A Touch of Class

Today I'd like to introduce a term I've come to call qualified greatness. This comes into play when someone is so great in their field that their accomplishments or contributions cannot be ignored, but neither can some horrible personality trait that comes close to overshadowing what they did. In popular usage, you would hear it as, "Joe Everyman is so great at whatever it is he does... but he's a murderous sociopath. Michael Jackson was that way until he died, and everyone mysteriously forgot he was insane and possibly a child molester. Then again, qualified greatness is a common them for artists of every ilk, but musicians in specific seem to get it a lot. Another example, Kurt Cobain revolutionized modern rock... but he was plagued by debilitating insecurity which led to heroin addiction and, ultimately, suicide.
The case I would like to present today is Michael Jordan. I think his ego has finally grown to the point where we can say it overshadows what he's done on the court and we can no longer ignore everything we have up to this point. The tipping point would be his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend. This is a momentous event in the life of any professional athlete, there is no higher honor. Most players use this occasion to thank the people that got him there, look back fondly on their career, and graciously, humbly accept the honor their peers have bestowed upon them. Jordan took the opportunity to blast several of his opponents from his storied career, to the point where even the mild mannered John Stockton, also inducted, looked like he wanted to choke Jordan. The argument can be made that an athlete is only as good as his competition, because it is the only true measuring stick of your ability. Guys like Stockton, Reggie Miller, Patrick Ewing, and others are as much a part of why Jordan is in the Hall as any that helped him in his journey. Eleven years ago, Jordan had the ball in the closing seconds of Game 6 of the NBA finals. If he hits this shot then his Bulls win their third consecutive championship. As the clock runs out, he pushes his defender, Byron Russell, off the ball and hits a shot that defines his career. No foul is called; the television announcers for the game don't even mention it. He's Jordan; he gets that call in that moment. It’s just understood. So now, in 2009, you choose to call this man out for not being able to cover you, while you stand at the podium accepting induction into the Hall of Fame? Utterly classless. No one had the guts to call you on pushing him out of the way then, and the replays of that shot today are generally altered to only show the shot and nothing before. His legacy is built, in part, on a foul that would never be called against the Golden Child of the NBA. In his unending tirade of a speech, he also called out former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy, Isiah Thomas, and his old high school coach, for slights and insults both real and imagined.
So let's add up the evidence. Jordan in his playing career was known as a bully, a trash talker, and an over the top competitor. He punched teammate Steve Kerr in training camp after he came back from retirement the first time, and was known as a terrible teammate. In fact, while playing minor league baseball, the team chartered him his own bus so he didn't have to ride with the rest of the team. He has a well documented gambling problem. He is and always has been a man that knows his greatness all too well and looks with disdain on anyone else. He gets utterly offended when someone suggests there might be a "next Jordan" and won't even entertain discussions about Kobe Bryant or LeBron James (almost as egotistical as Jordan himself). Jordan replies simply, every time, that there is only one Michael Jordan. Somehow, because we're talking about Jordan, all this gets ignored when other athletes are blasted in sports media and talk radio over similar offenses. So, for me, Michael Jordan is one of the greatest players in basketball history... but he’s also a self absorbed egoist of the highest order and has no regard for the game or anyone else who plays it.