Kick Out the Sports, Motherfucker!!!
by Bob Cook
Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.
Watching Michael Jordan play last season after coming out of retirement (again) was like going to see the Rolling Stones. Sure, he was past his Air Jordan prime, but like the Stones, on most nights he always showed you something that reminded you why he's considered the greatest ever in his field.
Watching Jordan play this season, on the other hand, more often than not has been like paying top dollar to see — breathe deep the gathering gloom — the Moody Blues. All you can do can do is feel embarrassed for the old codger, what with the missed dunks, single-digit scoring nights and general creakiness. He most definitely isn't Air Jordan — Deflated Jordan is more like it. His performance has been so subpar, he's likely to lose his all-time NBA scoring average lead to Wilt Chamberlain, who not only hasn't suited up in 30 years, but also is dead.
Basketball isn't even the worst of it. Off the court, Jordan this season has found his carefully contrived image of "Michael Jordan," the "classy" corporate spokesman ("classy" is white sportswriters' adjective for "black basketball player who doesn't scare my honky ass") is taking a hit, now that it's been revealed he has a thing for blondes who can slink around a piano and coo "You Can't Take That Away From Me" in your finer airport lounges.
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It was Jordan's own fault. He sued Karla Knafel, who he claimed was trying to extort him, and she filed a counter suit saying Jordan had reneged on a promise to pay her $5 million upon retirement — presumably supposed to have come in 1993, the first time he retired — after thinking at one point he had fathered a child by her. (Both suits are making their way through Chicago courts). According to Knafel's lawsuit, Jordan connected with Knafel in the early 1990s when referee Ed T. Rush, checking out her performance at a lounge near the Indianapolis airport, called Jordan to let him know Knafel was the kind of girl who would make his heart double dribble. This may confirm what NBA fans have suspected for years: Jordan always got favorable calls from the referees. Did a ref ever do this for Paul Mokeski? How declasse — you think Chamberlain needed a ref's help to build up his other, unofficial, scoring title?
A few days after Knafel's lawsuit, Jordan mentioned off-handedly — in Indianapolis, Karla Knafel be damned — that he would retire when the season was over. Jordan's announcement wasn't unexpected — he's 39, his knees can't take the pounding anymore and his contract with the Washington Wizards is up after this year. Still, it is a tail-between-your-legs way to go, compared to past retirements. Jordan's first retirement news conference, after his Chicago Bulls' third straight championship in 1993, was an event unto itself; on the dais with Jordan were the Bulls' owner, general manager and coach; the president of Nike; and his agent; as well as, it seemed, his sous chef; the investor of Gatorade; and the original Broadway cast of "Sunset Boulevard." His second retirement came on the heels of hitting the series-winning shot for the Bulls' second three-peat (I presumably have to pay Miami Heat coach Pat Riley royalties for using that word), and was considered, at the time, the ultimate way to go out.
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So the evidence is strong that Jordan has joined his fellow Wilmington, N.C., native Sugar Ray Leonard and thousands of others in the always-growing pantheon of Great Athletes Who Stayed Too Long. And least that's what I thought — until I saw the Gatorade commercial.
If you watched the Super Bowl, you saw it, too — the one in which the Jordan of today plays one-on-one against the young Chicago Bulls Jordan. The conceit is young Jordan is leaping out of the gym, and the older, grounded Jordan is relying on wily veteran tricks. It's a perfect distillation of what we've watched over the last 15 years; an athlete who was the greatest in his sport not just because of his physical talents, but because of his ability to adapt his game as those talents declined. What we all forget sometimes is that the Jordan of the second Bulls' championship run wasn't much of a leaper. And then, at the end of the commercial a college-aged Jordan declares he's got winner. Seeing all these Jordans together, 20 years of era-defying greatness in basketball... well, I'm not ashamed to say a tear came to my eye.
And what you realize is, 2002-2003 has been the season of Jordan's humanity — no longer the unstoppable force, he's in trouble with women and he can't play like he used to. And in a way, it makes you appreciate Jordan all the more.
E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.
