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"Just remember what name you wear on your shoes." Michael Jordan, at 57, could continue to make fun of some of the emerging and already billionaire stars of the NBA as one day, in his early days, he did it of his admired brother Larry during a party. Zion Williamson, one of those meteoric stars who plays for the New Orleans Pelicans, is the paradigm of twentysomethings who idolize Jordan even though they were babies when he retired in 2003, the same way that a multitude of kids keep sighing. for the Bulls number 23 jersey.
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Zion, in his 20s, like established figures such as Russell Westbrook or Chris Paul, has signed a contract to advertise his own shoe model with Jordan Brand, the Nike subsidiary, in exchange for about 40 million euros for four seasons . A minutia for Jordan, whom Forbes ranks 1,001 on the list of the richest people in the world, with $ 21 billion. The image of the firm with the famous MJ logo in flight is so powerful that last year it made the leap to football and signed a sponsorship with PSG.
His charisma, far from declining, is accentuated with the passage of time. In 1999, the year after Jordan won his last ring (the NBA title), David Halberstam, writer, journalist and historian and 1964 Pulitzer Prize winner, was drawn to that Chicago saga and, after extensive work on research, published Playing for Keeps. Michael Jordan and the World He Made . The interest in the character was obvious. When the Bulls arrived in Paris in 1997 to play the McDonald's Open, a journalist defined them as the Beatles of basketball. They landed in Paris aboard the Jumbo commonly used by The Rolling Stones. "Jordan expected like a King", was the headline of l'Equipe . Even the mighty David Stern, the commissioner who drove the NBA's success and globalization, got into the habit of saying he was Jordan's valet.
His charisma, far from declining, is accentuated over time
Halberstam, in the book that is now being published for the first time translated into Spanish and that arrives here with the title Air . The story of Michael Jordan (Duomo) explains the reason why he decided to address a character and a world of such complex access when trying to go beyond the mere facade. “I was not only interested in Michael Jordan, but the Jordan phenomenon seemed equally important to me. The question I was trying to find an answer to was simple: in the 1940s, when I was still growing up, the iconic figures of American sports were all white baseball players (Williams, DiMaggio, Musial, or Feller), and the NBA didn't even exist. How was it possible, then, that in the course of my life the most famous athlete in the world had become a young black man who played professional basketball, someone who had graduated from a southern high school that he could not even get into? when I was a young correspondent abroad?
That phenomenon continues to devour headlines. In May, a collector shell out $ 517,000 for a copy of the Air Jordan 1 shoe, used and autographed by MJ. Neither the works of Francis Bacon nor the jewels of Marie Antoinette aroused such excitement at the Sotheby's auction. A month earlier, Netflix and ESPN began airing the series The Last Dance . Ten chapters about MJ in the peak of her sports career. Images and revelations, many unpublished, about the successful but muddled campaign in which the Bulls won their sixth and final title in 1998.
That is why Halberstam's work is revalued. The rigor, analytical capacity and global vision of the New York writer are assimilated with the tenacity with which he pursued sources. He passed away in 2007 at age 73, in a traffic accident while on his way to interview a former quarterback for his next book The Glory Game , completed by Frank Gilford and published in 2008.
The Paris, they defined the Bulls as the Beatles of basketball
Halberstam seeks answers to the reasons why Michael Jordan represented, in the opinion of the sociologist of the University of California Harry Edwards, “the highest level of human success and was at the height of a Gandhi, an Einstein or a Michelangelo. He added that if he were commissioned to present the best example of human potential, creativity, perseverance and spirit to an alien, he would describe Michael Jordan. "
Already then, at the end of the nineties, MJ earned, between salary and sponsorships, about 80 million dollars a year and could afford the luxury of calling the owners of the team in which he played "my partners" - since 2006 he has been a co-owner of the Charlotte Hornets — and the presidents of the multinational shoe, hamburger and soft drink companies she represented. And something even more relevant: “He was possibly the most famous American in the world. More famous, in many remote parts of the globe, than the president of the United States or any movie or rock star.
American journalists and diplomats assigned to the more rural areas of Asia and Africa used to be dumbfounded when they visited villages and saw children in ragged imitations of the Bulls jersey worn by Michael Jordan. " Its impact is also contrasted by the ratings of television audiences. The first final between Magic Johnson's Lakers and Larry Bird's Celtics in 1984 had an audience rating of 7.6%. MJ's last season with the Bulls was 22.3%, that is, more than 27 million viewers in the United States, double the number during the 1993-1994 season when he took a year off after the murder of his father. James at a highway rest area in North Carolina. MJ, in his memory, spent time playing in the Baseball League with the Chicago White Sox affiliate team, also owned by Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf.
Larry Jordan, the best
The character was modeled and established coordinates never seen between a sports star and at the same time a global phenomenon. Air investigates MJ's childhood, the influence of his parents, that of that older brother Larry with whom he competed "wildly" when they were children and who was predicted to have been even better than him, but he fell by the wayside. because it only measured 1.72. "When you see me play, you see Larry play," Michael himself responded.
MJ's exceptional talent was not the only explanation for understanding his overwhelming success. "His indomitable will, his refusal to allow rival players or the passage of time diminish his need to win" forged a unique player. "I wanted to rip your heart out," Doug Collins, one of his Bulls coaches, once said. Halberstam adds: "Unlike many other highly gifted athletes, he had an additional quality that is rare among great artists who work without apparent effort: he was one of those who managed to go beyond all expectations."
Halberstam's book, in many respects, could be read in GPS code to understand The Last Dance even better . It describes Jordan's adventures in that triumphant yet turbulent season, his stormy relationships with various teammates, and his antagonism with Jerry Reinsdorf, the Bulls' billionaire owner, and Jerry Krause, the team's general manager. “With Reinsdorf money was almost always present and very rarely personal vanity. With Krause it was very different. Krause's resentment against Phil Jackson seemed to be based on who got the credit for those glorious years of championships won. " Krause's phrase to Jackson before the start of the season in which they won the sixth ring was cleverly used to stimulate his players: "Even if this year we win 82 to zero, you will go to the fucking street."
Air breaks down those quarrels, Jordan's offenses to Krause, Jordan's insults and challenges to the limit towards some teammates and rivals. Jordan's dark side surfaced in 1992 thanks to revelations by journalist Sam Smith in 1992 in the book The Jordan Rules . Halberstam brought up to date - after the sixth title in 1998 - the glory and the miseries of those Bulls.
The great braggart
MJ's bragging, even from his college years, fell in grace. They were more fun and boisterous than arrogant and petty, Halberstam concludes. “Her bragging was part of her game. She used them as a tool to motivate herself, because if she spoke a lot, she had to give a lot ”.
A significant number of NBA players were suffering from addiction problems at the time. Five Bulls players had to undergo a detox program. And others allowed themselves a dissolute life also in the concentrations of the teams. "A circus of cocaine, marijuana and women", confessed in The Last Dance Michael Jordan, who did not want to have anything to do with it. His obsessions were others: gambling and golf. At first I bet $ 100 per hole, then the bets reached a thousand dollars per hole. It also transpired that he played with some scammers and criminals. The police, after one of them, seized a check with which Jordan paid a bet of $ 108,000 and he himself recognized another of $ 300,000. He received a minor warning from the NBA. "Why does he play golf?" Magic Johnson once asked rhetorically. "To escape the world ...".
The way Jordan exploited fame and beauty is another interesting aspect of the story. “He had a dazzling appeal. With a smile that seemed to arouse the sympathy of all who saw her. She was tall, but not too [1.98 m], with a magically perfect-looking body, wide shoulders, narrow waist, and only 4% body fat. [The professional athlete has an average of about 7 or 8%, and the average American male is between 15 and 20%]. He cared about clothes and dressed extraordinarily well; He was possibly the best dressed American male since Cary Grant, ”resolves the author of Air. And he adds, in one of the phrases that must be contextualized in his time: “In the past, the American ideal of beauty had always been white. American men had looked anxiously in the mirror, expecting to see Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, or Robert Redford, with shaved heads and faces, had given America nothing less than a new definition of beauty for a new age. What America and the rest of the world saw now was a kind of New World man, a young man whose manners were like that of a prince. Michael Jordan, even though he ended his playing career 17 years ago, is still flying.
