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I rooted against Jordan so hard back in the day.
He always, alwaaaaaaaays broke my heart.
Now I get weirdly defensive of him when anybody, over the past decade, has suggested that Kobe or LeBron are as good.
Such a dominant player on both ends.
I do think that Jordan's image would have been completely different had he taken off in 2012 as opposed to the 90s, when there was still a distance between players and the rest of the world.
In 2012, with social media, we're in these guys laps 24/7. LeBron is the perfect child of this movement because while he isn't the brightest bulb on the tree, he is legitimately a nice guy who everybody in the league really likes. Koby's seen as chippy and difficult for the most part.
Both of these guys would have paled in comparison to Jordan's sheer dickishness in the name of winning. Jordan was an unrepentant asshole, driving every one of his teammates to work his ass off and play better/smarter until he got what he wanted. Where LeBron just shrugged and tried to be the good guy in Cleveland, where Koby would be whiny and petulant in LA, Jordan was the Bad Cop in Chicago, and he might have become an anti-hero in today's media. A prickly asshole who didn't give two shits about anything, not even himself, but winning, winning, winning. All the Space Jam stuff, Larry Bird and him in those McD's commercials... none of that would have happened (it probably would have all gone to Magic, who's probably the most charismatic b-baller in NBA history).
I love Jordan, even when I rooted against him.
But I remember reading about a practice of his -- just a practice -- where he started breaking shit courtside and told the media to **** off (they were hanging around for an interview) because his practice team lost against Pippens, I believe. And I remember the Dream Team blowing out Lithuania by 30 points in the gold medal game, and half-way into the second half, with the game already decided, Jordan is getting incredibly physical with this little Lithuanian that's decided to guard him close -- just to send him a message -- even though they were never going to play each other again.
Jordan is the embodiment of a winner on the court, but he would probably be reviled by so many people now because of how hard he pushed, how personal he took the sport, and of how unforgiving he was in his mission.
I mean, god. We got onto LeBron when he lost against the Mavericks a couple years ago, saying stuff like "my critics will have to go back to their sorry lives" or whatever. Jordan was routinely more brutal.
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