JUMP 23 : Going Up Is No Problem, but Jordan Must Also Keep His Feet on Ground

See Michael Jordan drive. See him in his new Corvette convertible with the cellular phone and the sound system that could melt your molars and the windows so darkly tinted you can see only an outline, a shadow inside. The license plate hints at who the occupant of this rolling cocoon might be: Jump 23 .

See Michael Jordan drive on. Look, this isn’t just a car he’s driving. No, it’s also a product, which of course he endorses. And even though it’s got all the standard features required by the rubber-soled cult figure, in the ever-expanding popular world of Michael Jordan, it’s starting to look more like a movable container, some sort of motorized terrarium to keep Jump 23 from wilting before his time.

Jump 23 .

Is that a command, Michael? Better get cracking, No. 23, you’ve got your work cut out for you again. Take your car. Now, try not to drive yourself crazy.

Let’s see. Your employers, the Chicago Bulls, need you every day for about the next six or seven months to score 30 points a game, sell a couple of thousand more season tickets and keep the playoffs on the team’s schedule.

Wait a sec, that’s ProServ on the phone. They represent you and your time. There is a diminishing supply of both right now. ProServ will make you a lot of money this year, maybe as much as $3.5 million and every penny comes from you off the court--off your name, your likeness, your smile--for endorsing everything from head (hair care products) to toe (sneakers).

Then there is the National Basketball Assn., which is at the top of its game and wishes to stay there. Julius Erving, the doctor, has retired. Would you mind making his rounds? So what if you’re only 24?

Hold it a minute, someone is knocking at the door. It’s the public, your fans, and there are more of them all the time. Some of them want your autograph. The rest want you to give a speech, help a charity, a basketball camp, a worthy cause, a little old lady cross the street. The only thing they have in common is that they all want something and they want it from you.

Let’s check the accounting. What we have here are a sport that needs superstars, a business than needs clients, a team that needs a leader and a public that needs a hero.

This is your life, Michael Jordan. So jump, 23. You have become the most marketed team sports player in the history of the United States and if you don’t watch it, your life may not be your own. Some of those close to you are worried that it has happened already.

“Michael is a cult figure,” said Jerry Krause, the Bulls’ general manager. “He has no private life. I really feel for him. He gets mobbed all the time. He can’t even sit down and eat a meal without people mobbing him.

“It’s a sad thing in some ways because it’s not easy being Michael Jordan. I’m sure it isn’t easy being one of the Jacksons out in L.A. either, or a rock star. But this guy has to go out 82 times a year. Here, he can’t walk down the street.”

When he does, he draws a crowd. For Jordan, the routine is not normal. He gets his hair cut at a shop by special arrangement after it closes at 7 p.m. The last time he tried to get a trim during regular hours, there was a line of people halfway around the block, straining for a look at him.

See Michael Jordan crack up? Jordan had a car wreck after he had appeared at Bull Coach Doug Collins’ basketball camp last summer near Racine, Wis. When word got out that it was Jordan’s car alongside the road, people started stripping it for souvenirs. Collins was asked what it reminded him of.

“Well, have you seen those obsession movies?” he asked.

“People don’t understand it’s a lonely life,” Collins said. “There is a time when you like to sometimes sit down in a movie with four or five of your buddies and eat some popcorn and laugh and have a good time. That’s taken away from you. Michael can’t go to the movies here. You’ve got the ushers with flashlights wanting autographs at 10:30 at night.”

Eating with Juanita Vanoy, his girlfriend of three years, means dining at a multiplication table: Table for two is quickly table for 25.

Since movies are out, cable television and videotapes are in. Jordan watches from the sofa in the den of his rented town house in nearby Northbrook, Ill., with blinds half drawn, even during the daytime. Is this guy some sort of Howard Hughes with shorter fingernails? Nope. He’s not even close to that yet.

But when Jordan is traveling with the Bulls, they pull the security blanket up around him. In many cities, Jordan leaves the arena by a different exit than his teammates and boards the team bus in secret, just so he can get out without the fans mobbing him.

According to his mother, though, such arrangements may not be tight enough.

“What I worry about is when he’s on the road after games,” Deloris Jordan said of her second-youngest child. “There are so many people, all pushing and grabbing and pulling. And he’s got no protection. So many things can happen.”

Nothing has happened so far, unless you count the incident in Houston, where a near riot was averted at a sporting goods store. Jordan was supposed to spend an hour signing autographs for 300 people at a shopping mall, but 5,000 showed up.

When the people realized that not all would get Jordan’s signature before time was up, tables were broken down and people started getting trampled. Five security guards formed a wedge for Jordan, who wanted to leave until order was restored.

“It was like the Red Sea,” he said. “You see a little pathway and once you get inside, everything starts to close. I didn’t think it was going to be as bad as it was.”

Now, he knows.

“I wouldn’t say I’m completely a shut-in,” Jordan said.

“I’m not that bad. I’m not Michael Jackson. I don’t have to put on masks. I’m not that far gone. I still go out in public and deal with the people. Sometimes you are going to feel like dealing with those people . . . feel like going to the restaurant and somebody asks you for an autograph. The times I don’t want to deal with it, I stay in.

“I’d rather people see the positive side of me. You got to deal with the pros, you got to deal with the cons.

“If you got days you don’t feel good and you feel like the public is going to interfere with your evening, you’re going to flare off at them or you’re not going to be that natural person they think you are, you have to avoid those situations. So I avoid them most of the time. It protects me as a person and it keeps that positive image in the public’s eye.

“I have monitored my situation with the public a lot more now because in three years I have obtained a lot of responsibility, although I didn’t ask for it.”

Like what?

“Role model. When people think of the Chicago Bulls and when they think of the NBA, you are going to be one of those players they look at the most. If you do something wrong, it’s certainly going to be magnified. That’s probably the toughest thing I’ve had to deal with in the NBA. To deal with that public and try to seem the natural person that you are.”

Jordan’s natural person begins with his face, which is what most people see first, unless they just happen to catch him in flight and are looking at the bottoms of his Air Jordan sneakers. Anyway, Jordan has got this inviting openness to his face that seems to attract people. He is approachable, or appears to be that way at least.

“It’s not only his looks, which are inviting, but he’s been so exposed in the media that everybody knows Michael Jordan,” said David Falk of ProServ. “We’ve told him he needs to think about pulling back. He’s reached the point where he appreciates the need for time and space. We’re very concerned about that. The problem is, he has trouble shifting gears.”

In other words, Jordan has trouble saying no. His schedule would be tough enough if Jordan stuck only to basketball, but that’s probably the easiest part although not the most lucrative. There are 24 players making at least $1 million this season and Jordan is not among them, even though he would surely be listed among the top 24 players in the NBA.

Not that there’s a cash crunch. “Michael Jordan is very well taken care of,” Krause said.

Maybe so, but Jordan isn’t even the highest-paid player on the Bulls. That honor belongs to 38-year-old Artis Gilmore, who will make $863,000 this season to Jordan’s $830,000.

Gilmore’s reaction? “Winning is about winning. It is not about bank accounts.”

The Bulls, however, have not been about winning, even with Jordan. Since he joined the team three seasons ago, the Bulls have gone 38-44, 30-52 and 40-42, although in 1985-86, his second season, a broken bone in his left foot kept him out of all but 18 regular-season games.

Last season, though, Jordan got into some really big personal numbers. He led the NBA in scoring with a 37.1-point average, 8.1 points higher than runner-up Dominique Wilkins. He became only the second player in NBA history to score 3,000 points in one season, had 16 games of 45 points or more and 8 of at least 50 points. Jordan scored 61 points twice. The Bulls were 1-1 in those games.

“Michael right now is treading the line,” Collins said. “He’s such a dominant player that he doesn’t want his teammates to think he’s trying to do it all. It’s a very tough position to put him in.”

It is in the financial department, however, that the really big numbers come up. With Nike, he has Air Jordan sneakers and warm-up clothes. Jordan endorses a line of basketballs for Wilson Sporting Goods, and is a spokesman for McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, Johnson Products and Guy Laroche watches.

According to Sports Marketing News, Jordan’s income this year from his endorsements will be $2.5 million, although some estimates go as high as $3.5 million. Jordan will say only that it’s more than $2.5 million.

Apparently, it is big enough to cause some king-sized resentment among his peers.

It all began when Jordan made the All-Star team as a rookie and competed in the slam dunk contest wearing his warm-ups. That apparently was considered presumptuous by some veterans. During the game, Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons and George Gervin, then of the San Antonio Spurs, allegedly conspired to freeze Jordan out of the offense and work him over when he played defense.

“That was the most hurting thing in my whole career,” Jordan said. “I didn’t see any reason to be cocky because there was nothing to be cocky about.

“My lawyers asked me to wear the Nike warm-ups during the dunk contest. I thought it was normal procedure. It was my first All-Star game and I didn’t know what was going on. Going back and looking at it, I wouldn’t have done it had I known it would cause so much trouble.”

Jordan and Thomas made up, at least publicly, but when the Bulls played their first game after the All-Star break, it was against Thomas and the Pistons. Jordan went on his first scoring binge as a professional, scoring 49 points against Thomas.

“And I didn’t say a word either,” Jordan said.

Falk said he is convinced that not everyone in the NBA wants to get along with Jordan because of the success he has had in so short a time.

“The potential for resentment is so high,” Falk said. “A lot of stars are jealous of him. Players look and see that he gets more for his shoe (endorsement) than virtually anyone in the league gets in salary.”

It is precisely that overwhelming marketability, which is unique in the NBA, that is beginning to cause the Bulls some concern. Collins has asked for and received a copy of Jordan’s monthly time schedule and retains veto power over it. He also told Jordan last season that he shouldn’t shoot a McDonald’s commercial in February, when the Bulls had only one road game after Feb. 6.

“I’d never seen anything like it, the pace he kept,” Collins said.

There isn’t much chance that the pace is going to slow down, regardless of Falk’s caution, Jordan’s monitoring or Collins’ veto power. Too much is at stake here. Jordan is too big a commodity and the idea is to get him while he’s hot.

“He’s too good to be true,” said Joe Steranka of ProServ.

But not necessarily all the time.

Jordan actually walked out of practice last week, 20 minutes before it was over, because he was angry with Collins. Jordan said he got mad because Collins was keeping the wrong score during a scrimmage.

Jordan said afterward that people would probably think him trivial.

Those people might have been right, too, if that’s all it was about, which it probably wasn’t. Indications are that Jordan and Collins were clashing about more than score-keeping. Jordan was believed to be upset because Collins was still conducting two-a-day practices. There was also a report that Jordan said something to Collins during an exhibition game after Collins shouted something at teammate Sedale Threatt.

Jordan was even late to practice twice last week, apparently because he overslept, the result, he said, of the two-a-day workouts. Both Collins and Jordan have said the other has changed from last season. When he bolted from practice, Jordan said: “This was the maddest I’ve ever been.”

Collins, whose position got stronger when he signed a three-year contract extension before the season, refused to comment. But local radio call-in shows ran strongly in favor of Jordan’s position.

Collins and Jordan kissed and made up the next day, literally. Collins threw an arm around Jordan, declared that the fracas was no more than a misunderstanding and kissed Jordan on the cheek.

Still, there was something going on, some apparent friction.

There is increasing speculation that Jordan is not pleased with his contract, which won’t pay him $1 million--$1.15 million actually--until 1989-90. Rookie Scottie Pippin, the Bulls’ No. 1 draft pick, is making more now than Jordan did in his first two years as a player. Then there is Pippin’s growing stature as a star of the future and a possible equal.

Those who know him, though, say that Jordan has no problem with his contract.

“Michael doesn’t have an ego thing about the dollars,” Krause said.

Falk said that his client may be getting a bad rap. “He’s basically the same guy he was in 1984. Things haven’t really changed the basic Michael Jordan.”

It just may be, however, that the basic Michael Jordan is getting harder to find.

One day recently, Jordan found refuge on the golf course where he teed up to play Steve Schanwald, the Bulls’ vice president of marketing. Schanwald kept his eye on the ball, but he should have kept it on Jordan. On one of his swings, Jordan accidentally, but neatly, broke Schanwald’s nose.

Did Schanwald get mad at Jordan?

“Are you kidding?” Schanwald said. “There’s no question Michael is the biggest asset we have at this point in team history.”

Well, of course. This is sound logic. Sure, after the blow by Jordan, Schanwald was shaken up a little bit, but he didn’t see stars. He saw dollar signs.

Since the first gusts of Air Jordan blew into the Windy City in the fall of 1984, the aroma of money has been wafting from the Bulls’ offices on north Michigan Avenue.

In 1983-84, the year before Jordan’s arrival, attendance for Bull games was only 260,950 at Chicago Stadium, a building that has all the cheery charm of a penitentiary in an ugly part of town. Once Jordan got there, though, the place started looking a lot better. Attendance nearly doubled in Jordan’s rookie year and is projected this season to reach 700,000.

So figure it out. With an average ticket price of $16.25, Jordan’s presence has meant more than $7 million to the Bulls in four ticket-selling seasons.

Season ticket sales have increased more than fivefold, from 2,047 in 1983-84 to an expected 11,000 this season. The Bulls will stop selling them entirely once sales climb above 13,000.

Apparently, no matter what stocks do, it will always be a Bull market in Chicago as long as Jordan is around. Still, the Bulls quickly point out that Jordan isn’t the only reason the team is doing better.

“Nobody is the franchise,” owner Jerry Reinsdorf said. “The franchise is bigger than him, bigger than me, bigger than anybody who has (played) or will play here.”

Schanwald said that the Bulls have tripled the size of their ticket sales staff to take advantage of Jordan as well as the rise in the popularity of the team, which can be attributed not only to Jordan, he said, but also to an aggressive marketing campaign by the Bulls.

Such a posture must be purely for accounting purposes. Just ask yourself this: Would the Bulls have tripled their sales staff and marketed the team so strongly if Jordan were not on it?

Jordan may be a prophet without honor in the board room, but not so in the locker room or on the basketball court, where his value as a player is unquestioned and, maybe, unequaled in all the NBA.

“What he did last year was special, but you’re talking about a very special player,” said Laker General Manager Jerry West, who usually spreads only a thin layer of praise on guards.

“You just don’t see players like him very often,” he said. “It’s not just the number of points he scores, it’s how he scores them. There is a great excitement to his game. I don’t get real excited about basketball games, but I do get excited watching him. What he does is just unique.”

Last season, Jordan blocked more shots than 13 NBA starting centers. And Jordan’s points speak volumes. The only other player in NBA history to have scored at least 3,000 points in a season is Wilt Chamberlain, who did it for three consecutive years, beginning in 1960-61. In fact, Chamberlain actually scored more than 4,000 points in a season, that in 1961-62, when he finished with 4,029 and averaged 50.4 points.

But consider the degree of difficulty. Chamberlain was taller and played center, where he could set up closer to the basket. Jordan got his 3,000 points playing in the backcourt.

“That’s what I think is amazing,” Bulls’ guard John Paxson said. “Chamberlain did it at his height. Michael did it from everywhere. It’s pretty incredible.”

But if things work out this year, it won’t happen again. You see, the Bulls don’t want Jordan to score 3,000 points. He did it last season because Jordan was the answer to a mathematical equation: One team (Bulls) minus six players traded away or retired (Sidney Green, Jawann Oldham, Kyle Macy, Gervin, Orlando Woolridge, Quintin Dailey) equals one player (Jordan) carrying an awfully big scoring load.

“That was probably 75% of our offense,” Collins said. “You really don’t replace them with primary scorers, you replace them with draft choices. We had to put Michael in the position where he had to score like he did because we didn’t have primary scorers. You couldn’t ask Michael Cooper to all of a sudden go out and score 20 points a game for you.”

So the Bulls asked Jordan to do it. In fact, while you’re at it, go out and score 37, why don’t you? The Bulls averaged 104.8 points a game last season and Jordan came up with 35% of them. Chances are, that’s going to change. Collins figures that the expected improvement of Brad Sellers, Charles Oakley and Paxson, as well as the addition of Pippin, give the Bulls more potential scorers than before.

Now, the Bulls’ offensive philosophy is different. The let-Michael-do-it style is no longer in vogue. Collins wants to spread the scoring around, telling Jordan he’d like 10 fewer points from him and 10 more wins for the team.

Of course, if Jordan continued to run loose, his flame-out possibilities might increase. There are only so many jump shots in a body, no matter how young and resilient it may be. There is also the matter of a reputation to protect, Collins said.

“The longer a guy has to go in his career scoring big-time like that, he gets labeled as being strictly a scorer,” Collins said. “Then when your team gets better and his scoring goes down, people start pointing the finger that he’s not as good as he used to be. Actually, he’s probably giving the team more of what it needs to win. I don’t want to put Michael in that situation.

“The fan expectation becomes, ‘Let’s go see Michael score 37 points.’ Michael doesn’t want that, I don’t want that, the team doesn’t want that.”

Let’s start at the top. Does Michael want that?

“No, I don’t want it that way,” Jordan said.

Nothing could be more deflating. If you want to let the air out of Jordan, tell him he’s going to have to score about 40 a game again and then, maybe, the Bulls have a chance to win.

“The mental drain I had to deal with,” Jordan said in reflection. “I mean, how do you get started? Do you get your teammates involved first? Make sure Oakley gets going, make sure (Dave) Corzine gets going or make sure Brad Sellers gets going? And if they’re not going, you have to step in and do what you have to do.

“Or is it this: Come in, get off to a good start, take the pressure off of them, then let them come in and get involved?

“These were the things I had to deal with last year. Boy, I mean, there were so many combinations I tried. Sometimes it worked and if it did, I tried it the next game. Sometimes it didn’t work. What happened was that physically I felt fine. Mentally I got tired.”

Paxson said that the long season got to Jordan. After a while, Air Jordan needed a compressor to get pumped up.

“It took its toll on his body,” Paxson said. “He was relied on to do everything. We lost 16 games by three points or less because we relied on Michael totally. As great an athlete as he is, you can’t have two or three guys run at him at the end of the game and have him bail you out every night. It was an easy bail-out for us. But we just can’t do that anymore.”

And that’s not all. Collins saw Jordan get down mentally. Coaches tend to notice when their star player’s mind gets clogged and he develops brain drain.

“Sure, it started wearing on him,” Collins said. “There are only so many ways you can find to get yourself jacked up to go out and play 82 times, knowing that the building is sold out and full of people who came to see you do your show.”

Still, the Air Jordan show was always a hit wherever it played. The same could not be said about the Bulls, who lost two more games than they won. That this could happen when Jordan had more points than the next three highest-scorers combined was an indication that the team had a long way to go.

Ego, always a formidable problem, is something else with which the Bulls must deal, for there is no question about the No. 1 player. And just as James Worthy had to learn to settle for third billing on the Laker marquee behind Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a young, talented star such as Oakley, who had more rebounds than anyone else in the NBA last season, nevertheless must learn to adjust to the prospect of being No. 2 for his entire career.

“You’d better accept it or you’ll really be in trouble because Michael is going to be here as long as he plays the game,” Paxson said. “If you’re not going to follow that leadership, you’re not going to be around. We all understand what Michael means to this team.”

Paxson lost first his confidence and then his jump shot until he got away from San Antonio and began playing point guard on Jordan’s side. Last season, Paxson had the best assists-to-turnover ratio of any guard in the league. He said there isn’t any question that Jordan made him better, which is one of the characteristics of great players.

“Magic Johnson does it, Larry Bird does it, Michael Jordan does it,” Paxson said.

This is rarefied atmosphere here. So who’s the best?

“Bird and Magic are probably the best players in the game who play on the floor ,” Collins said.

And Jordan?

“Michael is the best player in the game who plays in the air ,” he said.

Although it may be easy for Paxson to take the back seat to Jordan, however good he is, it may not be nearly as comfortable a ride for someone like Oakley. There have been no Jordan-Oakley clashes so far and none are expected, at least out in the open.

“I don’t get off into that controversy stuff,” said Oakley, who was said to be the first to call Jordan after the run-in with Collins. “Me and Michael are the best of friends. I know Michael is the star of the team. I don’t let things like that get me down. The rest of us just try to do our jobs.

“Some guys just get jealous if they don’t see their names in the papers,” he said. “I just play hard. I don’t read the papers that much, so I don’t know if my name’s in there. If you watch the game, you know who plays hard and who doesn’t.”

So what we have here is a bit of a contradiction. It’s easy to play with Jordan but it’s hard to play with Jordan. Let’s see, that just about covers it, doesn’t it?

Jordan says it’s easy to play with Jordan, mainly because he tries very hard to be one of the guys, when everyone knows very well that he most certainly isn’t. This is a delicate balance, one that Jordan tries very hard to maintain. When he won the slam dunk contest and $12,000 at the All-Star game last season, Jordan gave $1,000 to each of his teammates.

“It’s like the quarterback taking care of his offensive linemen,” Jordan explained.

And their reaction?

“Now they’re asking for $2,000,” he said.

That’s just it. Nobody can get enough from Michael Jordan.

“I know the traveling side show that’s with the act,” Collins said. “Everybody wants a piece of him. In the hotels, kids are lined up 100 deep, wanting to get an autograph.”

And now, here is a quiz: What do Michael Jordan, Sir John Gielgud, the Toyota Motor Corp., Sharpei dogs and extraterrestrial intelligence have in common?

They’re all new entries in the 1988 World Book encyclopedia. You’ve really got to be something to be included, said Richard Harmet, World Book’s executive editor.

“A person . . . must have made a major contribution to his or her field or must be a topic of great interest to a large number of people,” Harmet said.

Jordan meets both qualifications.

Said Collins: “He’s the most spectacular player in the game.”

Said Reinsdorf: “He’s in the upper echelon of players, not only today’s players, but those over the decades.”

Said Krause: “He has the ability to be one of the greatest players of all time.”

It seems that just about everyone gets carried away when discussing Jordan, and that includes his acting coach at Northwestern. Erwin Beyer, a professor of theater, gave Jordan acting lessons during the summer for a starring role in a film called “Heaven Is a Playground,” which is still being produced.

“He was incredible, really amazing,” Beyer said. “If Michael would want it, he has a career as an actor ahead of him.”

What a list. Actor, entrepreneur, slam dunk artist, role model for our nation’s youth, banner carrier for an entire sport. What’s next, President? Can anyone bring the whole thing off without becoming at least slightly wacko? If being America’s person doesn’t turn you inward, as it has Jordan, you’re probably not the guy for the job.

Jordan said he’s not intimidated or scared by what he will be asked to do in the future. Why not?

“Because I’m doing it already,” he said.

“It’s not easy being a public figure, but I think my outgoing personality has been very beneficial to me because it puts me in a mode, a frame of mind that in the public, I can relate to anybody. I can talk to anybody. People understand me as much as I want them to know. I smile a lot and I get along with everybody.

“I am considered to be an entertainer. I don’t try to put on a show. I know people are going to be looking at me with expectations that are out of this world. They want to see me average 50 points. That’s fans. I kind of spoiled them last year with the way I played.

“It’s all natural. It’s nothing I can practice. All the creativity, the moves, is natural ability. Spontaneously, instinctively happens. You can’t plan for it.”

Just back from practice, there is time for a short nap before Jordan has to take off for an exhibition game at the Stadium. There is a knock at the door. A neighbor jokes that she wants to borrow one of his cars, either the Corvette or Porsche. Jordan smiles. He knows he should be sleeping.

Soon, he will have new neighbors when the house he’s building in Highland Park is finished. Maybe they will allow him to nap. Maybe his life is going to change then. He still does his ironing and cleans the house himself. His mother taught him how and she is a wise woman.

“What Michael is experiencing is called life,” Deloris Jordan said. “It doesn’t just happen to Michael. If you are good, then more people want you. They want more parts of you. This is something we have talked to Michael about. You just have to learn how to say no sometimes. There is only one of you. You have to take time and smell the roses.”

The roses ought to be smelling pretty good these days to Michael Jordan. Maybe if he can slow his life down a little, come out of his house and find a moment to spare, he could stop awhile.

But even in the best of circumstances, he probably will always remember the lesson he is learning today, that no matter how sweetly they smell, roses still have thorns.