Basketballghana.com’s Yaw Adjei-Mintah looks at Michael Jordan’s failure in basketball aside his playing career.
In a little neighborhood in Takoradi, a boy just a few years removed from crawling sat behind a TV set to watch the only free-to-air channel there was in Ghana back in the day. He watched a sport that was alien to virtually every person who passed through the living room or the curious peers who scampered to the window looking for answers to the different sounds emanating from the electronic device once reserved for the rich. That young boy was me and the sport I watched in that moment was basketball. The game had grown on me since the very first time I saw it played on TV. I became an avid follower jumping right into the action the moment I got home from school. Due to my-to be fully developed- brain, most of the names and the jargons I heard were quite difficult to process and pronounce properly. The ones I did pick up were Sprewell, Miller, Houston and another player. The other player’s name I was so familiar with basically down to the simplicity of his name was Michael Jordan. Seeing him score from corners and fly in the air was utterly amazing; nothing I had seen before. The most striking of all the scenes that continue to playback in mind as I write this piece is that of Jordan shooting a ball with his eyes closed; again nothing I had seen before.
I have grown to know the players I spotted turned out to be NBA Hall of Famer Reggie Miller and All-Stars Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston. I have also grown to know Michael Jordan won six NBA championships, 10 scoring titles and five Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Year awards. Add a Defensive Player of the Player award in 1988 and half a dozen Finals MVP awards to seemingly endless tapes of he dominating the world’s best basketball league and Jordan checks out as an absolute legend. Aside his on court dominance, his marketability was second to none in the league. So good was his market value that a shoe brand bearing his name was created under the Nike Group and remains very profitable. In a period spanning mid-2014 to mid-2015, Jordan made $100million dollars from endorsement deals; this figure is more than the total earnings of Jordan’s entire career which stands at $94 million dollars. For what is worth, a single day doesn’t pass by without the mention of Jordan’s name as the Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.)
The term ‘Achilles heel’ is used in general terms to describe a weakness or flaw in an individual’s character or shortcoming in a system. In Jordan’s perfect basketball world, there lies an Achilles heel that is unknown to many. Since retiring from the league in 2003 after his round around with the Washington Wizards, Jordan has been involved in the league albeit in a different position. Jordan partly owned the Wizards during his stint as a player and has been owner of the Charlotte Hornets since 2010 after owning part of the franchise since 2006. Herein lays the flaw in Jordan’s perfect stature. His administration skills have been- to put it safely- underwhelming.
The first misstep came in 2001 when Jordan oversaw Kwame Brown drafted number overall in that year’s NBA Draft. Brown was drafted ahead of Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol and Tony Parker The high school sensation was named Mr. Georgia Basketball in 2001 and by his selection went into the record books as the first ever number one pick straight out of high school. For the season, Brown only managed 4.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game as he rode his way to being widely considered the biggest bust -or in the Ghanaian parlance, flop-of this generation. One reason for Brown’s slow development was Jordan’s abrasive style of competing. As Michael Leahy reported in his book, When Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan’s Last Comeback, Jordan “ritually reduced Brown to tears in front of the team,” and, more reprehensibly, constantly referred to Brown as a “flaming faggot.”A key element in dealing with humans is to do so with a touch of tact.
The next big mistake in Jordan’s administration era was drafting Adam Morrison in 2006. Morrison was drafted number three in that year’s draft ahead of Rudy Gay, Brandon Roy and even triple-double but inefficient shooter mainstay Rajon Rondo. Morrison was busts from the get go and never repaid the faith shown in him being drafted number three. He moved to the Los Angeles Lakers three years later to win a championship as a peripheral player on the Kobe Bryant-led roster. Drafting D.J. Augustin and Desaganna Diop also didn’t help matters for the franchise then known as the Bobcats.
Aside drafting players who turned out bad, Jordan has overseen some changes to his roster which backfired; chief among them is that involving Gerald Wallace. It’s been a while the Bobcats/ Hornets had a star on the roster like they did in the mid-90’s where it could boast of premium talents like Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning and Muggsy Bogues. The team has been bereft of talents like the former ever since until the arrival of Gerald Wallace to Charlotte. The Small Forward was overlooked by Jordan in 2001’s Draft when he was picked 25th overall by the Sacramento Kings. He arrived in Charlotte in 2004 and spent six more seasons at the club. During his seven stay, he was named an All-Star and All-NBA First Team Defender in 2010 respectively. In 2011, Wallace was traded to the Portland Trailblazers for Joel Przybilla, Dante Cunningham, Sean Marks and two first-round pick. This trade pretty much summed up Jordan’s administration nuances. He has since made Rich Cho president of basketball operations.
From human relations and player evaluation points of view, administering off court basketball issues is the susceptible part of Jordan’s flawless brand.
