Youtube video from 2013 on that practice in case people haven't seen that episode yet.That fabled Monte Carlo practice is probably the best game of hoops ever.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=254&v=4SbJ4Xf-t5E&feature=emb_logo
Youtube video from 2013 on that practice in case people haven't seen that episode yet.That fabled Monte Carlo practice is probably the best game of hoops ever.
Repercussions? How would that work? He owns the team, who should he answer to?You could make another 10 part documentary on the bad decisions Jordan has made with the Wizards, Bobcats/Hornets. He is a terrible owner and evaluator of talent, but escapes any criticism or repercussions because of who he is.
I’ve also found it weird that a guy with his maniacal drive on the court is perfect ok with being completely awful off of it.It also is mystifying to me that Jordan has zero cache in getting players to come play for him. He can’t recruit star players, maybe that’s only the geography but it’s still weird. He couldn’t even keep Kemba from bolting to the C’s.
I don't know if he's ok with it, so much as he has enough of an ego that he wouldn't want to hire someone that will overshadow him even if it were to make his team more successful. If Pat Riley somehow became available, would Michael hire him as team president? It would almost certainly mean getting the team on the right track, but I can't see Jordan doing it.I’ve also found it weird that a guy with his maniacal drive on the court is perfect ok with being completely awful off of it.
It's a poorly run team that never wins. Why did Kyrie and KD go to Brooklyn and not the Knicks?It also is mystifying to me that Jordan has zero cache in getting players to come play for him. He can’t recruit star players, maybe that’s only the geography but it’s still weird. He couldn’t even keep Kemba from bolting to the C’s.
I dunno. The ego argument is a cop out to me. You almost literally can’t do a worse job than he’s done. Larry has the same drive and killed it. I just think he really sucks at management and is fortunate the media won’t ever call him out on it.I don't know if he's ok with it, so much as he has enough of an ego that he wouldn't want to hire someone that will overshadow him even if it were to make his team more successful. If Pat Riley somehow became available, would Michael hire him as team president? It would almost certainly mean getting the team on the right track, but I can't see Jordan doing it.
Ronaldo comes to mind today. I can’t think of an American athlete that can touch his popularity.Do you think there is one specific individual from Adidas that wakes up everyday in a cold sweat? Nike hoping to sell $4M of sneakers by year 4 only to end up selling $125M in year 1 is astounding. He's been paid over $1B from Nike in his career.
My 14 year old said he would binge when it was over as he kept walking through and watching small bits. I told him it would be hard to comprehend the type of celebrity that MJ was back in the day (which the clips of him emerging from his hotel room showed well). People literally just gasping when they saw him. He asked me who would be comparable today and I really couldn't come up with an answer. With social media, fans seem to have much more insight into celebrities now than we ever did back then.
The fascinating thing for me is how people like Jordan and Kelly Slater (eleven world championships) were so competitive that it came before personal relationships.A couple of things struck me last night, the first was when Jordan said he didn't have a gambling problem but a problem with his competitvness. And the observations from some of his former teammates/ rivals about his wanting not just to beat them but to crush them.
The guy needed to be lead dog.
And he seemed to carry grudges a long time.
And for a guy so successful in so many ways, he didn't seem very happy.
I've only seen bits and pieces of the first two episodes, but what separates Jordan mentally from almost any other NBA player is that Jordan is obsessed with winning. Most NBA players will say how much they want to win, but what they really mean is that they want to win championships. Jordan didn't just want to win titles, he wanted to win every single thing he has ever tried to do. A guy like LeBron, who has done everything imaginable to try and win championships, doesn't have that same kind of crazy streak. His last three seasons in Chicago, he played 82 games every season. The stories about him coming up with some tiny contrivance to motivate himself to get up to beat the Bullets in January is unnatural, even by NBA standards.The fascinating thing for me is how people like Jordan and Kelly Slater (eleven world championships) were so competitive that it came before personal relationships.
There is a surfing documentary on HBO called "The Momentum Generation" which depicts Slater as widely respected by his friend/peer group, much like Jordan, but its clear that his insatiable desire to win at all costs caused friction with those around him.
Jordan is no different - its clear he is respected but the subtext of this series, for me at least, is that it cost him in terms of personal relationships.
The one other thing I take away from Jordan - and I think its worthy of some respect - is that he is unapologetic about his behavior. I find that somewhat refreshing but I get how it may rub others the wrong way.
It’s in the little moments like when Ewing comes into the locker room after Jordan’s last game at MSG.Jordan quickly pokes at Ewing about the NCAA championship 16 years after the fact. And Ewing just gives a resigned, practiced “Don’t start that shit.” MJ is an all-time dick.The fascinating thing for me is how people like Jordan and Kelly Slater (eleven world championships) were so competitive that it came before personal relationships.
There is a surfing documentary on HBO called "The Momentum Generation" which depicts Slater as widely respected by his friend/peer group, much like Jordan, but its clear that his insatiable desire to win at all costs caused friction with those around him.
Jordan is no different - its clear he is respected but the subtext of this series, for me at least, is that it cost him in terms of personal relationships.
The one other thing I take away from Jordan - and I think its worthy of some respect - is that he is unapologetic about his behavior. I find that somewhat refreshing but I get how it may rub others the wrong way.
So, so good. Just got to the Georgia Dome/"Rosa Parks" scene.The needle drop choices are amazing.
He is very genuine, there is no doubt as to where he stands or what he stands for, no pretense to him. I loved the quotes about not getting involved in politics or being an activist, because that's just not what he could muster energy towards, it wouldn't have been true to who he was and is. Everyone has an idea in their minds of what he should be, but he's not changing for the sake of others - if what he does doesn't inspire you, "then maybe I'm not the guy you should be following". That's honesty, that's a guy who has no use for artifice. Try to imagine Tom Brady saying that.The one other thing I take away from Jordan - and I think its worthy of some respect - is that he is unapologetic about his behavior. I find that somewhat refreshing but I get how it may rub others the wrong way.
The ego is probably the weakness. I doubt he can realiastically see how much help he needs, or what skills he is missing.I dunno. The ego argument is a cop out to me. You almost literally can’t do a worse job than he’s done. Larry has the same drive and killed it. I just think he really sucks at management and is fortunate the media won’t ever call him out on it.
I think there is certainly some of this with MJ. As you note, playing and being GM require such different skill sets. Of all the star NBA players, who has really excelled as an exec? Jerry West? Bird as President? Ainge was a solid player but not a star. Sure I’m missing someone but would be an interesting study to see why guys like MJ, Isiah, Magic all sucked so badly at it. Could be as simple as it’s just really hard so the odds of failure are quite high.The ego is probably the weakness. I doubt he can realiastically see how much help he needs, or what skills he is missing.
At times coaching can be really close to playing, but running a program is so different.
I am an old school, intense coach, and I am pretty confident I can make any bad team decent, or decent team good. You can bring energy, intensity to a team that doesn't compete, play hard and transform them with similar energy as playing. But, going beyond that requires different thinking. Jordan just does not seem to be able to make that adjustment. Even when he tried to coach he ended up playing because all he knew was crushing people.Talent identification is really hard. Even now in my years of experience, I find evaluating guards from film, scouting really hard. Unless they play head to head I am lost. I may be wrong, but I don't see Jordan saying to himself, "I may be the only GM that makes every "top ten draft busts list' two times, I should maybe let my scouts handle the draft."
Not if you don’t care about Golf.I’d argue Tiger is actually bigger. No slight on MJ but Tiger winning the Masters was the ‘68 Comeback Special of this generation. He’s Elvis of sports.
Yeah if we're searching for a comparison to explain to a young kid, we're going outside the world of sports... to people like Barack Obama, the Pope, Taylor Swift, maybe Lady Gaga. The idea of crowds of people waiting around, for maybe hours, to catch a brief glimpse of someone, and then nearly fainting when they do... you don't get that too often these days.Not if you don’t care about Golf.
NBA Basketball in the 1990s was the most popular sport, maybe, on the planet, and Jordan was by far the biggest star.
All of Jordan’s finals averaged more than 20 Million viewers per game. The 1998 NBA finals averaged 29 Million (!) viewers per game.
The highest rated golf tournament was the 1997 Masters, just squeaking over 20 Million, which was the height of Tiger mania and a bit of an anomaly, ratings wise. Since 2010, the average viewership for the Masters has been around 8 Million. Tiger is hugely famous but he is not Michael Jordan, circa 1998 famous.
Jordan was the Micheal Jackson of sports. There were obviously plenty of famous athletes before Jordan, but he was just the right guy, at the right time, to transcend everybody that came before him. Like, yeah, Joe DiMaggio was absurdly famous, but probably not among African Americans, much less people in China.Yeah if we're searching for a comparison to explain to a young kid, we're going outside the world of sports... to people like Barack Obama, the Pope, Taylor Swift, maybe Lady Gaga. The idea of crowds of people waiting around, for maybe hours, to catch a brief glimpse of someone, and then nearly fainting when they do... you don't get that too often these days.
Would a 14-year-old today have a sense for that?Jordan was the Micheal Jackson of sports.
Dumars is a HoF player that built a long, successful team in Detroit.I think there is certainly some of this with MJ. As you note, playing and being GM require such different skill sets. Of all the star NBA players, who has really excelled as an exec? Jerry West? Bird as President? Ainge was a solid player but not a star. Sure I’m missing someone but would be an interesting study to see why guys like MJ, Isiah, Magic all sucked so badly at it. Could be as simple as it’s just really hard so the odds of failure are quite high.
Probably a Royal like Prince William or Harry. And Tiger. But it’s definitely a thing of the past.Would a 14-year-old today have a sense for that?
I think fangirling, as an industry, has been a decades-long slide at this point. How many celebrities today would flat-out stop a room, any room, when they enter? I honestly don't think Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo come close. Our zeitgeist is very diffuse right now.
Would a 14-year-old today have a sense for that?
I think fangirling, as an industry, has been a decades-long slide at this point. How many celebrities today would flat-out stop a room, any room, when they enter? I honestly don't think Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo come close. Our zeitgeist is very diffuse right now.
Not to nitpick, but would a 14-year old today have a sense for the Pope? Or even Obama? My wife is 32 and while not a huge sports fan, she can hold her own. Trying to explain Jordan to her these last few Sundays has been pretty much impossible.Would a 14-year-old today have a sense for that?
I think fangirling, as an industry, has been a decades-long slide at this point. How many celebrities today would flat-out stop a room, any room, when they enter? I honestly don't think Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo come close. Our zeitgeist is very diffuse right now.
Ah, Dumars. I knew I was forgetting someone noteworthy. Definitely a big success although I believe he also Darko’d a draft.Dumars is a HoF player that built a long, successful team in Detroit.
Players often suck at being in the front office because it requires a set of skills that often don't apply to being a good basketball player. However, if they are a legendary player they have name value and cache with ownership and fans, that make them an attractive hire. It is very, very hard to be a good basketball executive, very few people are ever really successful at it.
That’s not a half assed theory at all. I think most people here would agree with you. In fact several have pretty much said the same in this thread. There’s far more diversity these days.This is a half-ass theory but hear me out.
A huge part of Jordan's massive fame, in relation to his peers, is timing. Historically, it is unlikely people in the future will maintain a level of celebrity that people in the past were able to reach. Technology has granted access to so much diversity in our pop culture that the fame of one individual is more limited. Take TV stars for example, television pre-cable and even well into the 90s was less homogeneous than it is today. If you were a star on a big network television show in the 80s, it was not uncommon for you to be watched by like, 40 million viewers. Only the Super Bowl would hit that number today, and we have a lot more TVs and a lot more people than in 80s. Today you might get like, 10 million people on a good night. There are infinite more options, so the individual TV stars are less prominent.
The same can be said for music, which might be even more of a dramatic example because it went from being a medium almost wholly dependent on local DJs playing a record, to being able to listen to any recorded music at almost any moment. It is extremely unlikely we will see another musician become as popular as The Beatles, Elvis or Michael Jackson because the way people consume music is so different.
At the same time, we as a culture have become more obsessed with celebrities as time goes by. In 2020, Americans are probably more interested in celebrities than at any other time in history. That would make you think the celebrities of today are bigger stars than celebrities of the past, but what we have is simply more celebrities, more athletes, more musicians, more actors, etc. The pond becomes larger and the big fish are less apt to stand out.
What does this have to do with Jordan? Jordan, as a standout athlete coming along in the 90s gives him an edge because he rose to fame in the perfect sweetspot for an individual to dominant the pop culture zeitgeist, without being drowned out by a million other voices. Jordan was able to sell his brand long before the days of social media, and his work as a company pitchman with commercials that ran endlessly on cable television, and his craft referenced and cherished in hip hop and more experimental music that wouldn't have existed in prior eras, made him a massive star. However, he didn't have the internet and other competing factors that later superstars would have to contend with. Michael Jackson is an apt comparison, since they came along at the same time and have similar "We will never see someone be this famous again" auras.
TL;DR, the 90s were the perfect time for someone to become a massive star because society was modernized enough for celebrity culture to explode but social media hadn't come along to drown everything out.
I’m not seeing how that cache would help at all. So your team owner is Michael Jordan , someone you grew up idolizing. Now what? How does that affect your day to day life? Things like geography, team success, and salary would dwarf that as a consideration I would think. And I’m sure superstar players outside of Charlotte get the opportunity to meet MJ every now and then.It also is mystifying to me that Jordan has zero cache in getting players to come play for him. He can’t recruit star players, maybe that’s only the geography but it’s still weird. He couldn’t even keep Kemba from bolting to the C’s.
Well obviously the geography is different, but in their down stretch the Lakers trotted out Magic as a salesmen to try and close free agents. I get it’s LA; just seems like MJ could attract talent. Maybe I’m off hereI’m not seeing how that cache would help at all. So your team owner is Michael Jordan , someone you grew up idolizing. Now what? How does that affect your day to day life? Things like geography, team success, and salary would dwarf that as a consideration I would think. And I’m sure superstar players outside of Charlotte get the opportunity to meet MJ every now and then.
Agree, I generally buy that @Kliq . But as a thought experiment, the "current-day Jordan" question has two parts:That’s not a half assed theory at all. I think most people here would agree with you. In fact several have pretty much said the same in this thread. There’s far more diversity these days.
There isn’t one today. It’s an unanswerable question. Beyoncé is probably the closest celeb, but Jordan famously was deliberately non political (back when that wasn’t quite as difficult) so as not to alienate republicans. Everyone wanted to “be like mike”, black, white, left, right...cartoon, ex Ghostbuster...Agree, I generally buy that @Kliq . But as a thought experiment, the "current-day Jordan" question has two parts:
1) Is there someone of roughly equivalent stature to Jordan today, such that someone current could understand the phenomenon by way of analogy?
2) Even if not, who is the closest exemplar today? Someone likeliest to turn sober young adults into awed, screaming throngs?
It's telling that the two examples given so far for #1, Tiger and Michael Jackson, were both at their peak in roughly the same time we're discussing for Jordan. I think that supports your theory. But #2 is still an interesting question nonetheless. Like, I get that nobody's going to touch Beatlemania in terms of a revolutionary level of celebrity, probably in my lifetime - but I can watch old videos and be told "it was like peak Jordan, only several times crazier", or "it was like peak Obama-mania, only an order of magnitude crazier", and more or less get it.
Exactly.That’s not a half assed theory at all. I think most people here would agree with you. In fact several have pretty much said the same in this thread. There’s far more diversity these days.
You think Magic is bringing Steph Curry. Lebron, or Giannis to Charlotte? That sort of stuff just puts a cherry on top of the presentation sundae - it ain't the ice cream or the hot fudge. I can't imagine myself agreeing to invest years of my career in a shit situation just because they trotted out a big name during the interviews.Well obviously the geography is different, but in their down stretch the Lakers trotted out Magic as a salesmen to try and close free agents. I get it’s LA; just seems like MJ could attract talent. Maybe I’m off here
I think if Michael had made amends with the Bulls and ran them he could have pulled it off. So I guess it is just Charlotte. Point taken.You think Magic is bringing Steph Curry. Lebron, or Giannis to Charlotte? That sort of stuff just puts a cherry on top of the presentation sundae - it ain't the ice cream or the hot fudge. I can't imagine myself agreeing to invest years of my career in a shit situation just because they trotted out a big name during the interviews.
I think if Michael had made amends with the Bulls and ran them he could have pulled it off. So I guess it is just Charlotte. Point taken.You think Magic is bringing Steph Curry. Lebron, or Giannis to Charlotte? That sort of stuff just puts a cherry on top of the presentation sundae - it ain't the ice cream or the hot fudge. I can't imagine myself agreeing to invest years of my career in a shit situation just because they trotted out a big name during the interviews.
Great post and could not agree more. I've heard that phenomenon referred to as disintermediation: as entertainers rely less on intermediaries like major TV networks, movie studios, and record labels, the number of entertainment "channels" increases but the ability of any one show, movie, album, etc. to capture a large audience decreases because people have so many new "channels" to choose from.This is a half-ass theory but hear me out.
A huge part of Jordan's massive fame, in relation to his peers, is timing. Historically, it is unlikely people in the future will maintain a level of celebrity that people in the past were able to reach. Technology has granted access to so much diversity in our pop culture that the fame of one individual is more limited. Take TV stars for example, television pre-cable and even well into the 90s was less homogeneous than it is today. If you were a star on a big network television show in the 80s, it was not uncommon for you to be watched by like, 40 million viewers. Only the Super Bowl would hit that number today, and we have a lot more TVs and a lot more people than in 80s. Today you might get like, 10 million people on a good night. There are infinite more options, so the individual TV stars are less prominent.
The same can be said for music, which might be even more of a dramatic example because it went from being a medium almost wholly dependent on local DJs playing a record, to being able to listen to any recorded music at almost any moment. It is extremely unlikely we will see another musician become as popular as The Beatles, Elvis or Michael Jackson because the way people consume music is so different.
At the same time, we as a culture have become more obsessed with celebrities as time goes by. In 2020, Americans are probably more interested in celebrities than at any other time in history. That would make you think the celebrities of today are bigger stars than celebrities of the past, but what we have is simply more celebrities, more athletes, more musicians, more actors, etc. The pond becomes larger and the big fish are less apt to stand out.
What does this have to do with Jordan? Jordan, as a standout athlete coming along in the 90s gives him an edge because he rose to fame in the perfect sweetspot for an individual to dominant the pop culture zeitgeist, without being drowned out by a million other voices. Jordan was able to sell his brand long before the days of social media, and his work as a company pitchman with commercials that ran endlessly on cable television, and his craft referenced and cherished in hip hop and more experimental music that wouldn't have existed in prior eras, made him a massive star. However, he didn't have the internet and other competing factors that later superstars would have to contend with. Michael Jackson is an apt comparison, since they came along at the same time and have similar "We will never see someone be this famous again" auras.
TL;DR, the 90s were the perfect time for someone to become a massive star because society was modernized enough for celebrity culture to explode but social media hadn't come along to drown everything out.
Selling West a little short here with the question mark. Dude built the Showtime Lakers and the Kobe-Shaq Lakers. He had a strong run in Memphis before going to the Warriors and helping them reach incredible heights. And now his fingerprints are all over the title contending Clippers. All told, that’s 8 championships and the all-time season wins record for the Logo.I think there is certainly some of this with MJ. As you note, playing and being GM require such different skill sets. Of all the star NBA players, who has really excelled as an exec? Jerry West? Bird as President? Ainge was a solid player but not a star. Sure I’m missing someone but would be an interesting study to see why guys like MJ, Isiah, Magic all sucked so badly at it. Could be as simple as it’s just really hard so the odds of failure are quite high.