Like most sports leagues, the NBA will also stand still during the corona pandemic, but from April 20, US sports channels ESPN and Netflix will have something of a consolation for basketball fans: “The Last Dance” is said. A ten-part documentary with previously unpublished recordings, showing the Chicago Bulls in the 1997/1998 season, it’s the last season with Michael Jordan.
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The Bulls won the sixth championship in eight years at the time – despite fierce internal conflicts that included the team’s superstar. “I’m cursed with my competitive thinking,” says Jordan in the trailer for the documentary.
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As a player, Jordan was all about success. His individual accomplishments are second to none, which was often attributed to his work ethic, including by himself. Jordan was charismatic but also merciless, a kind of killer with charm. He always demanded the full readiness of his teammates, the maximum.
Those who could not withstand the pressure were too weak for Jordan. With this attitude, the superstar was a role model for a whole generation of NBA professionals, several times he was called the best player in history.
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But can you always show elbows for a whole life, always get everything out of yourself? Even after the active professional time and the end with the Bulls, if no more millions of fans are watching?
Jordan has now enjoyed great entrepreneurial success with his shoe brand and other areas of activity. According to the US business magazine “Forbes”, the 57-year-old is now the fourth richest African American with net worth of more than two billion US dollars. That’s the page. But his sporting reputation has also suffered greatly in the past two decades. That is the other side.
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Everything has to be done by myself
In 2000 he acquired stakes in the Washington Wizards and took over the sporting direction. After a weak season, the Wizards had the first choice at the 2001 draft. Jordan chose the Center Kwame Brown, which went straight from high school to professionals. But that was all very quickly a minor matter: Jordan himself announced his return to the field. What his employees were unable to do, the boss quickly tried himself.
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But the team was also unsuccessful with Jordan, and the NBA legend expressed his displeasure with public criticism of the teammates. For example, at the time of 19-year-old Brown, who could not prevail among the professionals, he accused the lack of willpower.
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Critics said Jordan’s mere presence would slow down the development of his young teammates. “You didn’t have a chance to fix your own mistakes,” Jordan’s team-mate Brendan Haywood told Sports Illustrated: “You were replaced and shouted at.” Jordan had hired former coach Doug Collins as head coach before the season.
After two seasons with the wizards without playoff participation, Jordan ended his professional career for the third time in 2003 to return to his management post. However, he was denied. Jordan later spoke of being deceived. The others were to blame.
Back to the roots
A few years later, Jordan made another attempt, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina, about three and a half hours’ drive from his home town of Wilmington. In 2006, he became a shareholder and, like in Washington, immediately assumed sporting responsibility for the team that had only been founded two years earlier. In 2010 he bought even more shares and became the first ex-professional to become the majority owner of an NBA franchise.
Since then, the Hornets, who were still called Bobcats until 2014, have been stuck in the lower mediocrity: they qualified for the playoffs three times in 13 seasons, since 2006 only four teams have had fewer wins in the regular season. In the 2011/2012 season, the Hornets won only 10.6 percent of their games – the worst season in NBA history.
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The Hornets were not attractive for non-contracted stars, the bar was now being negotiated. Average players like Nicolas Batum or Cody Zeller got contracts like All-Stars, apparently in desperate hope that they would develop there.
Success through youth work? Almost nonexistent. Since 2006, the Hornets have had twelve draft picks in the top twelve, three in the top five. This resulted in only one all-star: the Point Guard Kemba Walker.
“He is not like other owners”
When Walker asked for a top-rate extension (about $ 33 million annually) last summer, the Jordan was too expensive – he let go of the best player in Charlotte’s history. Terry Rozier, a promising banker to date, has replaced him for an annual salary of nearly $ 20 million.
So far, talented young stars haven’t turned into top players in Charlotte – or they don’t want to stay. According to his players, it is “great” to play for Jordan, as Hornets-Forward Miles Bridges said in January on the sidelines of the game against Milwaukee in Paris: “I can write to him for advice. He always answers,” said the 22-year-old, “he is not like other team owners because he has experienced the sport himself.”
Maybe that’s the problem: the pressure to live up to the demands of a legend. This pressure is enormous, and some of them don’t seem to be able to cope with it.
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, whom Jordan once preferred in the draft of today’s stars like Damian Lillard and Bradley Beal, reported in 2013 about a one-on-one training against his employer Jordan: “That was hard for me,” said the then 19 Year-old talent told NBC: “I lost to a 50-year-old.”
Jordan’s methods seem outdated. Competitive thinking within the team and conflict as opportunities to grow together – that may have worked for the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. Not today.
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