Nobody Like Him

Well, it’s not like the days when they claimed he could heal the sick.

Someone actually claimed Michael Jordan did that too, back in his heyday in the ‘90s, but it’s not like that any more.

He’s no longer transcendent, merely ascendant, more human than legend, as prone to the signature gaffe, such as the breakaway dunk he blasted off the back rim in the All-Star game, as he once was to the perfect moment, such as his farewell (we thought) title-winning shot in 1998, framed perfectly by the photographers, with all those slack-jawed Jazz fans in the background, transfixed on the ball in the air, and Jordan in the foreground, right hand frozen in his follow-through, as if he knew ... which, of course, he did.

This hasn’t turned out to be the story that saved the nation or warmed the hearts of an entire world, but then Jordan never said it would, that was just some sports writers who needed to take a deep breath.

Nor has he succumbed to an over-weaning ego, made a fool of himself, tarnished his legacy or whatever some other writers said he was going to do.

This is no longer a league/network hype or an issue for a “sports roundtable,” but an actual story. It’s not aged Willie Mays cringing under fly balls in the sun or a Buddha-shaped Muhammad Ali waddling out to get beaten up by Trevor Berbick.

Going into tonight’s game against the Lakers, Jordan’s Washington Wizards are 26-21, on pace for a 45-37 finish, which would be a 26-game improvement.

The NBA record is 36, set by the Spurs in 1997-98 after losing David Robinson for a season, going 20-66, drafting Tim Duncan, and rising to 56-26.

Then there was the Spurs’ 35-game jump in 1989-90, when Robinson was a rookie, and the Celtics’ 32-gamer in 1979-80, when Larry Bird arrived.

Of course, Duncan turned 22 in 1998, Robinson was 24 in 1990 and Bird was 23 in 1980.

Jordan, as you may have heard, will turn 39 Sunday, making him the oldest most valuable player candidate on record.

“I was sure he was going to average 20-plus,” said New Jersey Net Coach Byron Scott, an old foe, last week. “I didn’t think he would do this well and have his team playing as well as they’ve been playing so far ...

“One man can change the total attitude and the total makeup of a team....”

Like the latter-day Ali, Jordan is an evolving focus of adoration. In his swaggering prime, everyone but the boldest or most foolhardy shrank from him. New York Knick coach Jeff Van Gundy called him “a con man,” hoping to break his spell over the Knick players. In a famous on-court snarl-off, Jordan told Philadelphia’s ferocious rookie, Allen Iverson, he had to respect his elders and Iverson told him where he could go with his complaints.

Of course, it was always a lie; they all revered Jordan. If you were a basketball player, coach or fan, how could you not?

Now, however, it’s OK to say it, even--aw, shucks, I love you, man--if he’s in the room.

“That mystique, it don’t ever go nowhere,” said Iverson at the All-Star game, sitting alongside Jordan in the interview room. “He’s the guy all of us wanted to be like....

“I can’t say he’s doing better than I thought he would. I never thought about judging how well he would do. I knew Michael Jordan would be Michael Jordan. That’s the best in the world. To take Michael Jordan’s shoes and try to fill them, they just wouldn’t fit. There will never be another Michael Jordan. Nowhere near.”

Happily then, this Michael Jordan will be around for the rest of the season, and, he says, next.

In this saga, it ain’t over till it’s over and sometimes, not even then.

There Have Been Bad Times ...

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

Comedian Fred Allen

For good--try fame and an estimated $375-million fortune--or ill, Jordan has defined and embodied modern-day celebrity, an exalting, life-devouring process.

There are two of him, the Mike few know, walled off behind a few faithful retainers, and the Jordan Image, the commercial-penetrating, product-moving machine that always seems to make the big shot and say the right thing.

This takes genius beyond mere artistry and charisma. Jordan may mangle syntax but he has acute antennae. One can’t imagine him misreading a crowd, as Kobe Bryant did in Philadelphia. Jordan, one suspects, would have sensed this wasn’t working right away and, as long as nothing he cared about was at stake, changed course.

But Being Michael means everyone has an opinion about what he’s doing and sometimes that isn’t such fun.

When he announced his latest return, an army of disbelievers seemed to arise in opposition, not only disapproving but offended.

All of a sudden, his presence on a basketball court wasn’t going to be a reason to get excited. Now he was inconvenient.

“The indulging of an ego run amok,” wrote the New York Post’s Wally Matthews.

” ... Bored, restless and unable to exit the stage,” wrote the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan.

” ... Always wants it to be about him,” wrote the New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica.

” ... It’s a bad team and he’s stuck playing with bad players,” said former teammate Scottie Pippen. “It was a bad decision. Even though you’re on TV every night, nobody wants to watch you. I don’t think they’ll be any good by the time he retires.”

But attention was never Jordan’s problem. He was as famous, gawked at and pursued as Wizard president as he had ever been as icon of the Bulls.

One can’t resign from celebrity of this magnitude. He was like Bill Clinton or the Beatles. The problem was that in retirement, Jordan had everything he didn’t like about fame, the loss of privacy, etc., without the thing he liked best, the ability to walk out on a stage and unloose the magic one more time.

If he was no longer the boy next door, there’s no reason to doubt his love for what he always called “the game of basketball,” which was so humble that once, after playing in an exhibition in the old Chicago Stadium during his first retirement, he knelt to the floor and kissed the glowering Bulls logo.

So he returned once more ... and it was a disaster.

His first game was in Madison Square Garden, with everyone harkening back to his last return in 1995, shortly after coming back from a two-year layoff, when, rusty as he was, he scored 55 against the Knicks and hit Bill Wennington under the hoop on the last possession for the game-winner.

There was talk about this game--on cable--outdrawing Game 3 of the Yankee-Diamondback World Series.

Instead, Jordan looked old and slow, the Wizards young and clueless, the Knicks won and viewers tuned out by the tens of thousands.

“I guess,” acknowledged Jordan afterward, striking a never-before-heard note, “the difference is I’m a little bit older than I was.... “

Was he wondering how much he had left, or how much help he could expect?

Let’s just hazard a guess: Yes.

A week later in Washington, against the 76ers, he threw a pass to center Jahidi White, who fanned on it. The ball passed through White’s arms, untouched, and sailed out of bounds.

After 11 games, they were 2-9 and even Richard Hamilton, the most established of the young Wizards, had lost his starting job for four games. Jordan, who was supposed to be playing 30 minutes was going 40 and his arthritic left knee was so sore, he would fly back to Chicago for a second opinion. Old guys get injured more often and heal more slowly. It’s life.

In Cleveland, after the loss that dropped them to 3-10, Jordan issued an unvarnished critique--”I just think we stink”--and a warning:

“I can’t keep up this pace.... I don’t see anybody covering my back but everybody, I’m sure, expects me to cover theirs. That’s something I’m not going to live too much with.”

Oh, and back in Chicago, his wife Juanita filed for divorce, the grocery store tabs got on the case and the Washington Post ran a story, describing the negotiations between husband and wife before they were married, when she was threatening to file a paternity suit.

“They were discussing and they were dating,” Juanita’s former lawyer, Michael Minton, told the Post. “They were saying, ‘We’re emotionally committed to each other.’ But this was not exactly like Ozzie and Harriet.”

Aside from that, it wasn’t such a bad start to the season.

There Have Been Good Times ...

“Sure, there are bigger dreams. One thing you don’t want to do is wake up too quick.

“We just want to keep dreaming and hope you don’t wake up and when

Jordan to ESPN’s David Aldridge last week

Then everything turned around.

It wasn’t magic but defense, which is a product of desire and effort and a specialty of Doug Collins, whom Jordan had hand-picked as coach, needing someone he was already comfortable with, as always.

Collins, strung like a violin string, had quickly and dramatically improved two teams, Jordan’s Bulls and Grant Hill’s Detroit Pistons, before burning himself and everyone else out. But now he was 53 and, with Jordan as on-court leader and emotional rudder, the situation was tailor-made for him.

In their first 11 games, the Wizards gave up 100 points six times. In the next 36, they’ve given up 100 only seven.

They won nine in a row, lost Hamilton, went 7-9 without him and then, after he returned, won five in a row going into the break, climbing into a tie for No. 5 in the East.

It’s not the same old Jordan, not even close. On the other hand, it’s still Jordan.

When he returned from Retirement I in 1995, Orlando’s Nick Anderson, a friend of his, announced “No. 45,” which Jordan was then wearing, “doesn’t jump like No. 23.”

It was true, Jordan was no longer the sky walker of the ‘80s. Of course, he then dropped 38, 40 and 39 on Anderson in the next three games of the East semifinals. It has never been a good idea to mess with this guy.

Now, after Retirement II, Jordan doesn’t even jump like No. 45, living like a latter-day Bird or Magic Johnson, on his skill, of which there is a lot, and his wiles, of which there are many.

“He’s lost a step and thank goodness,” said Bull Coach and former teammate Bill Cartwright. “Now, he’s halfway normal.”

Jordan’s moves still leave defenders off balance but he can’t get the same kind of separation. His shooting percentage is a career-low 42.1% (a career 50% shooter, his previous low was 46% in his second season, which ended early when he broke a foot).

But he’s still closer to “extraordinary” than “normal.” He still gets even, as after a particularly embarrassing two-for-10, six-point night against the Indiana Pacers, when he came back to put up 51 and 45 points in the next two games.

His shooting is turning up (33% in October, 41% in December, 43% in January, 46% this month), his knee is getting stronger and his minutes are stretching out (34 in December, 38 in January, 40 this month).

He isn’t overshadowing the young guys--another supposed bugaboo. He ran fourth in All-Star voting behind Vince Carter, Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant.

In any case, the young guys would be enchanted to have him around. As the Clippers’ Darius Miles said, “He’s the reason I play.”

Oh, and Juanita withdrew her divorce petition. The Jordans are trying to work it out.

It isn’t an ending but right now, it’s happy enough. It’s not the pundits’ comeback anymore, it’s all Jordan’s and he’s enjoying it.

Picture him and Iverson, a bald, middle-aged man with a little mustache next to a 26-year-old, corn-rowed, tattoo-emblazoned representative of the younger generation, wearing a red headband with “The Answer” on it.

Someone asks Iverson to compare Jordan’s game now to Bryant’s.

“I wouldn’t answer that question if I were you but go ahead,” rumbles Jordan. “That’s an unfair question, really, truly.”

“You heard what he said,” says Iverson, laughing, refusing to answer.

“Next,” says Jordan.

Indeed.

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