| | Michael Jordan tried professional baseball, and people said he was nuts. This was unfair, of course, because any man should try to find the outer edge of his limits and not be deterred by the small opinions of others.
Michael Jordan tried professional golf, and people said he was nuts. This was unfair, too, because he plainly loves the game, and there isn't a golfer in America who wouldn't give the Tour a go if he or she could afford it.
Now, Michael Jordan is showing new interest in owning part of an NBA
team. What is he, nuts?
|  | | Does Michael Jordan really want to enter the dark world of owning a mediocre NBA team? |
The details, not that they would prove his sanity, are that he would like to buy into the Washington Wizards' action under new part-owner Ted Leonsis, who fills his lunch hours helping America Online eat the nation.
Jordan would run the basketball operation in this scenario, which would make him the third-youngest Wizard, but that's another story.
The real point here is that Jordan is moving closer, ever closer, to a dangerous place, from which there is no escape:
Spending time with Don Sterling and Chris Cohan.
Jordan is no fool. He wanted to get a piece of the Charlotte Hornets before this, and Leonsis is the sort of forward-thinking guy who would understand that basketball departments run best when run by basketball people. Plus, he'd be signing the most dazzling basketball celebrity of the age, which beats dragging Pete Babcock through a party trying to make rich folks "ooh" and "aah."
For his part, Jordan would have an in to some of that America Online fortune, because he wouldn't sign on to a deal with the Wizards unless some of that fat, juicy AOL stock were part of the deal. These days, nothing goes down easier and leaves less of an aftertaste than AOL stock.
The downside here, though, is clear -- starting with the burden of association. You are known by the company you keep, and Jordan would have to attend league meetings, where 15-watters like Sterling and Cohan roam unsupervised from committee meeting to buffet table.
And if he was able to shake those two guys, around the next potted palm stands George Steinbrenner and whoever owns the Denver Nuggets this week.
This is not, clearly, the same as playing a quick 36 with Tom Lehman, or batting the breeze in a clubhouse with Sammy Sosa. This is the frightening underbelly of American sport, the owner class, and repeated exposure to the dimmer end of the cocktail party can dull the mind and rot the soul.
Next comes the arduous task of rewiring the Wizards. This has been a profoundly mediocre outfit since, well, since the 1978 championship. And in the NBA, the mediocre stay that way until a gift draft choice lands in their laps. It happened in Chicago with Jordan, and more recently in San Antonio with Tim Duncan.
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The
real point here is that Jordan is moving closer,
ever closer, to a dangerous place, from which
there is no escape: Spending time with Don Sterling and Chris Cohan.” |
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Mostly, though, the championship trophy has been held by only a select few, playing the Finals mostly against other members of that select few. Ten teams have won titles since the Celtics began their run in 1958, and beaten the same ten teams to do it with only four exceptions (the '60 and '61 Hawks, the '76 and '93 Suns, the '95 Magic and the '97 and '98 Jazz).
That means 15 teams have never had a sniff of the high life, and the longer you're away, the harder it gets. The Wizards, for example, haven't won a playoff series in 21 years, and mediocrity doesn't glow much brighter than that.
In other words, Jordan would be trying to overcome years of basketball evolution in trying to dress up the Wiz in an era where the salary cap and the what-about-my-needs player make overachievement a very difficult trick to turn.
Finally, the NBA seems to be easing into another one of its occasional lulls, as it did in the mid- to late-70s, when common folk have been priced out of the arenas and discouraged by the diffuse nature of the game. The Wizards have yet to sell out the MCI Center, and they're not the only ones dancing in a half-empty club. Jordan could fill those seats as a player -- but in a suit? Well ...
This isn't to say that Jordan couldn't revitalize the Wizards just on the force of his personality. Billions of dollars and millions of dreams have been dashed betting against him.
But to do that while Herb Kohl is trying to get him to contribute to the Democratic National Committee, Isiah Thomas is buttonholing him on some vital CBA issue and Jerry Krause is glaring at him over by the roast beef is, well, more than any national icon should be asked to endure.
Not even a key to the AOL executive W.C. can make that migraine go away.
Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Examiner is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
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