In the weeks that followed, Jordan’s average playing time edged up close to thirty minutes per game. His average points-per-game increased as well, including a season-high 33 in mid-December.
Unfortunately, the Wizards were not doing as well. By the end of 2002, their record stood at thirteen wins, seventeen losses. Things seemed to be improving at the start of the new year, however, when they added four straight wins. The second of these games saw the return of vintage Michael Jordan.
The Wizards faced the Pacers on January 4. The teams were evenly matched throughout and the game went into two overtimes. When the match finally ended with a win in the Wizards’ pocket, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Michael Jordan had tipped the scales in his team’s favor. In fifty-three minutes of play, he scored forty-one points, twenty of which came in the fourth quarter and double overtime. It was his last two points, both free throws made in the second overtime, that put the Wizards in the lead for good.
“Tonight, with the highest of things at stake, my game came to me,” Jordan said afterward. “Hopefully, this is just the start of something big.”
But Jordan’s dreams of an upswing for himself and his team were not to come true. In his next twenty games, he would pass the thirty-point mark only twice — and in one game in which he played thirty-seven minutes, he was held to a mere four baskets.
Meanwhile, the Wizards lost eleven of those twenty games. By mid-March, it was clear to basketball followers that the Wizards would not be playoff contenders that year.
With retirement a month away and no shot at a championship, some players might have chosen to take it easy. Not Michael Jordan. He pushed himself even harder, playing longer and longer games and routinely adding twenty or more points to the score-board. And in early April, he showed people that he still had what it took to make great plays.
The Wizards were playing the Celtics in Boston on April 6. The score seesawed back and forth through much of the game. In the final minute, the Celtics were up by two and seemed sure to win. Then, with forty-three seconds on the clock, Jordan drained a fourteen-foot jump shot. The game went into overtime.
Again, the minutes ticked down. With less than a minute remaining, the score was 98–97 in Boston’s favor. Enter Michael Jordan. This time he set up teammate Christian Laettner for a wide-open shot. Laettner hit the bucket — and the Wizards took the game, 99–98.
Six games later, on April 16, Jordan wore his Wizards uniform for the last time in an away game against the 76ers. The Philadelphia crowd greeted him with a standing ovation that lasted three minutes. They knew that they were watching the last game of the best player basketball had ever known.
It was to be a bittersweet finale for Michael Jordan. Some of his plays, such as a commanding one-handed dunk in the second quarter, earned him a roar of approval from the crowd. But there were as many missed shots as there were solid plays. Twice Jordan made a move to the basket for a classic lay-up only to have the ball hit the rim and bounce off. He also bobbled an alley-oop pass and threw another pass that was picked off easily.
Unfortunately, the rest of the Wizards were playing badly as well. With nine and a half minutes left in the game, they were down by twenty-one. Jordan was sitting on the bench in his warm-ups, waiting for it to end.
Then the crowd started chanting, “We want Mike! We want Mike!” For more than six minutes, Coach Collins ignored them. But with two and a half minutes remaining, Jordan stood up, removed his sweats, and took the floor one last time. He played for less than a minute. His last shot as a professional basketball player was a free throw.
He sank the bucket, bringing his game total to fifteen points. He had also chalked up four rebounds and four assists in the twenty-eight minutes he played. After that final point swished through the hoop, he turned to the crowd, waved, and walked off the court.
The Michael Jordan era was officially over.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
2003–2005
Beyond Basketball
When Michael Jordan removed his Wizards jersey after his last game, he did so believing he was still a big part of the Washington franchise. But now, instead of point guard, he would be the president of basketball operations, the position he had held before returning to the game in 2001.
Abe Pollin, owner of the Washington team, had other ideas, however. On May 7, 2003, he met with Jordan for about half an hour. When the meeting was through, Jordan no longer had a job of any sort with the Wizards.
Sports fans were dumbfounded when the news became public. Michael Jordan, the man who had practically rewritten how the game was played, had been fired from a basketball franchise? Impossible!
Jordan himself couldn’t seem to believe it. “I am shocked by this decision,” he said in a statement released to the press that day. He claimed that when he had given up his office job and partial ownership of the team to return to the court, it had been with the understanding that the position would be there for him when he retired. To make matters worse, he added, Pollin didn’t give any reasons for firing him.
But Pollin may very well have believed he was doing what was best for the team. When Jordan stepped into his management role in 2000, he made some trades and acquisitions that proved to be unwise and led to a less-than-stellar roster. That first year, the Wizards had a terrible record of 19 wins and 65 losses. They improved the following year, when Jordan returned to the court, but by the end of 2003, they had only won 110 games and had lost 179. That just wasn’t good enough for Pollin.
In addition to his uncharacteristically poor decisions, Jordan may have ruffled a few feathers during his time in the office. There were reports that he had argued with some members of management, including Susan O’Malley, the team president and ally of Pollin. He was also said to have badmouthed the very players he had added to the team. In the end, Pollin acted in what he considered the best interests of the Wizards franchise — and let Jordan go.
Within hours of the news, the media began predicting that another team would snatch Michael up for their management. Robert Johnson, owner of the Charlotte Bobcats and longtime friend, was first in line.
Jordan knew Johnson was a shrewd businessman. Johnson had founded the cable television network Black Entertainment Television (BET) in 1980; in 1999, he sold it to Viacom, a huge media company, for 3 billion dollars. In 2003, he won a bid on the newly created Charlotte Bobcats, becoming the first African-American to be the principal owner of a major professional sports franchise. One of his first orders of business was to ask Michael Jordan to take a position in the team’s management.
But after much deliberation, Jordan turned down Johnson’s offer. He was no longer looking to help manage someone else’s team — he was looking to invest in his own team. In fact, he already had his eye on one particular squad, the Milwaukee Bucks.
In early 2003, Senator Herbert Kohl, owner of the Bucks, got the word out that he was open to selling the Wisconsin franchise. He and Jordan entered talks soon after Jordan was let go from the Wizards.
After a few weeks, however, the talks ended with Kohl choosing not to sell to Jordan. He insisted his decision had nothing to do with Jordan himself, saying that he was “impressed with the quality of the professionals that [Jordan] was prepared to engage had we gone forward, as well as his willingness to make every effort to keep the team in Wisconsin.” He added that he hoped Jordan would pursue team ownership, as he thought the ex-player would make a very good owner.
Jordan may have been disappointed, but he didn’t stew over the Kohl’s decision. Instead, he turned his energy toward other interests. One of those interests was motorcycle racing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
2004–2007
Mike’s Bikes
Michael Jordan had been a motorcycle enthusiast since his early teens, when he’d first ridden a dirt bike. Now that he was no longer playing basketball, he was free to indulge his passion as never before. He took to riding the streets of Chicago at night, when the r
oads were less traveled and easier to navigate.
It was on one such night ride that he found a new outlet for his biking interest. He had been riding for more than an hour and decided to take a quick break at a gas station. There were other motorcyclists parked there, too. Naturally, they recognized Jordan but rather than being intimidated by His Airness, they struck up a conversation about their shared hobby.
“They noticed I didn’t have a jacket on — had a helmet on, didn’t have boots on,” Jordan later recalled. “They said, well, if you’re going to be riding, you better at least put on some protection … I went the next day, got all my equipment.”
One of the bikers gave Michael his card with an invitation to call if he ever wanted to ride with them. Jordan took them up on their offer and soon was cruising the night streets with them regularly.
There were only eight or so riders at first. But it’s nearly impossible for Jordan to fly below the radar for long and word soon got out about his late night rides. The number of riders quickly grew to more than thirty. Jordan tried his best to avoid the crowds by cycling later at night because, as he said, so many riding together was “just an accident waiting to happen.”
But there was one person he actively sought out: a thirty-year-old motorcyclist named Montez Stewart.
By all accounts, Montez Stewart was the best amateur rider in the Midwest. Still, when his friends told him that Michael Jordan wanted to meet him, he was sure it was a joke. “I thought that they were making it all up,” he told a reporter once. “I went out that night to meet him and he was there. I was floored. Who wouldn’t be?”
The two became friends and rode together often, on the road at first and then on a track Jordan rented. That’s when Michael saw how much potential Montez had as a rider — and learned that Stewart had long nursed a dream to ride competitively.
Jordan knew what he was going to do next. He was going to form a motorcycle racing team with Montez Stewart as his rider. He shared his idea with Stewart. Stewart readily agreed to be his rider, and with that, Michael Jordan Motorsports was born.
The team quickly gathered sponsors, the chief of which was Jordan Brand, the company Michael ran for Nike. By early 2004, Stewart had been outfitted with bikes, gear, equipment, and a big rig to transport it all. The color scheme of Tar Heel blue was a tribute to Jordan’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina. Michael had had a hand in designing Stewart’s clothes, too, which showed just how involved he planned to be in his latest venture.
But that involvement didn’t include racing himself. After years of being in the sporting world spotlight, Jordan was content to let a more talented rider take over the track while he kept a low profile and worked behind the scenes.
And work he did. Throughout 2004, Jordan nurtured the team and made sure that Stewart, the only professional African-American on the circuit, had everything he needed to succeed.
As it turned out, Stewart wasn’t dominant on the track. But Jordan wasn’t fazed. After all, it was only the team’s first year. Still, he had hopes of improving the team’s chances. To help those hopes along, he added two more riders, Steve Rapp and Jason Pridmore, to the team at the end of 2004.
Rapp and Pridmore were solid veterans of the track and gave the team a good boost the following year. Unfortunately, however, Stewart again underperformed. At the end of 2005, Jordan made the difficult decision to replace his friend with a different rider, Jake Holden. Holden, Rapp, and Pridmore formed the new core of Michael Jordan Motorsports.
“I just want to put together the best team that can win,” Jordan told a Chicago reporter recently. “I’m competitive in that way.”
Jordan was competitive in other ways, too, ways that took him from the bike track to the back nine, where he teamed up with another sports star who understood and appreciated the competitive spirit: Tiger Woods.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
2004–2007
Teeing Off
Michael Jordan has an amusing memory about learning the game of golf. It was 1983, and he was still in college at the University of North Carolina. He and his classmate, future PGA Tour golfer Davis Love III, were out on a course to play a round of golf. Jordan was using Love’s clubs because he didn’t have a set of his own. At the start of one hole, he plucked Love’s favorite driver from the bag, placed a ball on the tee, and then addressed the ball and swung with all his might.
Crack! To Michael’s surprise, the driver snapped in half!
Michael was sure the break wasn’t an accident. He thought Love had set him up for a practical joke, despite Love’s assurances that he hadn’t. In fact, Love remembers being a little upset that his favorite driver was going to be out of commission for a while!
That incident occurred just a short while before Jordan’s basketball career soared into the stratosphere. Yet despite the overwhelming distractions he faced as the world’s most recognized athlete, he always found time for golf.
“I think he liked the game because it got him away from people and gave him a chance to be alone,” Love once commented. “It took his mind off things.”
Golf also gave Jordan a way to give back. In 1988, he lent his name to a golf tournament that raised money for charity. In the years that followed, the Michael Jordan Celebrity Golf Classic drew many big name athletes, movie stars, and politicians—as did a second tournament, the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational, that he started thirteen years later.
Because he enjoys the game so much, Jordan usually joins the other famous folk on the course. Early on, when he was still playing basketball, he wasn’t a very consistent player. But since his retirement in 2003, he has improved tremendously, in large part because he’s willing and able to work on his game. He once even flirted with the idea of turning pro and joining the PGA Tour.
He didn’t, for he knew he still had far to go to be able to compete on that level. That didn’t stop him from enjoying the challenge, however.
“For a competitive junkie like me,” he once told a television reporter, “golf is a great solution because it smacks you in the face every time you think you have accomplished something.”
Through the years, Jordan has had many golf partners and opponents whose competitive spirit equalled his own. NBA Hall-of-Famer and good friend Charles Barkley has often delighted fans by trash-talking Jordan on and off the course. Baseball stars Derek Jeter of the Yankees and Albert Pujols of the Cardinals have pitted their skills against Michael, most recently in the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational in January of 2007. Actors Michael Douglas, Goldie Hawn, and Gabrielle Union also played in that tournament alongside Jordan. All are considered decent golfers, but they take a backseat to the man who has been called the Michael Jordan of golf: Tiger Woods.
Woods and Jordan met years earlier, when Woods was first emerging as a superstar of golf. Back then, Jordan was Woods’s unofficial mentor, giving him advice on how to deal with being a sports celebrity. That relationship developed into a fast friendship that continues today, both on and off the course.
Their most recent outing together was in the pro-am Wachovia tournament in early May of 2007. This event marked the first time the two had played together in an organized tournament rather than for charity or just for fun — though by all accounts, they had plenty of fun that day!
Along with their third teammate, amateur golfer Skipper Beck, Woods and Jordan entertained the crowds with their high jinks and their play. At the seventh hole, Michael sank a putt to make par — and then imitated Tiger’s well-known fist pump of triumph as he walked off the green.
Four holes later, Michael kicked Tiger’s ball off the tee into the audience, where it was scooped up by a happy fan. Then, when Woods re-teed and went into his swing, Jordan cleared his throat loudly, drawing laughs from the crowd and inciting a staring contest with his partner.
Woods had his “gotcha” moment, too. After Michael nearly chipped into a water hazard on the 17th hole, Woods plucked his teammate’s ball from the gra
ss with his putter — and then tossed it over his shoulder into the lake!
Through it all, the two engaged in playful banter, although Woods later admitted that his friend was much better at trash-talking. He also noted just how lucky he felt to know Michael Jordan.
“He’s been like my big brother,” he told reporters, “so it’s been great to have him be part of my life.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
2006–2007
Back to the Court!
Motorcycle racing and golf gave Michael Jordan plenty to do after his retirement from basketball in 2003. So did his many business ventures, particularly Jordan Brand, his division of Nike.
Yet basketball continued to pull at him. He hadn’t given up his dream of one day having an ownership stake in an NBA team. In June of 2006, that dream finally came true. Robert Johnson had first offered his friend Michael a top management position with the Charlotte Bobcats in 2003. Jordan had turned him down because he wanted to be the chief owner of the team. At that time, Johnson wasn’t interested in giving up any part of his ownership.
But three years later, Jordan and Johnson entered into talks again. This time, Jordan accepted Johnson’s offer, one that made him second in ownership to Johnson as well as the managing member of basketball operations.
“I’m excited to join Bob,” Jordan said in a statement on June 15, 2006, and “to put the best possible team on the court.”
Johnson seemed equally delighted. “Michael will provide invaluable management input to a Bobcats team that is poised to deliver results for the 2006–2007 season and beyond.”
The announcement came on the heels of the Bobcats’ second season in the NBA. A glance at their two-year record showed that they were not a great team but that they were improving. In 2004–2005, they had a dismal year of 18 wins and 64 losses. In 2005–2006, they had added eight more wins to bring their record to 26 and 56.
Michael Jordan: Legends in Sports Page 9