Category — Michael Jordan

What are we missing here?
The Bobcats signed former No. 1 pick Kwame Brown to a $1.3-million deal, reuniting him with the man (Michael Jordan) who made him the top pick with the Wizards almost 10 years ago. With the Pistons last season, Brown averaged 3.3 points and 3.7 rebounds. “Kwame is one of the best post defenders in the league, everyone agrees on that,” said Mark Bartlestein, Brown’s agent.
If you say so Mark. And we’re guessing another one of the NBA’s best post defenders is Brown’s new teammate, Erick Dampier.
Charlotte Observer

The King has left his kingdom. His castle moves to South Beach. His court is now empty.
In reality, the King is dead.
LeBron James, the basketball icon that made up his own nickname “King James” when he was just learning how to drive, has taken a giant step in his career. Backward.
He has decided to leave the comforts of home to become just another basketball warrior. From icon to mercenary with the swipe of a pen and a huge paycheck.
As he revealed his final decision on national television, James showed he was more mouse than man. He never told the 5 clubs he was turning them down, letting his show on TV do that for him.
In other words, he wasn’t man enough to stand up for his decision.
Not even his hometown of Cleveland got that much respect from him. So we now know this was all about James.
And did we need an hour-long show to hear 5 or 6 words?
Maybe this shows why his teams have bowed out of the playoffs. Just like in the most recent post-season, James looked meek, tired and quite honestly, almost uninterested during his made-for-TV special.
Ironically, James is going to a city where one of the greatest players in sports played without winning a championship and is loved for it. He can learn from Dan Marino.
One thing we’ve learned for sure is you can never again compare James to Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant or even Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. At best, he is Moses Malone, a great player who had to travel to Philly to win a ring.
And James may have become the most hated man in the NBA after the way he handled this past week.
That is not the legacy he is banking on and you wonder if he didn’t hurt his commercial appeal to Madison Avenue, which seems more important to him than his basketball skills.
James tossed his top gun status to the side to go play 2nd fiddle with Dwyane Wade on South Beach.
Back when Bird and Magic were battling each other for titles, Miami wasn’t even in the Association. Now, that city is center stage after having the best summer of any NBA franchise. Keeping Wade and getting James along with Chris Bosh makes the Heat an extremely hot property.
But is this is 3 friends creating their own frat so they can throw parties for all their buddies? Kegger party at D-Wade’s.
Championships? Those are harder to suck up than these guys think.
I remember an unbeatable team from Los Angeles experts said could never lose. It lost in 5 games to the Detroit Pistons in the Finals and had to be blown up afterward.
It makes sense for James to go to Miami and join a power team. But he loses an awful lot in the process. He sold his soul for a title and there is no guarantee he’ll win one.
But don’t call the Heat his team. Miami is Wade’s town. This is his show.
Even if they play together for the next 10 years and win 7 titles together, Wade will have won 8.
He can never win more than Wade if they play together. Ever.
This is why it makes no sense if James really wants to be King of the basketball world. You can’t be King if you don’t have the most jewels in your crown. And you surely can’t be King without any rings.
Think Bird would have left the Celtics to go play with the Lakers just for a ring? Or Magic to the C’s? Just the thought is nauseous.
Jordan never left Chicago to win a title elsewhere. Before he won, he struggled through bad teams and tough times, but nobody won more with less than Jordan. Nobody.
James is not Jordan.
More importantly, we all lose.
James and Wade, 2 of the 3 best talents in the game, will both have to change their styles some to play together.
It was believed when this summer started that James was in a no-lose situation. Now it seems like even if he does capture a few titles in Miami, he can’t win.
And if he fails, he’ll always be remembered as the King with no rings.

He has won his 5th championship and now some label him as the greatest Laker of all time.
Yes, Kobe Bryant has won his way into the conversation of best hoopster of them all.
But I always wonder why Bill Russell, the man who won more titles (11 in 13 seasons) than any player, never seems to be mentioned. This isn’t about Russell though. It’s about Bryant and his place in history.
The man he wants to be compared with most is Michael Jordan. That quickly assumes Jordan is the greatest of all time. He might be, winning 6 titles with not much talent around him.
Bryant has still only been the leader of 2 championships and the 2nd banana of 3. That makes him more Scottie Pippen than Jordan.
Jordan was the Finals MVP in all 6 championship runs. Bryant just 2. And Kobe lost 2 Finals, while Jordan never lost.
But that is not what makes him different from Jordan. That came long ago, before we started counting championship rings.
The public loved Jordan, despite his flaws. Fans embraced him when he won the 1982 national championship as a freshman for North Carolina. He hit the memorable jumper that finally made Dean Smith a winner. A generation will not forget that.
Bryant told the world he was too good for college, going straight to the NBA, where his brash attitude led him to miss shot after shot in an embarrassing playoff loss against Utah.
First impressions are the most important ones.
From that moment on, the 2 were separated forever. One year out of high school, we witnessed Jordan hitting a championship shot. One year of high school, we saw Bryant fire up air balls.
Bryant never caught up after that.
The off-court issues also matter. There are some who will never forgive Bryant for being charged with sexually assaulting a woman. No matter that the case was eventually dropped, there are many who won’t forget.
The fact that he plays in Los Angeles for a team that is more about style than substance is also key. A lot of the nation doesn’t like L.A. or its teams, so that hurts Bryant too.
He is also fighting the fact that the Lakers have had stars whom had great personalities and made the most out of living in Hollywood. Kobe is no Magic Johnson when it comes to personality.
There is no question Bryant is a great player, one of the greatest of all time and his numbers will, in the end, leave him in the elite company of the game.
He just won’t be loved by the world. That’s a game he will never win.

Hope you didn’t pay a tailor for that dude since they’re a dime a dozen at Goodwill.
With Bob Johnson heading off into the sunset, some writers and fans believe Michael Jordan needs to rename the Bobcats. Columnist Scott Fowler says the Bobcats were never a popular choice to the fans in Charlotte anyway. It was just a stroke of the ego for Johnson. But Jordan, he believes, could deliver a stroke of genius by allowing fans to come up with a new name.
Just some food for thought: I’ve never been a big fan of Johnson’s either, but one could never argue with his incredible success as an entrepreneur and trailblazer. Stroke of the ego or not, isn’t there something to be said for sport’s first black owner by keeping the nickname in his honor? Is the name Bobcats really that bad?
Charlotte Observer

Michael Jordan has a deal with Bob Johnson to take control of the Bobcats. The agreement has to be approved by the league and its owners. The irony, among many, is Jordan would own a Charlotte franchise that George Shinn, owner of the Hornets, who bolted Charlotte for New Orleans, then didn’t want to leave Oklahoma City when the club returned to the Big Easy after the cleanup behind Hurricane Katrina, never wanted to share a piece of the rock with his Airness. Imagine that. Who bigger celebrity in North Carolina is there than Jordan? Just don’t let him pick the players. He’s no Jerry West.
This is a huge story in addition to the obvious. And does Jordan continue to let Larry Brown, Rod Higgins and Fred Whitfield run his ship and continue to grant them the freedom to pick the players? Would LeBron (every NBA city has a LeBron is coming story, so why not Charlotte?), D-Wade, Chris Bosh or some of the other high-profile free agents consider the Bobcats? Would they be able to pay a big name like LeBron? The possibilities are endless. But with Jordan as the franchise’s bigger recruiter, I could see an All-Star considering the Bobcats. That is if one can put up with the cranky Brown.
AP

He could use a little help from his friends.
Michael Jordan is still trying to purchase the Charlotte Bobcats from owner Robert Johnson. So what’s the problem? No one is saying. Coach Larry Brown is Jordan’s current mouthpiece since the former NBA great isn’t talking. “He said he’s doing his best to put himself in a position to get the team,” Brown said. “He wants it badly.”
NBA Commissioner David Stern says a deal for the franchise will probably take two months to complete, but Jordan, who already is part-owner of the Bobcats, isn’t the only individual vying for it. A former Houston Rockets’ executive would like to own the Bobcats too.
Photo courtesy of Slam.
AP