The Book of Basketball (103 page)

When he played, you had a little more time to prepare for that gust. You looked around fifteen minutes before game time and realized that 75 percent of the fans had already arrived; it sounded like the crowd before a Springsteen concert waiting for that moment when the lights turn off. Every male patron with good seats had a glazed, giddy, “I’m important because I’m attending this important game” glow. Every female patron looked like she’d spent an extra ten minutes getting ready. Every little kid looked like he was ready to spontaneously self-combust. Wide-eyed teenagers stood in the first few rows, rocking back and forth, holding pens, pathetically desperate, praying against billion-to-one odds that MJ would inexplicably leave the layup line, vault the press table and glide into the stands to sign autographs. As soon as Jordan made his grand entrance, he stopped the place cold. Every eye shifted to him. Fans started making strange sounds. Squeals and cries mixed with appreciative applause, and then a slow-developing roar emerged, almost like a chain reaction: “hhh-hhrrrrrrrHHHRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!” MJ was in the house. And it’s not like the energy faded from there. When he met the officials before the game, they oversold his jokes and looked like waiters working a customer for a huge tip. When he dispensed advice to a teammate, the other guy nodded intently like some life-altering secret was being revealed. When he strolled toward the scorer’s table for the opening tap, every conversation in the first few rows came to a screeching halt. When he stood on the free throw line for the first time, thousands of camera flashes clicked to capture the moment for posterity.
I saw Michael Jordan play. Here he is shooting free throws. People will be impressed by this someday.
That’s how you felt.

The moment always felt bigger than you or me, as did the ongoing thrill of witnessing a vintage MJ performance and appreciating all the little things that made him
him.
He never slacked and always gave a crap. Physically, he controlled himself with a grace that nobody else quite had. Technically, he was perfect in every way—perfect physique, perfect
running style, perfect defensive technique, perfect footwork, perfect shooting form—which always made it seem wrong if he dribbled a ball off his foot or threw a pass out of bounds. Spiritually, his teammates reacted to him the same way sitcom kids react to Dad when he comes home from work: everyone killing themselves to please him and hanging on his every word. The little things stood out more than the dunks and the breathtaking drives. The last time Jordan played in Boston as a Bull (December 1997), they were wiping out a young Celtics team and MJ seemed bored by the whole thing. That was always the best time to watch Jordan in person, when he was searching for dumb challenges to keep from coasting. As soon as Jordan and Walker started talking trash, I remember nudging a buddy and telling him, “Watch this, something’s gonna happen.” We followed Jordan and Walker as they jogged back and forth and kept a running dialogue going. After a Boston foul, Walker and Jordan lined up next to each other on the right side of the free throw line. Walker had inside position; Jordan stood to his left and kept talking smack. Walker made the mistake of jawing back. Never a good idea. I remember telling my buddy, “Watch this—Jordan’s telling ’Twan he’s gonna beat him inside and get the rebound. Watch this. Just wait.” Sure enough, as his teammate prepared to launch the second free throw, Jordan’s arms started swaying with his mouth moving the entire time. Walker’s body tensed. The ball went up and MJ somehow leapfrogged past Walker, grabbed the rebound and jumped back up for a layup in one motion.

Who fouled Jordan from behind to prevent the layup? Antoine Walker.

We watched Michael strut and giggle his way to the charity stripe, thoroughly pleased with himself, like he’d just found a $100 bill on the ground. We watched Walker’s head hang like that of a little kid who’d just been scolded by a parent. We watched the JumboTron show a closeup of Jordan lining up his first foul shot, an enormous grin spread across his face. His night had been made. So had ours. But that’s what makes me laugh whenever I hear guys like Wade, Jordan and LeBron compared to him.
Nobody
had moments like the one I just described. They might be close physically or athletically, but in the “command of the room” sense? No. No way. Not close. Even during Jordan’s injury-plagued comeback
with Washington,
¹⁰⁹
there was one moment during his first Boston return in 2001 when Jordan drained a crunch-time jumper and looked like he might be heating up. He spun around and hopped back to the other end of the court, running with that distinctive gait in which his elbows swung back and forth like someone using a NordicTrack. With the crowd roaring—we loved the Celtics, but really, even the slim possibility of witnessing an ESPN Classic throwback performance trumped everything—Jordan glanced over to everyone in my section at midcourt, his eyebrows raised, and unleashed a defiant grin. And he melted us. He fucking
melted
us. Imagine a busty senior cheerleader winking at a school bus filled with ninth-grade boys, triple the reaction, and that was us. We spent the next twenty seconds buzzing and nudging each other. I don’t even remember who won the game. I really don’t. All I remember was this: MJ was back, MJ was on his game, MJ was feeling it … and the possibilities were endless. Some people are just larger than life.

I will believe LeBron has reached MJ status as soon as he owns every set of eyes in a 17,000-seat arena for three straight hours, and as soon as he can liquidate an entire section with one smile. And not a moment before.

Reason no. 4: the Jordan mystique.
I’m retelling this story in the present tense because, as far as I’m concerned, it still feels like it happened three hours ago. Come back with me to that same 2006 All-Star Weekend in Houston. I am drinking Bloody Marys on a Saturday afternoon with my buddy Sully and his Boston crew. We’re debating a second round when Oakley saunters into the bar—and that’s the right word, because the dude
saunters—
with three lady friends, eventually settling at the table right next to us. Oakley orders a round of shots for his table and a martini for
himself. We quickly order a second round for ourselves. I mean, where else can you drink five feet away from the real-life Shaft?
¹¹⁰

Twenty minutes later, Jordan shows up with two friends and stops the room cold. At first, it seems like he’s just saying hello; then we realize he’s sitting down. His friends move him into the inside booth, then block him with chairs on both sides so nobody can bother him. (Like my “Chair Armada” strategy in strip joints, as mentioned on page 258.) Oakley orders more drinks; we order food and drinks for our table. For all we know, we’re staying all afternoon and evening. People stream over to say hello, pay tribute to Jordan, kiss his ring … he’s like the real-life Michael Corleone (with Oakley as Luca Brasi). At one point, agent David Falk sits about thirty feet away, patiently waiting for an invite, finally giving up and coming over to say hello. (Falk asks MJ, “How late did you stay out last night?” followed by MJ casually saying “ Seven-thirty,” as we nod admiringly)
¹¹¹
The drinks keeps coming and coming. Occasionally Oakley stands up and saunters around just to stretch his legs and look cool while I make comments like, “I wish you could rent Oak for parties.” At one point, Oak thinks about ordering food, stands up, looks over at all of us eating, notices our friend Rich’s cheeseburger, asks if it’s a cheeseburger, asks if it’s good, keeps glancing at it, keeps glancing at it … and I swear, we’re all waiting for Oak to say the words, “Oak wants your cheeseburger, and he wants it now.” But he doesn’t. He ends up ordering one himself. Too bad.
¹¹²

Two solid hours pass. Everyone at Jordan’s table finishes eating. The cigars come out. And I’m sitting there whispering, “There’s no way that the cards aren’t coming out soon. It’s impossible. MJ has never sat this long in one place without the cards coming out. The man has a competitive disorder. The cards will come out. The cards will
definitely
come out.”

Almost on cue, the cards emerge. They start playing a game called Bid Wist, a form of spades that’s popular among NBA players.
¹¹³
Oakley and MJ team up against two of their friends and Jordan comes alive. Of course he does. We witness his legendary competitive streak in action: he’s trash-talking nonstop in a deep voice, snickering sarcastically, cackling with every good card, even badgering one opponent to the point that the guy seems like a threat to start crying like one of Joe Pesci’s minions in
Good-fellas.
This isn’t Corporate MJ, the one you and I know. This is Urban MJ, the one that comes out for the Black Super Bowl,
¹¹⁴
the one that made an entire league cower for most of the nineties. It finally makes sense.

And I’m sitting there dying. I know, I know … I love cards and have a gambling problem. But what would make for a greater story than Sully and me calling winners against Oak and MJ? (Even if there isn’t a chance in hell, it’s fun to imagine and I have about seventeen Bloody Marys in me at that point. Cut me some slack.) Meanwhile, the day keeps getting stranger and stranger. Around six, Shaquille O’Neal shows up with his posse, wearing a three-piece suit with a vest that causes MJ to joke, “I’m glad you’re living up to the responsibility of the dress code.” Everyone laughs a little too loudly, because that’s what you do when Michael Jordan makes a joke: you laugh your fucking ass off. A little bit later, an NBA assistant coach shows up wearing a red sweatshirt with a giant Jordan logo on it. (Who else runs into a friend randomly wearing their clothing line?) MJ keeps getting louder and louder, and he and Oakley are cleaning up, and everyone in the bar is watching them while pretending not to watch, and then suddenly …

MJ’s wife shows up.

Uh-oh.

Everyone makes room for her. She sits down right next to him. Poor MJ looks like somebody who took a no-hitter into the ninth, then gave up a triple off the left-field wall. The trash-talking stops. He slumps in his seat like a little kid. The cigar goes out. No more hangin’ with the boys. Time to be a husband again.
¹¹⁵
Watching the whole thing unfold, I lean over to Sully and say, “Look at that, he’s just like us.”

And he is. Just your average guy getting derailed by his wife. For once in my life, I don’t want to be like Mike.

That story happened more than three years ago and I can still remember where everyone was sitting. Which brings us back to the Jordan mystique. He’s the only celebrity who pulls that story off from beginning to end. His force of personality was that great. So yeah, LeBron might approach him someday, and if not him, someone else. You will instinctively want to pass the torch to that person. That’s just the way this stuff works. Again, we always want the Next One to be greater than the Last One, and it’s impossible for the Last One to keep defending the title once memories start fading. Just remember that Superstar X can’t pass Jordan solely by putting up triple doubles, breaking scoring records and winning multiple titles. They have to beat a force of personality that compares to presidents and tycoons. They have to surpass a competitiveness better suited for a dictator. They have to keep peaking well after we believed they could keep peaking. They have to remain the coolest person in the room long after there’s any tangible reason for them to hold that title. And they have to pull off stories with endings like, “Look at that, he’s just like us.” Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time, as well as the most memorable, and maybe you need to be both.

1.
Honorable mention suggestions from my friends: Kim Kardashian, Verne Troyer, Miss Elizabeth, Fluff the Caddy, Kevin Federline, Stuttering John, Gallagher, Michael Myers, Gary Coleman, Dirk Diggler, Buddy Ryan, Carrot Top, J. J. Redick, Spencer and Heidi, Steven Seagal, Red from
Shawshank
, Shannon Elizabeth, Trig and Bristol Palin, Shannon Whirry, Jon Hein, Bruce Buffer, Adrienne Barbeau, Willard Scott, Morganna, Andrew Dice Clay, John “Motor Mouth” Moschitta, Little Oral Annie, Vanilla Ice, Jerome from
The Time
, Bruce Vilanch, Cytherea, Kobayashi, Hurley from
Lost
and Jeffrey Ross, who arguably could have made the top-12 for dominating celebrity roasts MJ-style in the 2000s. Unfortunately, it didn’t translate into financial success or even a sitcom deal. Although he altered my life in a small way by saying about Penny Marshall, “I wouldn’t fuck her with Bea Arthur’s dick” … with Bea Arthur sitting right there. Third most underrated moment of the new millenium in my opinion, just behind pilot Sully landing on the Hudson River and President Dubya throwing a strike with a bulletproof vest right before Game 3 of the ’01 World Series. By the way, Paris Hilton missed the Buffer List because she didn’t even have a single gimmick. Although maybe that
was
her gimmick—not having a gimmick. Crap, I need to think about this some more.

2.
In
Giant Steps
, aka “The Revisionist History of My Career,” Kareem
never
mentioned Moses. Not once. If Moses-Kareem was a
Good Will Hunting
scene, Moses was Will and Kareem was the ponytailed Harvard douche.
Hey, Kareem, do you like apples? Shit
, I used that one already? This book needs to end soon.

3.
Watching young Moses is like seeing Vince Vaughn in
Swingers
—he’s so much skinnier that it’s completely disconcerting and you can’t stop thinking about it.