Book of Basketball

by Simmons Bill

  Reason no. 2: pathological competitiveness. I can’t imagine a killer like Jordan happening again, and here’s why: the NBA is too buddy-buddy now. These stars grow up together, befriend one another, hang out during summers, play Team USA together, text and email each other … it’s a big circle jerk. Watch Kobe greet Carmelo after an allegedly hard-fought game; they look like old roommates reconnecting at a college reunion. The greats from Jordan’s era always maintained a respectful distance; even when Magic and Isiah smooched each other, there was a coldness to it. 104

  When Jordan and Barkley became close, part of me always wondered if Jordan sniffed out Barkley as a potential rival—a little like Russell with Wilt, or even how Natasha Henstridge hunted for a mate in Species—then befriended him as a way to undermine him competitively. You know what moment killed Barkley’s chance to be a Pantheon guy? Game 2 of the 1993 Finals in Phoenix. He played as well as he possibly could (a 42–13 with 16-for-26 shooting), but Jordan exceeded him by tallying a 42–12–9 and destroying Dan Majerle down the stretch. You could see it written on Barkley’s face as he walked off the court: I can’t beat this guy. And he couldn’t.

  That goes back to that aforementioned Russell-Jordan gene. Jordan wanted to vanquish and fueled himself by overreacting to every slight (real or manufactured). Rick Pitino questioned the seriousness of his hamstring injury during the ’89 Knicks-Bulls series; Jordan made them pay.105

  The Magic knocked an out-of-NBA-shape Jordan out of the ’95 Playoffs; Jordan made them pay. Malone lobbied for the 1997 MVP; Jordan made Utah pay. That’s just how it went. When Bulls GM Jerry Krause—someone whom Jordan openly detested 106—glowingly courted European star Toni Kukoc, Jordan and Pippen wrecked Kukoc in the ’92 Olympics with particular fury. Before the 1989 draft, it bothered Jordan that Krause had become infatuated with Majerle’s potential, so he torched Thunder Dan in the ’93 Finals and screamed “Fuck you, Majerle!” as the Bulls celebrated right after Phoenix’s final miss in Game 6. Did Majerle do anything to him? Of course not. Jordan just convinced himself that he did. That’s how the man thought.

  The two defining “Jordan was secretly a hypercompetitive lunatic” stories:

  Story no. 1: It’s Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals and the painfully forced “Drexler or Jordan?”

  storyline (page 396) is in full swing, as well as Portland’s “we’re gonna make them beat us by shooting threes” plan that they were stupid enough to mention to the press. Clyde Drexler is about to get athletically sodomized by Jordan on national television. We just don’t know it yet. Portland jumps out to a 17–9 lead with six minutes remaining. Chicago’s crowd can’t get into it. Portland is running the floor and gaining confidence. Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of the next 17 minutes of game time: MJ 3 … MJ 2 + 1 … MJ 3 … MJ 3 … MJ 2 … MJ 2 (first quarter ends: 33–30, Blazers, Jordan has 18 and sits down for a breather) … MJ comes back in (45–44, Chicago) … MJ

  2 … MJ 3 … MJ steal +2 … MJ 2 … MJ 3 … MJ follow-up dunk for 2 … awkward Drexler air ball 3 … MJ 3 + shrug 107… third Portland time-out of quarter … Chicago 66, Portland 49. Jordan scored 33 points in 17 minutes, 35 for the half, outscored Drexler by 27, and broke the record for playoff threes in one half. This actually happened.

  Story no. 2: Jordan’s opponents learned to leave him alone by the mid-nineties, leading to a phenomenon unlike anything else we’ve witnessed before or since: Michael became basketball’s version of a sleeping tiger. In a league full of smack-talkers, chest-thumpers and yappers, incredibly, he remained completely off-limits. This was just understood. Implicitly. Even during the summer of 2001, when Jordan was running the Wizards but reportedly mulling a comeback, a slew of NBA teams voyaged to Los Angeles to watch a few California prospects work out. Jordan was there. So was L.A. native Paul Pierce, who spent a little time with Jordan because of his friendship with Chicago native (and then-Pierce teammate) Antoine Walker. At some point, Pierce started talking smack to MJ. You better not come back. This is our league now. We don’t want to embarrass you. That kind of stuff. Jordan nodded happily with one of those “Okay, okay, just wait” faces, finally saying, “When’s our first game against you guys? I’m gonna make it a point to drop 40 on you.” You could almost imagine Jordan pulling out a piece of paper and adding Pierce’s name to the list of Guys Whose Butts Need to Be Kicked. Of course, Pierce’s coach at the time (Jim O’Brien) overheard the running exchange and quickly pulled Pierce away, imploring his star, “Never talk to him. You hear me? That’s the one guy you don’t talk smack to!” And this was when Jordan had been retired for three full years. Three! Even then, at thirty-nine years old, a current NBA coach considered him a viable threat and someone who shouldn’t be angered under any circumstances. Wake me up when this happens again in my lifetime.

  Reason no. 3: command of the room. As I mentioned in David Robinson’s section (page 456): Manute, Bird, Robinson and Jordan were the Mount Rushmore of great entrances in the Nancy Parish Memorial Tunnel. Jordan was a walking E. F. Hutton commercial. Remember those dopey ads when somebody said, “My broker is E. F. Hutton and he says …” and everyone else in the room suddenly shut up and leaned in to hear? That was MJ. Seeing him unhinged people like Beatles fans in the mid-sixties. Jordan possessed what a Boston writer named George Frazier once dubbed duende: a charisma, an Eastwoodian swagger, a sense of self-importance that can’t be defined. He swallowed up the room even if 16,000 people were in it. As soon as Jordan entered the building, nobody else mattered. The way people’s expressions instantly changed, the sounds they made … those little moments leave an imprint even fifteen years later.

  Those reactions didn’t change when he stopped playing basketball. At a party during the 2006

  All-Star Weekend in Houston, Celtics honcho Rich Gotham and I were smoking stogies on a not-so-crowded cigar patio and ensuring bad breath for the rest of the night. Out of nowhere, Charles Oakley sauntered through the doorway108 followed by a human tornado with Jordan and his posse at the epicenter. Here’s what happens when MJ enters a room: it immediately becomes an entourage scene. No matter how you felt about the party leading up to the moment, the party jumps from (fill in whatever grade) to a solid A+. Like MJ’s presence validates the entire night. So Jordan ambled in, glanced around, puffed on a cigar for a few seconds, then traded a few barbs with Oak while pretending there weren’t twenty-five people packed around him snapping cell phone pictures. Ninety seconds later, they’d had enough. Time for a new room. Just like that, they were gone and the patio was mellow again. As Rich said later, it was like a “gust of wind.” MJ was the gust; everyone else was the twigs, leaves, and branches flying around.

  When he played, you had a little more time to prepare for that gust. You looked around fifteen minutes before game time and realized that 75 percent of the fans had already arrived; it sounded like the crowd before a Springsteen concert waiting for that moment when the lights turn off. Every male patron with good seats had a glazed, giddy, “I’m important because I’m attending this important game” glow. Every female patron looked like she’d spent an extra ten minutes getting ready. Every little kid looked like he was ready to spontaneously self-combust. Wide-eyed teenagers stood in the first few rows, rocking back and forth, holding pens, pathetically desperate, praying against billion-to-one odds that MJ would inexplicably leave the layup line, vault the press table and glide into the stands to sign autographs. As soon as Jordan made his grand entrance, he stopped the place cold. Every eye shifted to him. Fans started making strange sounds. Squeals and cries mixed with appreciative applause, and then a slow-developing roar emerged, almost like a chain reaction: “hhh-hhrrrrrrrHHHRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!” MJ was in the house. And it’s not like the energy faded from there. When he met the officials before the game, they oversold his jokes and looked like waiters working a customer for a huge tip. When he dispensed advice to a teammate, the other guy nodded intently like some life-altering secret was being revealed. When he strolle
d toward the scorer’s table for the opening tap, every conversation in the first few rows came to a screeching halt. When he stood on the free throw line for the first time, thousands of camera flashes clicked to capture the moment for posterity. I saw Michael Jordan play. Here he is shooting free throws. People will be impressed by this someday. That’s how you felt.

  The moment always felt bigger than you or me, as did the ongoing thrill of witnessing a vintage MJ

  performance and appreciating all the little things that made him him. He never slacked and always gave a crap. Physically, he controlled himself with a grace that nobody else quite had. Technically, he was perfect in every way—perfect physique, perfect running style, perfect defensive technique, perfect footwork, perfect shooting form—which always made it seem wrong if he dribbled a ball off his foot or threw a pass out of bounds. Spiritually, his teammates reacted to him the same way sitcom kids react to Dad when he comes home from work: everyone killing themselves to please him and hanging on his every word. The little things stood out more than the dunks and the breathtaking drives. The last time Jordan played in Boston as a Bull (December 1997), they were wiping out a young Celtics team and MJ seemed bored by the whole thing. That was always the best time to watch Jordan in person, when he was searching for dumb challenges to keep from coasting. As soon as Jordan and Walker started talking trash, I remember nudging a buddy and telling him, “Watch this, something’s gonna happen.” We followed Jordan and Walker as they jogged back and forth and kept a running dialogue going. After a Boston foul, Walker and Jordan lined up next to each other on the right side of the free throw line. Walker had inside position; Jordan stood to his left and kept talking smack. Walker made the mistake of jawing back. Never a good idea. I remember telling my buddy, “Watch this—Jordan’s telling ’Twan he’s gonna beat him inside and get the rebound. Watch this. Just wait.” Sure enough, as his teammate prepared to launch the second free throw, Jordan’s arms started swaying with his mouth moving the entire time. Walker’s body tensed. The ball went up and MJ somehow leapfrogged past Walker, grabbed the rebound and jumped back up for a layup in one motion.

  Who fouled Jordan from behind to prevent the layup? Antoine Walker.

  We watched Michael strut and giggle his way to the charity stripe, thoroughly pleased with himself, like he’d just found a $100 bill on the ground. We watched Walker’s head hang like that of a little kid who’d just been scolded by a parent. We watched the JumboTron show a closeup of Jordan lining up his first foul shot, an enormous grin spread across his face. His night had been made. So had ours. But that’s what makes me laugh whenever I hear guys like Wade, Jordan and LeBron compared to him. Nobody had moments like the one I just described. They might be close physically or athletically, but in the “command of the room” sense? No. No way. Not close. Even during Jordan’s injury-plagued comeback with Washington, 109 there was one moment during his first Boston return in 2001 when Jordan drained a crunch-time jumper and looked like he might be heating up. He spun around and hopped back to the other end of the court, running with that distinctive gait in which his elbows swung back and forth like someone using a NordicTrack. With the crowd roaring—we loved the Celtics, but really, even the slim possibility of witnessing an ESPN Classic throwback performance trumped everything—Jordan glanced over to everyone in my section at midcourt, his eyebrows raised, and unleashed a defiant grin. And he melted us. He fucking melted us. Imagine a busty senior cheerleader winking at a school bus filled with ninth-grade boys, triple the reaction, and that was us. We spent the next twenty seconds buzzing and nudging each other. I don’t even remember who won the game. I really don’t. All I remember was this: MJ was back, MJ was on his game, MJ was feeling it … and the possibilities were endless. Some people are just larger than life.

  I will believe LeBron has reached MJ status as soon as he owns every set of eyes in a 17,000-seat arena for three straight hours, and as soon as he can liquidate an entire section with one smile. And not a moment before.

  Reason no. 4: the Jordan mystique. I’m retelling this story in the present tense because, as far as I’m concerned, it still feels like it happened three hours ago. Come back with me to that same 2006

  All-Star Weekend in Houston. I am drinking Bloody Marys on a Saturday afternoon with my buddy Sully and his Boston crew. We’re debating a second round when Oakley saunters into the bar—and that’s the right word, because the dude saunters— with three lady friends, eventually settling at the table right next to us. Oakley orders a round of shots for his table and a martini for himself. We quickly order a second round for ourselves. I mean, where else can you drink five feet away from the real-life Shaft? 110

  Twenty minutes later, Jordan shows up with two friends and stops the room cold. At first, it seems like he’s just saying hello; then we realize he’s sitting down. His friends move him into the inside booth, then block him with chairs on both sides so nobody can bother him. (Like my “Chair Armada” strategy in strip joints, as mentioned on page 258.) Oakley orders more drinks; we order food and drinks for our table. For all we know, we’re staying all afternoon and evening. People stream over to say hello, pay tribute to Jordan, kiss his ring … he’s like the real-life Michael Corleone (with Oakley as Luca Brasi). At one point, agent David Falk sits about thirty feet away, patiently waiting for an invite, finally giving up and coming over to say hello. (Falk asks MJ,

  “How late did you stay out last night?” followed by MJ casually saying “ Seven-thirty,” as we nod admiringly)111 The drinks keeps coming and coming. Occasionally Oakley stands up and saunters around just to stretch his legs and look cool while I make comments like, “I wish you could rent Oak for parties.” At one point, Oak thinks about ordering food, stands up, looks over at all of us eating, notices our friend Rich’s cheeseburger, asks if it’s a cheeseburger, asks if it’s good, keeps glancing at it, keeps glancing at it … and I swear, we’re all waiting for Oak to say the words, “Oak wants your cheeseburger, and he wants it now.” But he doesn’t. He ends up ordering one himself. Too bad. 112

  Two solid hours pass. Everyone at Jordan’s table finishes eating. The cigars come out. And I’m sitting there whispering, “There’s no way that the cards aren’t coming out soon. It’s impossible. MJ has never sat this long in one place without the cards coming out. The man has a competitive disorder. The cards will come out. The cards will definitely come out.”

  Almost on cue, the cards emerge. They start playing a game called Bid Wist, a form of spades that’s popular among NBA players.113 Oakley and MJ team up against two of their friends and Jordan comes alive. Of course he does. We witness his legendary competitive streak in action: he’s trash-talking nonstop in a deep voice, snickering sarcastically, cackling with every good card, even badgering one opponent to the point that the guy seems like a threat to start crying like one of Joe Pesci’s minions in Good-fellas. This isn’t Corporate MJ, the one you and I know. This is Urban MJ, the one that comes out for the Black Super Bowl, 114 the one that made an entire league cower for most of the nineties. It finally makes sense.

  And I’m sitting there dying. I know, I know … I love cards and have a gambling problem. But what would make for a greater story than Sully and me calling winners against Oak and MJ? (Even if there isn’t a chance in hell, it’s fun to imagine and I have about seventeen Bloody Marys in me at that point. Cut me some slack.) Meanwhile, the day keeps getting stranger and stranger. Around six, Shaquille O’Neal shows up with his posse, wearing a three-piece suit with a vest that causes MJ to joke, “I’m glad you’re living up to the responsibility of the dress code.” Everyone laughs a little too loudly, because that’s what you do when Michael Jordan makes a joke: you laugh your fucking ass off. A little bit later, an NBA assistant coach shows up wearing a red sweatshirt with a giant Jordan logo on it. (Who else runs into a friend randomly wearing their clothing line?) MJ

  keeps getting louder and louder, and he and Oakley are cleaning up, and everyone in the ba
r is watching them while pretending not to watch, and then suddenly …

  MJ’s wife shows up.

  Uh-oh.

  Everyone makes room for her. She sits down right next to him. Poor MJ looks like somebody who took a no-hitter into the ninth, then gave up a triple off the left-field wall. The trash-talking stops. He slumps in his seat like a little kid. The cigar goes out. No more hangin’ with the boys. Time to be a husband again.115 Watching the whole thing unfold, I lean over to Sully and say, “Look at that, he’s just like us.”