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GB · 03-13-2003, 11:15 AM

Someone forwarded this excerpt to me via email, so I can't post a link.

I also won't post the whole thing, just a touch of it. PM me and I'll forward the email to you. Even better, go to Borders, buy a latte or a Coke and read the whole thing for yourself.

Opinions vary, and it's always interesting to hear another mans opinion. But I think any of us would probably have stood in this writers shoes and come away with something totally different...

Quote:

But there was always that pigheaded part of him, going on instinct and gut, and it's only grown larger as he's grown older. He's followed bad bets--running off to play baseball, say--with worse bets--leaving the Chicago Bulls a second time rather than understanding that being the franchise was never the same thing as owning it--with flat out desperation plays, like suiting up for the Wizards, or having sex with an Indianapolis lounge singer, or playing on gimped up knees. It's cost him, bringing him down to earth, making him seem anything but immortal.

That's why he's figured on taking one last risk. That's why he's been lifting these Washington Wizards up onto his shoulders and, miracle of miracles, maybe into the playoffs--never mind doing lasting damage to his knees and legacy and all that bulls***.

Because no matter what, if the Wizards win on the court, he wins off of it. If the Wizards win, the people will stand and applaud, and the uppity press--rather than exposing his failings as a father and a husband and a businessman--will fall back in line, and Kwame and Etan will bow and scrape the way Scottie and Horace, the grown men he called his "pigeons", did so long ago.

And when that happens, when everything falls into place the way he sees it falling into place, he will win back the one thing he loves more than anything else: control. All over again, he will be the man. That's what it's all about. Restoration. At any price.
----
He's the last man on the floor for warm-ups, and the only man to tuck in his long sleeved jersey. He begins practicing his jump shot, sometimes with a fade, more often not, but always with an exaggerated flick of his wrist, his stroke as precisely put together as his outfit. He works from both sides of the basket before he starts practicing his money shot, the free throw. And that's it. That's his game, stripped down like a jacked up car. Watching him now, it's impossible not to take account of what's missing, as hard as he's trying to keep everything the same.

This is what happens when a man loses what he loves, and wants it back.
At any price.

jazzy1 · 03-13-2003, 06:24 PM

Who the hell to say that MJ has failed as a father. Thats irresponsible journalism. What information does he have that states that. thats a very low blow. All the other rhetoric in the article is just silly. For ALL THE KEEPERS OF THE JORDAN FLAME GET A LIFE. MJ is great paid the cost to be the BossHe deserves the right to have control and I believe him when he says he's here to help the young guys. People just can't get over AIR JORDAN, I loved him then and I love his game now. Its evolved into a brillant piece of work. I'm glad he's here in DC.

**BCH** · 03-13-2003, 11:06 PM

I am not sure how playing baseball was a bad bet for him. It was something he wanted to try and he got his chance. I don't think the author of this article necessarily gets what is going on with MJ but is making a sophomoric stab at it.

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