Sure He’s Older, but Jordan Simply Never Grows Old

It’s starting.

Even on as great a sports weekend as this past one, filled with a couple of October baseball classics, breakout college football performances and a variety of thrilling NFL finishes, he broke through.

Too many conversations I had this weekend contained the phrase: “Have you seen Jordan?”

Derek Jeter’s making out-of-this-world plays, Woody Dantzler and DeShaun Foster are coming up with moves normally seen only on Playstation, and you’re asking whether I bothered to watch Washington Wizard exhibition games?

Of course, I did. Practically wore out the satellite remote control hunting for them. Michael Jordan is back on television. Not in commercials, not on ESPN Classic, but in live games.

Soon you won’t need a satellite dish to see Jordan. You won’t even need cable on some afternoons.

Turner Sports has already picked up Saturday’s Wizard preseason game and five regular-season games featuring His Airness. NBC decided to skip ahead of its usual Christmas start date for NBA telecasts and will show Washington’s home opener against Philadelphia on Nov. 3 and a game against Orlando (with Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill) on Dec. 1.

The networks know this isn’t just about basketball. This is about lifestyle. Initially, we’ll watch because we wonder. But eventually we’ll watch because it feels right.

It’s like that line in the DJ Quik song from a few years ago, when he was rapping about the good life and all that went with it: “Watching Jordan go for 40, in a sunken tub/Eating Cheetos, drinking Moet gettin’ a back scrub.”

I don’t know how well Cheetos go with champagne, but you get the idea. It’s the way things ought to be. You sat back, you turned on TV, you watched MJ do his thing. Then you called your friends to talk about it.

Here’s a transcript of some actual conversations back in the day.

“ Did you see Jordan? MMMbbbbwwaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!”

“MJ. BAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!”

The 2001 version of Jordan made his debut Thursday against Detroit. He looked pretty good, making Washington’s first two baskets. Then the feed I was watching from Detroit cut away to show President Bush’s news conference. Priorities.

But it’s hard to imagine anything in the sports world taking precedence over Jordan. I even took my eyes off the Yankees and A’s long enough to see some of his 18-point game against the Miami Heat on Saturday.

It will take a little while to get used to him in that blue uniform instead of the Chicago Bulls’ red and white. But think of it this way, it’s getting closer to the colors he wore when we first saw him at North Carolina.

The 38-year-old version of Jordan has to pump-fake to get away almost every shot. You wonder if players will adjust and stop falling for it. They’ll probably be so eager to get his shot they will buy it, again and again.

If not, you get the sense that Jordan will keep finding new ways to trick them.

He won’t be playing with the exact same style as before. He still has some of the same habits, same moves, same style. The tongue, for instance.

The older we get, the more we crave things the way they were. The songs we used to hear on the radio, the scents coming from the kitchen when your favorite food was being cooked.

And it’s the little things we miss the most.

I remember Magic Johnson’s first time back in uniform after his stunning retirement 10 years ago. It was at the 1992 NBA All-Star game, and the thing that did it for me was seeing him dribble up court--leaning over, sliding along with his other arm out in front to protect the ball--the same way he had thousands of times for the Lakers over the years.

Watching the Washington-Detroit exhibition game, it felt good just to hear the announcer say, “Jordan with the rebound.”

We hang on every thing Jordan does because he is a member of that truly select group: Men That Men Think Are Cool.

Guys don’t give credit to guys very easily. We see a good-looking man drive by in an expensive car and we immediately begin to ponder what deficiencies he must have. But some men rise above that. They’re so cool we can’t even pretend to hate them.

Jordan’s in that class. For me, the list also includes Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson and Hugh Hefner. (The ultimate sign that Hefner is a permanent member of the club: I once saw him enter a club accompanied by the usual assortment of Playmates and a guy standing next to me said to his buddy, “Forget the girls, I just wanna talk to Hef . He’s the man.”)

All of this angst that Jordan won’t live up to his standards goes to some deep-rooted psychological fears. We don’t like to see any signs of vulnerability from our heroes--even in retrospect.

You know what’s traumatic for someone who grew up in the ‘70s? Watching “Happy Days” reruns and trying to understand why we used to fall right behind Richie and Potsie and Ralph in our belief that the Fonz was the hippest thing on the planet. Now you realize he was a goofy short guy who wore that same outfit of jeans, white T-shirt and that black leather jacket.

As my former college roommate said: “He’s the antithesis of cool....We really got duped.”

People are worried that Jordan will let us down and that we might have to re-evaluate the whole Jordan Experience, that maybe we all were duped again.

Fear not. Oh, he’ll get his shot blocked by some guys who aren’t even worthy of wearing Jordan’s signature shoes. He might dribble the ball off his foot occasionally. But based on the early indications, he’ll be fine.

He’s back, and back on TV. We now have been returned to our regularly scheduled programming.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.