How To Win By Not Playing
Michael Jordan’s greatest trick as the GOAT was ensuring that his greatness remained untarnished.
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By Jordan Rogers
I said, ‘Baby, I think Michael Jordan’s better than me.’
She said, ‘Dad, you’ve never said that before.’
I said, ‘Baby, I’ve never felt like that before.’
Whether or not this conversation between Charles Barkley and his daughter actually took place following the 1993 NBA Finals isn’t really the point. The point is that it’s absolutely believable that it did.
People will believe almost anything about Michael Jordan, especially if the story involves him kicking someone’s ass. Even those of us with the keenest of basketball minds are hardpressed to dismiss an urban legend about MJ when we first hear them; the man, after all, could fly.
Though every sport has its transcendent players, Jordan’s dominance — both in the statistical ledger and the ring count, remains indisputable. He’s the Association’s all-time leader in both points-per-game and PER, and alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he won more titles than any star in any major sport during the modern era.
But points and rings don’t tell the entire story.
Six Finals appearances. Six titles. Six Finals MVPs. Jordan remains the only player in NBA history to be named Finals MVP every single time he appeared. Winning. It is what makes Jordan, Jordan. It dooms all comparisons — with LeBron James or anyone else. It isn’t just that MJ climbed to the top; it is that only he appeared to stay there permanently.
Consider that Jordan might have retired from the NBA the first time because he was too good. As the story goes, His Airness decided to quit the game after asking Phil Jackson if he thought there was anything else for him to accomplish on the court, and Phil had to pause. Of course, Michael was not wondering if he had reached his own limits, but the limits of any basketball player. While other greats have fretted over retiring at their peaks, Michael walked away from the game at what he considered the peak. Anyone’s peak.
No one, however, seems to discuss this most inconvenient of basketball truths: the timing of Jordan’s first retirement allowed his dominance of the sport to continue unabated, both during his absence and still now. In fact, Jordan twice retired after three-peats in which the Bulls seemed headed for a considerably more difficult fourth attempt.
Was this by accident?
In 2013, as LeBron James was making his third straight Finals appearance, Bill Simmons asked Steve Kerr if he thought LeBron would make it to a fourth Finals in 2014. (Kerr, coincidentally, who was traded to San Antonio in 1999 after playing with Jordan in Chicago from 1996 to 1998, was the last player to make four straight Finals — a feat several Heat players will match this Thursday night.) In response, Kerr cited the length of the NBA season, the endless flights, the punishing effect of time and travel upon an athlete’s body — all things LeBron, despite his unparalleled gifts, cannot control.
But what if Jordan knew back in 1993 what Kerr was referring to? What if he knew that keeping pace with expectations would be impossible?
Conspiracy theorists will never stop wondering if Jordan was forced to retire four days before the 1993 training camp because of his gambling, but what’s never asked is if he planned his retirement to avoid blemishing his championship streak. This probably sounds ludicrous — except that it’s Michael Freakin’ Jordan. Did you see that Hall of Fame speech? Have you re-read the transcript? Might those words be viewed differently in the context of not necessarily trying to stay on top, but trying to remain perfect?
Playing for Keeps, David Halberstam’s obsessive review of Jordan’s career in Chicago, plainly states how intensely aware Michael was of the difference between simply being on top and being perfect. The author delves into the usual platitudes of challenge and competition when explaining Jordan’s 1993 retirement, but he twice mentions Jordan’s keen understanding of how closely his success on the court was tied to his success with the media. He could be untouchable, he could stay off their prying radar, but only as long as he was winning. And that meant winning every year, year after year.
Jordan would still have been considered the greatest player in history had he failed to win four titles in a row, but, at least in his mind, failing to win it all would have meant that he wasn’t perfect, and as such, he no longer would have been impervious to critics. Jordan, by winning, and retiring, and then winning and retiring again, stayed perfect. He reached the absolute pinnacle of performance and perception.
None of his peers can compete with the ghost of Michael Jordan. The curious lack of buzz surrounding James making his fifth Finals appearance before age 30 proves this. LeBron’s biggest mistake, seemingly, was breaking through prematurely in 2007 when he never had a chance against Tim Duncan’s Spurs. For that, James’s resume is imperfect, and will never win the Jordan comparison. What if Jordan’s biggest advantage over LeBron wasn’t his legendary killer instinct, but his aptitude for losing in the Eastern Conference Finals earlier in his career?
Michael Jordan never lost on the biggest stage, and, even now, it’s assumed that he never would have. That’s the brilliance of the man. He always won, even without playing.
