Dispatches: Jordan kept magic alive to very end

DISPATCHES by Hank Kalet: Michael’s final season was a shining success.

By: Hank Kalet
   When the National Basketball Association ended its regular season last week, it also marked the last time any of us will get to see the greatest player in the history of the game.
   Michael Jordan played 15 seasons in the NBA, retired twice (before this year), won six titles, five Most Valuable Player awards and ended his career with a scoring average of more than 30 points per game.
   He redefined the athlete as advertisement, won new fans to the sport in the United States and around the globe.
   He is an icon — the silhouette of Jordan, legs splayed, ball raised high overhead, that Nike uses for its Air Jordan sneaker is one of the most recognizable images in American culture.
   But also he is one of the great flawed icons. There were the gambling allegations and he appeared unwilling to cross the corporate line, to speak out or use his role as the most recognizable black man on the planet for anything other than the generation of endorsement money.
   Michael Jordan was not Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe or Muhammad Ali. He was not Curt Flood, who challenged baseball’s reserve clause and ultimately was banished from the game. He was not Tommie Smith or John Carlos, the American sprinters who raised the black power salute as a protest against American racism during the 1968 medal ceremony and were tossed from the team.
   There have been no political stands, no public displays of conscience. Michael Jordan kept silent when it became clear that Nike was using sweatshops to make its shoes — including those bearing his name.
   He was a basketball player, plain and simple, the best who ever donned a uniform — not arguably the best, a phrase we journalists use as a hedge against disagreement, but the best, that rare breed of athlete whose legacy is not in doubt, a player who lived up to the hype and did it with a level of style and class that seems in short supply in the game these days.
   I’m not sure when I first became aware how good Jordan was. I remember him popping for 28 a game as a rookie and then 37 a game his third year in the league. I remember him torturing the Knicks every chance he got and how he suddenly became a ubiquitous presence in American culture, his number 23 jersey everywhere, companies lining up for his endorsement.
   Those first years, however, it seemed easy to dismiss him, despite the boatload of points he was scoring. He played for a dreadful Bulls team and seemed to be more flash than substance, another in a long line of stud scorers. And yet, his teams improved each year, as did his game, adding range to his jumper, adding the nasty turnaround shot and becoming one of the great defenders of all time.
   And for all the criticism, it is important to remember that Jordan’s Bulls never missed the playoffs. He took the team to the conference finals in 1989 (his fifth in the league) and again in 1990.
   Then came the run that defined Michael Jordan: Six titles in eight years — sandwiched around a two-year experiment as an minor league outfielder in the Chicago White Sox system.
   This year, at the age of 40, when most observers questioned his stamina, Michael proved them wrong, yet again. He played in all 82 games, logged more minutes than all but 21 players in the game and managed to score 20 a night.
   For many, Michael’s season comeback will be considered a failure. His Washington Wizards team failed to make the playoffs in either of his two seasons and the young players he had collected when he took over as the team’s vice president of basketball operations several years ago failed to show even the slightest growth.
   I was watching some basketball experts — game announcers and former players — debating the issue last week. Michael, several of them said, has tarnished his own legacy. He was the ultimate winner, a six-time champion who seemed always to have the ball in his hands with the game on the line, always making the right decision or dropping the game winner through the net.
   If he would have stayed retired after hitting that clutch shot in 1998, sending Utah to its second-straight defeat, winning his third straight title, the story would have been perfect, they said.
   But that’s what makes the Michael Jordan story so compelling for me. He chose the more difficult road, taking the court with a bad team and taking the chance that he no longer had the skills to compete. He could have walked off on the high note, but as long as he had a little ball left in him, he had to play.
   I think of Ted Williams at the end of his career, obviously not the player he had been, but still hitting .300 in that final season, hitting a home run in his final at bat at Fenway Park in Boston (There is a memorable essay by John Updike on the home run). But then he sat for the Red Sox’ final three games, preserving his legacy.
   There is something amiss in the Williams story, something that seems wrong. I prefer the story of Willie Mays, who overstayed his welcome on the field, playing his final games in a Mets uniform, a shell of his former self, unwilling to give up the game he loved, but still competing.
   Jordan took that same chance and thrived on the court. While he did not lead the Wizards to the playoffs, his final season has to be called a success.
   As a fan, having that one last chance to watch him work his magic on the hardwood was worth it.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and the Cranbury Press. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].