Washington Putting on Airs Again

MJ’s back! MJ’s back!

So how come it doesn’t feel like old times?

It’s as much a measure of the Washington Wizards’ desolation as Michael Jordan’s popularity that the news he was taking over the team’s basketball operation was greeted by wild rejoicing in the nation’s capitol.

Of course, with the Wizards having sunk from “perennially disappointing” and “often in trouble with the law” to “textbook definition of hopeless,” you didn’t need to be a living legend to look like an improvement.

Progress is one thing, a miracle is another. While Jordan is part owner and president of basketball operations, there’s one thing he promised he won’t be doing for the Wizards.

“It’s not really [a return to the game],” he said at a news conference in Washington’s MCI Center on Wednesday “because I’m not playing.”

“Don’t tell them you’re for sure not playing,” interjected team President Susan O’Malley.

Darn, there went the suspense. Without Jordan in uniform, or even in charge of a team with a fighting chance, this story adds up to, “Mike’s back? That’s nice.”

Jordan says he’ll show up here and there on the scouting trail but will be more of a big-picture guy, with General Manager Wes Unseld staying on under him. Jordan won’t even move; he’ll commute from Chicago.

Not that it makes any difference where he lives. With the salary-cap fix they’re in, a god couldn’t fix the Wizards, so what’s a mere demigod to do?

Jordan’s aura might help them recruit free agents but would be of more benefit if the Wizards had any money to offer them. The team is committed to $50 million-plus payrolls for the next two seasons, far over the cap.

In this franchise, you have to wait three years just to get back to Square One, because no one will touch the players the Wizards would need/love to dump.

Juwan Howard, who signed a $115-million contract, went into a shell after people learned he wasn’t remotely that kind of player. He has three years left after this one, at an average of $18.75 million.

Mitch Richmond, who’s 33, declining and on the injured list, has three more at $10 million.

The unruly Rod Strickland, who has feuded with new Coach Gar Heard since training camp, has two more at $10 million.

For good measure, they have $4 million a year worth of Ike Austin sitting on their bench.

“The key thing . . . is long-term contracts,” said Chicago Bull General Manager and Jordan nemesis Jerry Krause last week, “and if I remember right, Washington has a lot of them. A lot of big ones and that can hurt you.

“In this business, if you’re not very good and you’re capped, you’re screwed. You cannot win. I’m convinced of that. You’re just going to keep on being mediocre.”

Mediocre would be a step up for the Wizards, who were run (into the ground) by two of the NBA’s most respected men, owner Abe Pollin and Unseld. Of course, they were respected more for their character and generosity than their acumen.

Men who believed in doing the right thing, they were bedeviled by the high-stakes-youth era, betting and losing on Chris Webber, and then, when there was still time, trading the wrong Wolverine, Webber rather than Howard.

Along the way, they ran afoul of David Falk, the super-agent, who lives in the D.C. area and seemed intent on showing them who was boss, acting so imperiously in negotiations on behalf of Howard and Strickland, the Washington Post’s Tony Kornheiser named him “the Bird of Prey.”

Now the team is awful, Strickland has been begging to be traded to the New York Knicks, the fans boo whenever Howard touches the ball . . . and Falk is back.

It was surely Falk who helped middle-man this deal with the new 44% owner, AOL magnate Ted Leonsis. And Falk has surely told Jordan he’ll bring his clients to Washington, as Falk promises so many general managers if they play ball with him.

Jordan insisted Wednesday Falk won’t be running things, adding, in an aside that broke up the room:

“He certainly can be a pain in the ass, I know that. But the good thing about it, he’s a great pain in the ass to have on your side.”

Unfortunately, Falk would be even handier if his biggest clients weren’t already retired like Jordan, old like Patrick Ewing, or tied up like Stephon Marbury. The best Falk has coming up are Glen Rice and Maurice Taylor this summer, Dikembe Mutombo and Larry Hughes in 2001. Even that means nothing, with the Wizards out of cap room and players anyone wants.

For the record, Jordan said he’ll practice with his players (“the best evaluation that I can give to anybody is to look in his eyes and see how scared he may be”) and pointedly didn’t give Heard a vote of confidence (“If everyone’s looking over their head to make sure their necks don’t get chopped off, then that’s good. That means you go out there and do your job.”)

He reminded everyone the Wizards have two all-stars (Richmond, in his youth, and Howard, in some earlier incarnation) and Strickland, who should have been an all-star (except for all the enemies he made over the years.)

Jordan said the team was “underachieving.” He may have been the greatest player the game ever saw but as an administrator, he’s stuck with stating the obvious.

As for the dancing in the streets and the news conference, hosted by Washington Mayor Anthony Williams. . . .

“People can’t sense the separation between me putting on the uniform and me putting people in uniform,” said Jordan, as usual the calm one in the eye of the hurricane. “And that’s human nature.”

A few hours later, Jordan’s team went out and showed what a challenge it will be, losing at home to the Mavericks by 18 points.

On the other hand, Jordan’s back and in D.C., that’s all that counts (for now).