Michael Jordan Wants in
Written by Jason Keidel, Friday March 19 2010
Michael Jordan, the name, face, and physique of athletic perfection whose spread-legged leap is as much the NBA logo as Jerry West's silhouette, needs action.
Jordan announced yesterday that he is now the principal owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, which is less of a business transaction than a mating call for competition, a way to slap the dust off his adrenal glands. This is the latest move in a decade-long search for that elusive cup of spiritual gold he guzzled nightly when he was the hardwood exemplar.
He can't find it in a casino, with Charles Barkley and Lawrence Taylor on the links, or with a woman. He once launched a fragrance bearing his name that only masked the real scent of victory.
There is no off-court equivalent of a fadeaway with three seconds left in Game 6. Jordan does not share the retired athlete's contempt for work, but there is no work to be found that fits his transcendent lust for dominance.
Jordan, like Elgin Baylor and countless others before him, became an executive, running the Washington Wizards. His signature move was drafting Kwame Brown. Jordan was fired, perhaps his first pronounced failure since he was cut from his high school team.
Bob Knight said that Michael Jordan is the best player in the history of team sports. Sadly, there is an expiration date on all careers. Muhammad Ali would tell you this, if he could speak. Jordan's failings as an executive remind one of a pudgy Ali in repose on the ropes against Larry Holmes, trying to be what he no longer was, shredding the fantasies of a billion boys.
Unlike Ali, Jordan has his wits and wallet intact. But the emotional chasm he is trying to fill is bottomless. All lives are fleeting, and if there are no second acts in American lives Jordan will have to accept his first.
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