(Michael Jeffrey Jordan; New York, 1963) American basketball player considered the best in the history of this sport. Certainly, since basketball was invented by an American gym teacher in the late 19th century. Until the 1980s, a prodigy comparable to this legendary basketball player was never seen. At 1.98 meters tall, Michael Jordan was a tenacious defender, an excellent scorer and a fast and imaginative passer; but even more striking was his extraordinary ability to jump and the acrobatic maneuvers he used to avoid the rival defense and reach the basket. He seemed capable of remaining suspended in the air for a few moments; Such faculty or “gift from heaven” -never better said- earned him the nickname of Air Jordan.

Although born in the New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, Michael Jordan’s childhood was spent in the town of Wilmington, in the state of North Carolina, to which he had moved with his family. A basketball fan since he was a child, he began to stand out when he was still a teenager; When he was thirteen, his father had a basketball court built in the backyard of his house, where he became the admiration of the neighborhood and the neighbors who gathered on weekend afternoons to play basketball. and barbecue.

It was impossible for a talent like his to go to waste in a country like the United States, the first uncontested power in the second most popular sport in the world after soccer. Part of such hegemony comes from the optimal organization of university and professional basketball. The National Basketball Association, known universally by the acronym NBA, was born in 1949 from the merger of two other existing professional leagues: the American Basketball Association (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL).

The NBA league is disputed in two areas or conferences, East and West, divided, in turn, into four divisions: Atlantic and Central for the first and Midwest and Pacific for the second. Each team constitutes a franchise linked to a city, although the franchise can change its headquarters. However, to favor equality in the competition, the NBA introduced the draft system , by means of which the worst-ranked teams in each division had the power to first choose the most promising players from the powerful university league, the NCAA. . In a short time, the level reached by American professional teams became so high that the superiority of the NBA over any other national league would be overwhelming.

Like so many other NBA players, Michael Jordan took his first steps in the college league. In 1981 he joined the University of North Carolina team, and two years later he was already chosen best player of the university season, a distinction he received again in 1984. In the summer of 1984, when Michael Jordan was already known in the United States United with the nickname “he can do it all”, he was part of one of the best North American basketball teams that, under the direction of the rigid Bobby Knight (coach of the University of Indiana), He won the gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympic Games (1984), after beating the Spanish team in the final. The American quintet (Leon Wood, Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins,

The same year of his triumph at the Los Angeles Olympic Games, he began his professional basketball career: he was chosen in the NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls, a team in which he would remain throughout almost his entire sports career and with the one that won six NBA championships (1991-1993 and 1996-1998). Leading scorer in ten seasons, he averaged 32 points per game, an NBA record, and was voted best player in 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996 and 1998.

Michael Jordan attended his second Olympic event in Barcelona 92, the first games in which, due to a change in the regulations, professionals were allowed to participate. The United States team, which would be called the “Dream Team” (“dream team”), featured the best players of the moment: Magic Johnson , Larry Bird , Hakeem Olajuwon or Charles Barkley, in addition to Michael Jordan. The result was predictable: the “Dream Team” won the gold with overwhelming superiority and also became one of the biggest attractions of the Games.

In October 1993, after the murder of his father, he left the competition, but returned to the NBA in March 1995 and became the star of the Chicago Bulls again. When he returned, the NBA did not allow him to wear number 23, which had been retired by the Chicago Bulls. But shortly after the superstitious Jordan requested it as a special favor, and those responsible for the tournament allowed him to play with the mythical number. Another of the many hobbies of this extraordinary basketball player was to wear, under the Bulls clothing, some clothes from the University of North Carolina, for having achieved his first successes there.

His second stage was as triumphant as the first: Michael Jordan won three new NBA championships for his team (1996-1998), and his image ended up overflowing the tracks. In 1997 he starred in the live-animated film Space Jam .(with Bugs Bunny as a co-star), which became a huge box-office hit, heralding the creation of a sportswear company named after him. If on the court he stood out for his spectacularity, elegance and intelligence, off it he was always admired for his simplicity and honesty. At the beginning of 1999 he announced his retirement from active sports, but he still returned to the top competition with the Washington Wizards, and continued to add records to his impressive statistics between October 2001 and April 2003, the date of his final retirement. .

Phrases

-I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.

-To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don’t isolate.

-You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.

-If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.

-The good part about being famous is being able to help people. The hard part is every day you have to be in a good mood, because that is what people expect. You learn to get good at it.

-I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.

-There is no ‘i’ in team but there is in win.

-Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.

-Sometimes you need to get hit in the head to realize that you’re in a fight.

-I built my talents on the shoulders of someone else’s talent.

-I believe greatness is an evolutionary process that changes and evolves era to era.

-In any investment, you expect to have fun and make money.

-I wasn’t really a work-conscious type of person. I was a player. I loved to play sports.

-There’s only one Michael Jordan.

-I know the signs of scaredness.

-Being Michael Jordan means acting the same as I always have.

-I realize that I’m black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this is everybody’s wish.

-If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

-My father used to say that it’s never too late to do anything you wanted to do. And he said, ‘You never know what you can accomplish until you try.

-To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don’t isolate.

-I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.

-The game has its ups and downs, but you can never lose focus of your individual goals and you can’t let yourself be beat because of lack of effort.

-You have competition every day because you set such high standards for yourself that you have to go out every day and live up to that.

-I want to wake up every day and do whatever comes in my mind, and not feel pressure or obligations to do anything else in my life.

-I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat.

-My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.

-I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

-It’s absolutely wrong that I don’t want guys to challenge me. And the people who say that aren’t in the room.

-Be true to the game, because the game will be true to you. If you try to shortcut the game, then the game will shortcut you. If you put forth the effort, good things will be bestowed upon you. That’s truly about the game, and in some ways that’s about life too.

-You’re a loser. You’ve always been a loser.

-You’re going to play from the little girls’ tees?

-They don’t need a ticket to watch you sitting on the bench. They can go to your house for that.

-Don’t let them drag you down by rumors just go with what you believe in.

-Gambling is legal and betting is legal, for what I bet.

-I can’t speak for the future. I have no crystal ball.

-Once I made a decision, I never thought about it again.

-What is love? Love is playing every game as if it’s your last.

-The basketball court for me, during a game, is the most peaceful place I can imagine. On the basketball court, I worry about nothing. When I’m out there, no one can bother me.

-If I had been playing for money I would have complained a long time ago that I was underpaid.

-I won’t have any competitive instincts in any sports, other than golf. I can’t see being competitive in sports any more.

-It is nerve-wracking watching my kids’ games.

-The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether it’s proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing.

-I think the players win the championship, and the organization has something to do with it, don’t get me wrong. But don’t try to put the organization above the players.

-It’s hard to say if the NBA is hurt by the influx of younger players, but it’s definitely impacted the league.

-If it turns out that my best wasn’t good enough, at least I won’t look back and say I was afraid to try.

-It’s heavy duty to try to do everything and please everybody. My job was to go out there and play the game of basketball as best I can. People may not agree with that. I can’t live with what everyone’s impression of what I should or what I shouldn’t do.

-As athletes, we’re used to reacting quickly. Here, it’s ‘come, stop, come, stop.’ There’s a lot of downtime. That’s the toughest part of the day.

–The game of basketball has been everything to me. My place of refuge, place I’ve always gone where I needed comfort and peace. It’s been the site of intense pain and the most intense feelings of joy and satisfaction. It’s a relationship that has evolved over time, given me the greatest respect and love for the game.

-In reality, I never want to grow up.

-There is no such thing as a perfect basketball player, and I don’t believe there is only one greatest player either.

-I never thought a role model should be negative.

-The key to success is failure.

-I want to be the bridge to the next generation.

-I own the guy guarding me.

-How many times have your parents told you not to do things, and the next thing you know, you go do it? And you realized you shouldn’t have done it.

-I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me. Failure always made me try harder the next time.

-I want to be perceived as a guy who played his best in all facets, not just scoring. A guy who loved challenges.

-You can practice shooting 8 hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.

-My challenge when I came back was to face the young talent, to dissect their games, and show them maybe that they needed to learn more about the game than just the money aspect.

-Failure is acceptable. but not trying is a whole different ball park.

-Best evaluation I can make of a player is to look in his eyes and see how scared they are.

-My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind.

-The best come from the worst.

-Champions do not become champions when they win an event, but in the hours, weeks, and months, and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely a demonstration of their championship character.

-I mean we all fly. Once you leave the ground, you fly. Some people fly longer than others.

-When I will lose the sense of motivation and the sense to prove something as a basketball player, it’s time for me to move away from the game.

-Learning’s a gift, even when pain is your teacher.

-People ask me if I could fly, I said, ‘yeah…. for a little while.’

-The game is my wife. It demands loyalty and responsibility, and it gives me back fulfillment and peace.

-Do I need my number retired throughout the course of the league to acknowledge what I’ve done? No.

-I would tell players to relax and never think about what’s at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you’ve lost your focus.

-My body could stand the crutches but my mind couldn’t stand the sideline.

-In college I never realized the opportunities available to a pro athlete. I’ve been given the chance to meet all kinds of people, to travel and expand my financial capabilities, to get ideas and learn about life, to create a world apart from basketball.

-I hope the millions of people I’ve touched have the optimism and desire to share their goals and hard work and perseverance with a positive attitude.

-Even when I’m old and gray, I won’t be able to play it, but I’ll still love the game.

-I’d like to be settled into somewhat of a normal life. Somewhat. I know it’s never going to be completely normal.

-Every time I feel tired while I am exercising and training, I close my eyes to see that picture, to see that list with my name. This usually motivates me to work again.

-When I was young, I had to learn the fundamentals of basketball. You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals.

-For a competitive junkie like me, golf is a great solution because it smacks you in the face every time you think you’ve accomplished something. That to me has taken over a lot of the energy and competitiveness for basketball.

-I will not quit this game because of what the media has done to me.

-Playing sick. That is so hard to do. It has to be a total mental challenge, as well as the physical challenge.

-I like control.

-I want to play for years.

-I want to do for rebounds what Michael Jordan did for dunks.
Dennis Rodman

-Michael Jordan and Magic and myself all learned how to play the game in college programs that emphasized the team.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

-In 1981, when I went down to visit Georgia Tech, I watched Michael Jordan play and literally get ridiculed for taking a jump shot in the championship game that went off the backboard, and they won. People are forgetting that Michael was just one of the players when they went to the Dream Team.
John Salley

-If somebody says no to you, or if you get cut, Michael Jordan was cut his first year, but he came back and he was the best ever. That is what you have to have. The attitude that I’m going to show everybody, I’m going to work hard to get better and better.
Magic Johnson

-Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It’s so much going on in music right now and somebody has to make a difference.
Kanye West

-To put it another way, Michael Jordan was a gym rat.
Frank Shorter

-I grew up in Chicago, and I understand what Michael Jordan symbolizes.
Dwyane Wade

-If you look up the definition of greatness in the dictionary, it will say Michael Jordan.
Elgin Baylor

-You can’t explain much in 60 seconds, but when you show Michael Jordan, you don’t have to. It’s that simple.
Phil Knight

-Overall, I think Michael Jordan is the greatest athlete in any particular sport. He dominated the game for the Chicago Bulls and brought the NBA to its greatest peak of popularity.
Will McDonough