Shoutout to Michael Jordan

There's a lot of Michael Jordan hate going around these days.  And to some degree it's understandable.  I mean it's only natural that fans who didn't actually grow up in the Jordan Era would think that today's 'All-Star of All-Stars', Lebron James, is a better player.  This is basically the same way people thought back in 90s if someone were to try to convince them that say Wilt Chamberlain (1936-1999) or Bill Russell may have been better than Jordan.  But sometimes the arguments people use to justify today's stars is just downright stupid.

Take for instance an article recently written by ProBasketballTalk's Dan Feldman.  In it he defended the recent "load management" phenomenon in light of a quote His Airness made against it.  Dan argued that the players of the Jordan Era "generally weren't as athletic" as modern NBAers.  And yes, if you define athleticism as muscle mass, as opposed to say endurance, then today's players are stronger than those of yesteryear.

But outside of the general fallacy of his argument, what really cheesed me off is just I've been seeing a lot of 90s bashing these days.  Regardless of the fact that it is now easier to score in the NBA than ever, we're supposed to believe that today's players somehow have a more-difficult time on the court than their forefathers.  Nay, to the contrary.  In fact considering that Feldman works for a mainstream-media institution, you shouldn't realistically expect him to do anything but defend the current load management trend.  Indeed it is part of a larger phenomenon which some have referred to as the "snowflake generation" and other such names.  But I don't even really want to go there right now, because then this article will veer in a different direction then it is intended to.  Rather I just wanted to give a shoutout to Michael Jordan from my own personal perspective.

I began watching the NBA circa 1991.  At that time I was totally uninterested in basketball and indeed athletics in general.  But the one individual who drew me to the sport was Michael Jordan.

You see the NBA was the NBA, and Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan.  You could give a rat's ass about the NBA but still love Michael Jordan.  And taking nothing away from Lebron, because I'm a fan of his also, I'm not sure you can say the same about him, despite all of his extracurricular endeavors.

Michael Jordan's persona resulted in a "$10 billion impact" on the US economy.  I don't think any other individual in American history can make such a claim.  Sure, Bill Gates has Microsoft; Jeff Bezos has Amazon, etc.  But those are brands that they own which make big bucks.  Their names and likenesses aren't the actual brand.  In fact Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos don't sell their own product.  But in contrast, Michael Jordan is his own brand.  Yes, most of dough he has made has been through him partnering with organizations like Nike and the NBA.  But his name and image, Michael MFing Jordan, made more money for them than they did for him.  And if you don't believe me, then click on the link at the beginning of this paragraph and see for yourself.

And honestly speaking, it's not even fair to compare Jordan to these contemporary load-management pansies.  Niggas be getting into arguments and twisting their ankles and getting tired and just letting fans down - that's not Michael Jordan.  If you paid to see your team play a Bulls' team with Michael Jordan on their roster, then unless he was truly injured you would indeed see Michael Jordan.

And no player will ever be as great as Michael Jordan.  I mean it's just a stupid argument on so many levels.  Michael Jordan made the NBA, indeed even the sport of basketball itself, global.  So now that it is global, it's not like another player can come and re-globalize it.  The NBA rather is an institution where players, especially stars, benefit from the efforts of their forefathers.

So Lebron is a multimedia phenomenon based primarily on being the successor to Michael Jordan.  And likewise the next "Jordan" that comes after Lebron will also benefit from LBJ's efforts.  And my personal conspiracy theory as to why the NBA is being sissified is that they plan to mix female players with the males in the next decade or so.