What’s the best way to tell that Michael Jordan has led a charmed life?
Not by the fact that he was blessed with more basketball talent than anyone in the history of ever.
Not by his winning shot for North Carolina in the 1982 national championship game.
Not by his two Olympic gold medals.
Not by his six NBA titles, his six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player awards or his five regular-season MVPs.
Not by his estimated $2 billion worth.
All of it is terrific stuff. But it’s not the surest way to understand how good life has been to MJ.
No, the best way to tell that Jordan has led a charmed life is the free pass from criticism he’s gotten as an owner and executive of the Charlotte Hornets. Since 2006, when he bought a minority interest in the franchise and became its head of basketball operations, the Bobcats/Hornets have been above .500 four times and made the playoffs three times, never getting out of the first round.
Very rarely has Jordan faced heavy or prolonged criticism during his 17 years of futility with the team. Now that he’s reportedly considering a sale of his now-majority stake in the Hornets, there’s a distinct possibility he’ll leave with very little scar tissue to show for it. That’s as stunning as anything he’s done in his career.
How that came to be is a reflection of his enduring popularity and a fawning media that feels the need to prop up his legacy – a legacy that can stand very well on its own. While writers and broadcasters have been busy beating back anyone who has the temerity to say that, you know, this LeBron James fellow is pretty good, too, Jordan has been failing as an owner and an executive for years.
If he does sell his stake in the Hornets, he’ll make a huge profit on his $275 million investment. According to Forbes, the franchise was worth $1.7 billion in 2022.
Nice work, if you can get it.
If Bulls and White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf had as bad a record in Chicago as Jordan has had in Charlotte, his eyebrows would be burned off from all the abuse he’d take. As it is, Reinsdorf gets tons of flak for his leadership of two franchises – and this is a man who has six NBA titles and a World Series title to his name. Surely he’s chuckled over the kid gloves with which media members handle Jordan the owner. Was the store out of those gloves when it came to Reinsdorf’s treatment by the press?
Jordan used the third overall pick in the 2006 draft to take Gonzaga star Adam Morrison. Morrison played four seasons in the NBA, averaging 7.5 points and shooting 37.3% from the floor. That was worse than the Wizards’ drafting of Kwame Brown first overall in 2001 when Jordan was the team’s director of basketball operations. Brown averaged double digits in scoring just once in his 12-year career.
Those are iconic drafting mistakes in league history, yet Jordan’s image hasn’t been negatively impacted by them or his many other poor personnel decisions. The emperor’s friends in the media have refused to report his lack of clothing. They’ll be happy to rehash the Flu Game, however.
For a fabulously rich former athlete, buying into a professional team usually is a way to stay relevant and make money. A franchise usually gets the benefit of an association with the athlete without worrying about his meddling in decision making.
But Jordan has never been content to be a greeter at a Las Vegas casino. He wasn’t just the face of Nike. He made decisions that helped him and the corporation make loads of money. So it was admirable that he wanted to be an NBA owner, a majority owner. He just didn’t happen to be good at it in terms of winning basketball games.
There’s usually a cost for not being good at something, a reckoning for bad choices. But not with Jordan. Photos of him at an Arizona golf course, pitching wedge in hand, would appear during one bad season or another by the Hornets. Snickering, not flame-throwing, would ensue. It’s good to be the king. Then everybody would move on. Superman’s cape wasn’t made for tugging.
It’s not hard to understand why people have a hard time acknowledging Jordan’s failings. His biggest supporters were emotionally invested in his greatness as a player, and all these years later, that greatness is all they see when they behold him, ponder him or fall asleep thinking about his Dunk Contest performances. If everything about him is excellence, then maybe some of that excellence rubs off on them.
Charlotte finished with a 7-59 record in 2011-12. The .106 winning percentage is the lowest in NBA history. Nobody wants that rubbing off on them. The solution? Pretend it never happened.
