuries, Greenwood played six solid seasons for the Bulls. He averaged about 14 points and 8 rebounds over his first five seasons with the team. Those were good numbers for a power forward, but he simply could not compare to Magic Johnson, who led the Lakers to five NBA championships, or even Moncrief, for that matter. Of course, if the Bulls had taken Moncrief, they might not have needed to draft another shooting guard in 1984. Regardless, Greenwood’s selection by the Bulls would always be viewed as a failed draft pick. The value of the Lakers during Magic Johnson’s dozen years with the team jumped from about $30 million to $200 million, according to Forbes magazine.
At the time, Jonathan Kovler, part owner of the Bulls, had joked that it was a “$25 million coin flip.”
“It turned out to be a $200 million coin flip,” he said later.
It got worse in 1982, when Thorn drafted guard Quintin Dailey out of the University of San Francisco, shortly before it was revealed that Dailey had attacked a student nurse in a dorm at the school. When he arrived in Chicago, Dailey declined to express remorse for his actions, and soon women were gathering to protest at Bulls games. He and another talented Bull, Orlando Woolridge, would also struggle very publicly with cocaine. Such disasters helped bring the team perilously close to insolvency by the spring of 1984.
That February, Thorn had traded crowd favorite Reggie Theus to Kansas City for Steve Johnson and a draft pick. Almost immediately, Chicago’s team got worse and its luck got better. The Bulls finished the season at 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the third straight year, fueling speculation that the team would be sold and moved out of Chicago. With the miserable finish, Thorn again faced another high draft pick.
“We didn’t win a lot of games that year,” recalled Bill Blair, a Bulls assistant coach. “But Rod reminded us that there was a guy down at North Carolina who was a great, great player. He just kept on and on about Michael Jordan. Rod was always positive and sure that this guy was gonna be one of the great all-time players. But a lot of people said, ‘Well, he can’t play guard. He can’t play small forward.’ Even Bobby Knight had made a statement like that. But Rod said, ‘This kid has got something special.’ ”
“Nobody, including me, knew Jordan was g
oing to turn out to be what he became,” Thorn recalled. “We didn’t work him out before the draft, but we interviewed him. He was confident. He felt he was gonna be good. It was obvious that Michael believed in himself, but even he had no idea just how good he was going to be.”
Once the regular season had concluded, Houston and Portland were tied for the top pick, followed by Chicago. The Rockets planned to take Hakeem Olajuwon, the athletic center from the University of Houston, while Portland was considering taking Kentucky center Sam Bowie, who had been plagued by injuries. “Houston had made it clear from the start that they were going to take Olajuwon,” Thorn recalled. “About a month before the draft, I had a conversation with Stu Inman, Portland’s general manager at the time. Stu told me they wanted Sam Bowie. Their doctors had said Bowie’s health would be fine, and they needed a big man and weren’t really considering anyone else.”
The Bulls held the third pick in the draft, while Houston won the top pick in a coin flip with Portland. The Trail Blazers were left with the second pick. “We could tell that we were going to get Jordan when Houston won the coin flip over Portland,” explained Irwin Mandel, a longtime Bulls vice president. “If Portland had won the flip, they would have taken Olajuwon, and Houston probably would have taken Jordan. I remember how excited Rod was. He was thrilled, because in his mind there was a major difference between Jordan and Bowie.”
Sure enough, on the day of the draft, Jordan was there for the Bulls with the third pick. Heading into the draft, he had admitted that he’d like to play for the Lakers, where James Worthy was on his way to becoming a star. But Chicago would be fine, Jordan explained that fall, because the Lakers “are so stacked I probably couldn’t have helped them anyway.”
“Jordan was available, and they had to take him,” recalled Jeff Davis, a TV sports producer in Chicago. “They had no choice. Sure the guy was two-time college Player of the Year and had led North Carolina to the title. But nobody knew how good he really was.” Davis recalled that it was fortunate Portland had drafted Bowie, because it looked as if Thorn would have taken the Kentucky center if he got the chance.
“We wish Jordan were seven feet, but he isn’t,” Thorn told the Chicago Tribune when asked about the selection. “There just wasn’t a center available. What can you do? Jordan isn’t going to turn this franchise around. I wouldn’t ask him to. He’s a very good offensive player, but not an overpowering offensive player.”
It was an odd statement from the general manager of a team that was supposedly trying to sell tickets. Portland’s mistake would go down as the greatest blunder in draft history. Stu Inman later pointed out that he was making a move supported by the opinions of his staff, including Hall of Fame coach Jack Ramsay. Inman would later suggest that Dean Smith’s system at North Carolina had kept Jordan’s talents hidden, a position echoed by Ramsay. However, the Portland coaches and staff had seen Jordan during Olympic tryouts that spring and still missed him. Rick Sund of the Dallas Mavericks had seen what Jordan could do. Sund offered the Mavs’ hot young star Mark Aguirre in a deal for Jordan.
Thorn declined. “Rod didn’t even waver,” Sund recalled. “He knew.”
The Knight Factor
With the draft settled, Jordan could now turn his full focus to the Olympic tryouts and practices, which would stretch from before the draft right up until the eve of the games in Los Angeles. Jordan was never in peril of not making the Olympic team, but he didn’t have Knight’s full confidence after their teams met in the Sweet Sixteen. “After that I think that Bob kind of thought that maybe Michael can’t shoot the ball,” Billy Packer recalled. “And in the Olympic trials he didn’t shoot that great.”
Knight was even more of a system coach than Dean Smith. “You go from a guy who played for Dean Smith and accepted roles and responsibilities and the system.” The broadcaster laughed. “He goes and plays in the summer for Bob Knight, who is basically more rigid than Dean.”
Smith certainly could be crafty and manipulative, but he always conducted himself with a degree of diplomacy. Knight had a raw, uneven temperament and an ego the size of the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. Plus, he was beyond crass. To many, he was a profane bully. “Coach Smith is the master of the four corners offense and Coach Knight is the master of the four-letter word,” Jordan quipped.
Knight let his Olympic charges know from the very first day that he was focused on perfection. “I have told them I have no interest in who we’re playing or what the score is,” Knight explained. “I’m interested in this team being the best team it can possibly be, and I’ll push you any way I can to get to that end.”
The player and coach were well matched. Jordan herded his teammates with his glowering countenance and determined clapping. Knight did the same with his moods and intimidating histrionics. His spotty behavior in international play made him a curious selection by the committee overseeing amateur basketball in the US. Authorities in Puerto Rico had issued an arrest warrant for him after his confrontation with a police officer there in 1979 at the Pan Am Games. He was later convicted in absentia of aggravated assault.
Now, Knight was on a mission. He wanted to bring the hammer of American basketball down on the international game. To that end, he compiled a staff of twenty-two assistant coaches and conducted thorough tryouts involving better than seventy players.
Charles Barkley, Sam Perkins, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Chuck Person, and dozens of other fine players labored as Knight watched the proceedings from a tower. Charging up and down the floor with brilliant displays of athleticism and ball handling, Barkley was clearly the second-best player in the trials behind Jordan, but he seemed more interested in impressing the pro scouts than making a hit with Knight, who could see only the Auburn forward’s 280 pounds of girth.
Barkley, Stockton, and Malone were among the game’s greats who were cut by Knight during the trials. An angry and confused Stockton told Barkley and Malone he’d love to team up with them to take on the dozen that Knight had picked.
The final twelve selected for Olympic play were Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, Wayman Tisdale, Leon Wood, Alvin Robertson, Joe Kleine, Jon Koncak, Jeff Turner, Vern Fleming, and Steve Alford.
Rather than wear his traditional number 23, Jordan was assigned jersey number 9 for Team USA.
The Indiana coach had the roster he felt he needed to embarrass the international field. He told his friend Packer that he didn’t mind his Olympic team scoring 90 points in a game so long as they held the opponent to 30. “He had incredible focus,” Packer recalled. “Bob, as is the case with Michael, is an incredible competitor. He was just so well prepared. People forget how he selected that Olympic team. All the constituents of intercollegiate basketball he pulled together from a coaching standpoint. He used the selection process to get everybody to buy in. Obviously his players had to understand, ‘This is the way we’re going to do it, how I expect you to play.’ So in those games, they were dominant. He wasn’t looking and hoping to win a gold medal. He was looking to dominate the world of basketball, and that they did.”
Actually it was the exhibition games before the Olympics, played against NBA players, that afforded Packer an inside view of the emergence of Michael Jordan. His many years of broadcasting and his friendship with Knight provided Packer a courtside seat for the fascinating nine games before the Olympics in Los Angeles, arranged by Larry Fleisher, the general counsel to the NBA.
“What happens sometimes when you get an exhibition game with NBA guys,” Packer said, “is that they just show up that afternoon. They put on a uniform and play a little bit. But this thing got to be a hell of a rivalry in a period of three or four weeks.”
Driving the rising temper of the proceedings were Knight and Jordan. The exhibition tour began in Providence, Rhode Island, at the end of June and made stops in Minneapolis and Iowa City before coming to Indianapolis to play before a huge crowd on July 9. “By the time we got to Indianapolis the Olympians
had won four games,” Packer recalled. “So the pros were going to put a stop to that, that night. Larry Fleisher didn’t want to see the NBA lose to a bunch of college kids.”
Fleisher recruited Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, and several other stars, making for an electric atmosphere in front of thousands of fans at the Hoosier Dome. Pete Newell, Knight’s longtime mentor and one of the assistant coaches for Team USA, had visited the Olympians’ locker room before the game, then sought out Packer. “Man, I’ve never seen anyone fired up like this in my life,” Newell confided to Packer about Knight. Despite the NBA’s loaded lineup, the Olympians won again in Indy.
The real test came in Milwaukee, Packer recalled. “I never saw Michael have one of those truly great offensive performances until that night in Milwaukee against the NBA players. That was the first time I ever saw Michael Jordan play at that level offensively. He got cut in the nose by Mike Dunleavy driving to the basket. The game was an unbelievably brutal game. Oscar Robertson was coaching the NBA guys. Bob Knight gets thrown out of the game on that play. Michael’s bleeding from the nose. Meanwhile, the ball bounces over to Knight, and he puts it behind his back and refuses to give it to the referees. So they threw him out of the game. He and Oscar were really going at each other. There was a no-foul-out rule in the game. So the NBA guys were clubbing the Olympic kids.”
A time-out was called while the Olympic assistant coaches tried to get organized in the wake of Knight’s departure, Packer recalled. “They went back out on the floor, and Michael took over the game like the NBA guys were standing still. It was unbelievable. That was the first time I ever saw Michael Jordan, the truly great offensive player, even though I’d seen him play high school and three years of college ball. I never saw that side of him where he could just take over a game. Bobby’s not even on the bench, but Michael just came out and he was saying, ‘I don’t care what the system is, I’m taking this game over.’ And he did.”
Michael Jordan Page 24