If Michael Jordan’s early years were about his mixing athletic ability with creativity, the first set of NBA championships about his adjusting that creativity to a team concept, and the second set about getting back on top and establishing his legacy once and for all, with teammates more specialized and complementary in their roles than ever before, then his latest comeback is about almost nothing but determination. He isn’t as creative as he used to be because his body no longer lets him do all the things his mind imagines. His legacy is fixed, though if anything it’s been heightened by the early success of this latest comeback–much to the chagrin of those who were eager to bury him if it failed. Jordan seems determined to play a team game–that is, as much of a team game as he has ever played–yet not even he can consider his Washington Wizards serious title contenders (though he must be glad they’re winning; I never took seriously his statement that he didn’t care if the team won or lost so long as he taught his players the finer points of the game). No, what shines through in this presumably last segment of his career, is his determination. It was always there, but once it was veiled by the incredible grace and beauty of his play.
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Jordan is not only older now, about to turn 39, and slower, but also bigger and stronger. When he made the decision to come back–it was about a year ago that he started working out again in earnest–he knew he’d have to switch from shooting guard to small forward. So he built his body up. He rarely creates his own shots now, no longer having the same lift on his stop-and-pop jumper, so he now gets his shot the way most stars do, with the help of teammates setting screens. Why has he done all this, altering his body and his style of play to return to a sport he long ago defined, and at the immediate cost of his marriage? Who can say? Probably not even Jordan himself. Yet the impression he makes on a fan–and no doubt on teammates and opponents–is one of utter concentration. Slower but harder, that famous shaved head of his now revealing more bumps, veins, and musculature when he works the jaw full of Doublemint gum, Jordan continues to teach us new things about himself, and new lessons about what it means to be an athlete. That’s the most amazing thing of all about his comeback.
Jordan welcomed the Bulls to Washington for his first game against them with all the menace of a hurricane. Only three games before, his double-digit scoring streak, which had extended back to his rookie season, ended with one of the worst performances of his career: he scored six points. Yet the Jordan legend is built on coming back from humiliation, as Jordan himself once pointed out in a Nike ad; he scored 51 points his next game and followed that with 45. He would have been a Category 5 storm waiting for the Bulls if he hadn’t caught a cold. But even this gave small solace to the Bulls, as Jordan has had some of his biggest games after climbing out of sickbeds–including, of course, the fifth game of the 1997 NBA finals he played against the Jazz with stomach flu. The Bulls in general, and Ron Artest in particular, had to be expecting a Jordan whirlwind.
When he returns to town Saturday he won’t have anything to prove. It’s the Bulls who will, resurgent under their new coach and coming off their United Center upset of the NBA-champion Los Angeles Lakers last Saturday. The Lakers lost interest in that game, building a 17-point lead in the first quarter and squandering it by halftime, which found the score tied at 50. They hung with the Lakers until bums Brad Miller and Charles Oakley hounded Shaquille O’Neal into throwing a punch in the fourth quarter. The referees handed out a disproportionate amount of punishment to the Lakers, and when the final free throws had been taken and the dust had settled the Lakers’ 87-84 lead was only 88-87. The Bulls also got the ball, even though a flagrant foul against O’Neal had started it all. A Mercer three with nine seconds to play tied the game at 94 and sent it into overtime. Kobe Bryant went cold, and teenage rookie Tyson Chandler gave the Bulls their final lead by converting an Artest miss into a rim-rattling dunk. It was 106-104 Bulls in the end, a win that upstaged old coach Phil Jackson.
