Is there a 700-page worthy biography? When reading “Michael Jordan: The Life” by author Roland Lazenby, you will find it difficult to answer other than nodding your head.
If anyone is worthy of 700 pages of prose, it would be Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player and most famous athlete on earth. Jordan redefines professional basketball. He appeared at the end of the era of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, an era that rescued the NBA from the bleak state of drug scandals and uncreative gameplay.
“God Disguised as Michael Jordan”
Jordan is a player at the start of his career that few would have predicted he would win six NBA championships and reach iconic levels. In every setting, on the basketball court, at the casino, on the practice field or on the team bus, Jordan is the ultimate dominating figure in a world full of dominant characters. Alpha’s Alpha, Jordan in command, attracts attention, respects, fascinates and haunts.
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| Jordan is the perfect performer on the basketball court. |
Everyone wants to be like Jordan, from the baggy shorts he wore in place of the skinny 1980s shorts to the glossy shaven head that inspired generations of men from all over the world. Get rid of the combed back hairstyle. And everyone wants a pair of Air Jordans in their shoe closet. The first Air Jordan version appeared in 1985, so far there have been 37 versions, bringing in sales of 5 billion USD .
Thirty years ago, parents were furious when they saw their children hanging pictures of black athletes in their bedrooms. Jordan changes that. He crossed the racial divide. He’s not black. He’s not white. You are Michael. Or as Larry Bird once said, he is “God disguised as Michael Jordan”.
During the 90s, Michael Jordan reached the level of popularity of Michael Jackson in the 1980s. Both MJ characters cross racial lines and are number one characters. At the height of Jordan’s popularity, a staggering 40% of all NBA merchandise sales were related to the Chicago Bulls.
MJ has motivation, scary aspirations
Author Lazenby spent nearly thirty years covering MJ’s career from college team to professional football. He witnessed Jordan’s growth from a skinny rookie to a global sports ambassador.
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| MJ and 5 children. Twin girls 9 years old this year are with their second wife. |
“I love baseball,” said Jordan while attending Laney High School in Wilmington. “It’s my number one sport.” He didn’t even want to be tall enough to play basketball. “Height is in you,” his mother Deloris told him. Luckily for the future of the NBA, Jordan’s baseball skills aren’t great enough.
But MJ’s love of baseball was so great that, in 1994, when he had all the success in basketball, MJ announced his retirement to switch to baseball. The test failed. In 1995, he returned to the NBA, leading the Chicago Bulls to three consecutive championship titles. During the six seasons of the Bulls championship, MJ was honored as the “NBA’s Most Valuable Player” of the season.
Lazenby also sees a Jordan whose drive, desire is scarier and more insatiable than any of his fans might know. Shows how disappointed Jordan is with his teammates, coaches, and Bulls officials who can’t or won’t rise to the same level of greatness Jordan demands of himself in every training session and every game. fight.
MJ is absolutely an artist on the basketball court. All his flaws in the game are easily overshadowed by great talent. It’s hard to slander a man with your mouth hanging open as you watch him glide through the air, with a combination of grace and strength that could accurately be described as sublime.
Unanswered questions
The book takes us inside the Jordan family, torn apart by MJ’s wealth, and the siblings’ desire to compete for money. We also see the harrowing detail of MJ’s father being killed.
On July 23, 1993, returning home after spending the day playing golf, Mr. James Jordan pulled over to the side of the road to take a nap. Daniel Andre Green and Larry Martin Demery saw a luxurious red Lexus SC400, and attempted to rob the car. Green shot and killed James while he was sleeping in the car. His body was found on August 3 in a swamp.
Because the body was in a state of severe decomposition, he was not identified until August 13 with the help of dental records provided by his family dentist. Green and Demery made multiple calls from Mr. James’ cell phone and were quickly arrested, and sentenced to life in prison.
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| MJ currently lives with his second wife of Cuban origin, Yvette Prieto. |
Jordan is a gambler. You don’t need sleep. He could stay up all night, partying, cigars in a strip club, golfing with a frenzy that we, who don’t live at that intensity, could never imagine.
He partyed with rock stars, became a prisoner of his own fame, unable to escape his hotel room while traveling, because his mere presence caused chaos.
Lazenby made no attempt to hide Jordan’s selfishness. “I think of myself first, the team behind,” Jordan said towards the end of his career. “I want the team to win, but I also want me to be the reason for them to win.”
What many will seek from the book is answers to a few questions about Jordan. About his huge gambling debt, about the check connecting him to a convicted drug dealer, the dark circumstances surrounding his father’s murder. About the allegation that his father sexually abused his sister as a teenager, which his sister told in another book. About how much he paid his mistress Karla Knafel to keep their relationship a secret…
Those questions aren’t answered here, and it’s unfair to ask Lazenby to do the impossible.
The sports section introduces the autobiography “Usain Bolt: Faster Than Lightning” by the legendary Jamaican track and field athlete. Bolt recounts his journey to becoming the lightning bolt of world athletics, including psychological doping trials.
