Jordan Not Quite Like Mike

The world’s most famous NBA star cut along the baseline, and there it was waiting for him--an alley-oop pass fresh off the fingertips of Washington Wizard teammate Courtney Alexander.

Rising, rising, rising, No. 23 smothered the ball in his giant hands and threw down a thunderous ... layup?

Yes, Michael Jordan has yet to reach a comfortable cruising altitude.

“I’m getting back to where my elevation is coming back,” said Jordan, 38, who made his exhibition debut Thursday against Detroit before an announced crowd of 22,076 at the Palace of Auburn Hills. “I can’t expect that I come back after three years and the next thing you know I’m touching the top of the backboard.”

This is the new Jordan, and fans are just going to have to (finger) roll with it.

“It might not be the most beautiful tomahawk slam,” he said. “But the important thing is it’s two points.”

And it was good enough for the folks who packed the Palace to watch him play 17 dunk-free minutes--eight in the first quarter, nine in the second--and score eight points on four-for-eight shooting. In many ways, he looked like the same old Jordan. Same dangling tongue. Same poster-pose jumpers. Same melt-the-masses smile. And, as his coach likes to say, same “economy of motion.”

“When the other guys are going 90 mph, he’s going 45 and getting better results,” Wizard Coach Doug Collins said. “The young guys can’t figure that out.”

But even economy cars run out of gas, and that’s how Jordan looked as the first quarter wore on. His freshly shaved dome was glistening. He was bending at the waist and hanging onto the hem of his shorts whenever he got a chance. With six minutes to play, he glanced at his coach and lifted his wrist as if checking an imaginary watch. Collins didn’t pull him then, but did two minutes later when Jordan peeked over again.

Later, he said he actually felt fairly fresh.

“I kind of surprised myself because my energy level was pretty good,” said Jordan, who wanted to sit out the first two exhibition games to rest his body, but changed course when the NBA asked him to reconsider. “In the first quarter, I thought I was OK. I still have room for improvement in terms of my wind. My legs are coming back. I’m on schedule.”

Everyone got a break toward the end of the first quarter when the game was stopped at 8 p.m. EST so the opening remarks of President Bush’s news conference could be shown on the scoreboard. The crowd erupted in cheers as he approached the podium, then cheered Celine Dion’s rendition of “God Bless America.”

Dion was on videotape. Not so for Reda Taleb, who sang the national anthem before tipoff and nearly was shuffled off the court by Jordan’s personal driver and trainer. They figured she was just another groupie.

Taleb had the characteristics of one. Shortly before she was to perform, she flipped open her cell phone and dialed her boyfriend, breathlessly telling him: “Honey, I’m standing next to Michael Jordan.” Then, she screamed for Jordan’s attention and thrust the phone toward him.

An enticing offer, but Jordan passed. (One of the few times he passed all night.)

“Mentally and competitively he’s still the same Michael,” said guard Jon Barry, whose Pistons won, 95-85. “Mentally, he’s still strong, so when he has to come to that crossroads of maybe playing Kobe Bryant, I think he’ll step up and say, ‘Let me check him.”’

Jordan didn’t play in the second half, despite the occasional We-Want-Mike cheer that filled the arena. It had the feel of a Wizard home game. Mostly. But lots of people howled with glee in the second quarter when their un-retired hero was whistled for palming the ball on a drive.

“Yeah!” bellowed David Schwartzenfeld, a Piston season-ticket holder who sits near the visitors’ bench. “I’ve been waiting 13 years for that!”

Maybe so, but Jordan is convinced the official was seeing things. Then again, he doesn’t expect to catch the breaks he once did. “Hey,” he said with a shrug, “I’m a rookie right now.”