Wright Thompson, you magnificent bastard

I guess I don't remember what the official wording has been over the years on the Jordan/SI spat. Here's McCallum in 2008 when he did a piece on the Bobcats.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1148518/index.htm?eref=sisf

 

The wording in this one was clear: Michael Jordan won't speak to Sports Illustrated because of the 1994 baseball cover. Again, though, it's tough to say whether Rick Reilly had an actual interview based on that 1998 piece.

 

I expect Jordan's next interview with SI will be conducted on the golf course during his friendly match play with Isiah Thomas.

 

When the Chicago Confidential issue came out, I remember it was billed as "Jordan lifting the SI ban for Reilly" and I remember hearing that he was pleased that SI mocked itself by doing the "Don't Bag it Michael" cover, that people have said Reilly took credit for...

I have no idea if he's talked to anyone at SI since then.

 

Or poolside in Vegas when Jordan offers his own insight into The Secret.

 

The part about Jordan opening up to a writer who's not one of his chums brings up Wilbon's piece, also up on Espn.com, which made me roll my eyes all the way through. Yes, people are forgetting about Michael Jordan's accomplishments, he's being erased from history! This, despite the fact Jordan's name has probably been mentioned on the national broadcasts of 76 percent of the games Kobe and LeBron have ever played in. But because MJ's triple-double streak isn't mentioned anytime someone has a triple double, we're forgetting about him. Speaking of forgetting, because he doesn't mention it, I can only assume Wilbon's forgotten that Kobe averaged 40 in a month three times, something no one had done in a single month since Wilt and Elgin in early '60s.

Back to Thompson's piece, in a way, this might be the last time someone can pull off a classic Jordan feature. Jordan at 50 is still only 10 years removed from the game and folks still wonder, hmm, maybe he could do something today out on the court. The man himself is still fighting all his urges and wrestling with the changes, while still being surrounded by the small group of friends/sycophants. Jordan at 60? He'll be just an old guy. There will be a story there, but being so far removed from his playing days, that element -- the what-ifs and the recent memories of what he was -- will be gone.

 

Well, if Jordan doesn't want Reilly and Walter Iooss Jr. on that bus, they're not on that bus.

I have no trouble believing that Jordan won't talk to SI because of the 1994 story, but saying that he hasn't talked to SI since then is at least misleading...

Anyway, back to Thompson's masterpiece...

 

I really enjoyed the piece, but what was with the highlighted phrases? Felt like I was being told what was important in the story's narrative, and I really didn't care for that.

 

James has one title. Jordan might be saying that he would have never gotten one from Bird, Magic, himself or the Pistons.

 

It is interesting... Jordan certainly seems to respect Kobe a lot more than he does LeBron.

 

Jordan has played against Kobe. It's clear he believes NBA time stopped upon his retirement, and because he swapped elbows with those guys, they belong in his club.

The list of four players who could be superstars in his day, three of them were guys he actually played against. The other was LeBron and I think he just put him in there because he figured he had to.

 

I think there are a bunch of today's players who could play athletically but they fall off mentally. They do not come with the edge that the Jordan era players had night in and night out.

Interesting that Kobe took on Jordan's long time trainer when Michael retired.