Let Jordan Show His Best Stuff

So, who needs Michael Jordan?

Now, let me get this straight. The more Michael Jordan scores, the more sure the Bulls are to lose. If he scores 50, they’re in the toilet.

I see.

And, the more it rains, the worse the drought. The faster the horse runs, the more he’ll lose by. The harder a fighter hits, the more you should bet the other guy. The more men a pitcher strikes out, the less chance he has to win.

Carry this to its illogical extreme and you would have to say if Michael Jordan stays in the locker room, the Bulls can’t lose.

He almost did Friday night. I wouldn’t say it was wildly successful. The Bulls had to go into overtime to beatthe Lakers, 104-96.

The Lakers returned to Los Angeles Friday night tied in games with the Bulls.

But, consider this: in Game 1, thanks to a nifty three-point basket by an unguarded Sam Perkins, the Lakers had a one-point lead with 14 seconds to play.

Now, a one-point lead with 14 seconds to play against the Chicago Bulls is no lead at all. Particularly when Michael Jordan has the ball. I mean, that game is lost, right? Jordan’s got the ball and doesn’t have to shoot it for 14 seconds. A basket is not only a possibility, it’s an inevitability.

If you’re the Bull coach and someone comes to you before the game and tells you, “I can fix it so you’ll be one point down with 14 seconds to play and Michael Jordan will have the ball,” you might hit your head on the ceiling leaping up to say “I’ll take it!”

Well, Michael Jordan didn’t make that game-winner. It rolled around on the rim and fell off. I don’t have to tell you that wouldn’t be the way to bet.

The media gravely agreed the Bulls lost because Michael scored too much (36 points). I would respectfully suggest the Bulls lost because Michael didn’t score enough. If he had 38 points, the Bulls might not have lost.

But the Bulls appeared to have stumbled onto something. Michael Jordan as decoy. A playmaker, for cryin’ out loud.

The theory in basketball is to get the ball to the open man. On the Bulls, that is Michael Jordan. Michael is always the open man. He is open with five guys on him because Michael Jordan doesn’t play a basketball court, he orbits it. Johnny Carson said the other night that Jordan has more air time than John Sununu. He stays aloft longer than Peter Pan. Christopher Reeve gets the part if they make a movie. He should play in a cape and block “S.”

He’s the Identified Flying Object. Any higher and he’d need FAA clearance. There are parts of the world where they think he’s an airline.

No one comes to see Michael Jordan dish the ball off to a lot of landlubbers. That’s like having John Wayne play a butler, asking Babe Ruth to bunt or Mike Tyson to jab. An offense against nature.

They say he is flawed by his talent. Well, so was Rembrandt. What do you want him to do--set picks?

Apparently, they went to Michael, one of the most devastating scoring machines in the history of the game, and asked him how he’d like to bring the ball up court and check around for somebody to go to the hoop. Play in handcuffs, in other words.

They seemed to be saying: “You play nice, Michael. The trouble is, everybody wants to stand there and admire you. This includes your teammates. They might as well bring autograph books.”

So, Michael Jordan becomes a hod-carrier.

Jordan earlier in the week had referred to his teammates somewhat infelicitously as “My supporting cast.” As if he were Sir Laurence Olivier doing Hamlet and they were a theater group from Bulgaria. Dress extras.

Well, Michael has become the supporting cast. He was Walter Brennan, the faithful old sidekick Friday night.

It’s a risky stratagem. For a minute, it looked as if it would result in another one or two-point loss to the Lakers at the buzzer.

You would probably never again see a game in which Michael Jordan scored a total of four points in the second quarter, four points in the third quarter and four points in the fourth quarter. You’d think he was John Stockton.

It’s also questionable. They’re giving Michael Jordan a complex. Once or twice a night now, he’s hovering over a basket, no one is within five feet of him and all he has to do is let go of the ball for a basket. But he suddenly seems to think, “Uh-oh, I’m not supposed to score--if I put this in we might lose.” And he will retrieve the ball at the last instant, reel it in and whip it to a teammate to score.

It keeps a lot of suspense in the game. The bulk of the evidence in this series is, if you score 93 or so, you will win. Michael Jordan, un-handcuffed, can score 50 almost at will. That leaves only 40 for the other guys. Snow White’s dwarfs should be able to do that.

I suppose it’s sound tactically. But it’s not much fun. Jordan scoring four points a quarter, two of them on the free-throw line, should get you your money back. Michael usually scores more than that on his way out of the locker room.

I guess winning is everything. Soon, the only place you’ll see the real Michael Jordan is in a slam dunk contest or a shoe ad. All I know is, I would hate to pay scalpers’ prices to see Michael Jordan make nine assists. Pretty soon, they’ll be calling him “Magic.” I wouldn’t want to pay all that money to go see Air Divac. So, shoot the ball, Michael! It’s only a game.