North Station Sports

Larry Bird's Boston Celtics got the best of Jordan, sweeping the Chicago Bull in 1986 & 1987.

Hello everyone, my name is Matthew Golden, and I am an old friend of Nick’s and an old time basketball fan. I grew up watching the 80s Celtics’ teams and Big East college games. I played basketball every chance I could get from the end of little league until the end of high school. If I was any taller than the 5′9″ I am, I would have sat at the end of a bench in college. I love the game. I loved being around it. I even once coached a 6th grade team (we went undefeated). My sports passion is not just for basketball, I am also a diehard baseball fan, football fan, golf fan, and basically every other sport this side of the WNBA.

When Nick started his blog, I was truly impressed with how it kept getting better and better. Nick and I grew up arguing with our friends about how the ‘86 Celts were better than the ‘96 Bulls (in my mind it isn’t close). I loved his retro posts about the legends of my youth. He inspired me to start my own blog, which is I made about TV.

My first post for Nick was going to be about how I fell in love with basketball and what sets it apart from other sports. A case for why my opinion on basketball should mean something. After what I saw last weekend, I am going to have to save that piece for another day. Micheal Jordan’s acceptance speech stuck with me like bad sushi. It was an extremely small and petty speech for such a huge and iconic figure. The speech kept popping back into my head all week. It was two things. First, he looked chubby. His speech was so…wrong…when compared to Stockton and the Admiral. He didn’t look like Jordan either. He was bigger and wasn’t chomping on gum. And then I remembered…

Michael Jordan ruined basketball. Is he an all-time great? Obviously. As everyone remembers, he was an assassin on and off the court. He was unreal. But if you take a step back and look at the big picture, he was bad for basketball. Thanks to Nike and Gatorade, a generation of players grew up wanting to Be Like Mike. The measure of a player became how high can he jump. How athletic he is. Screw fundamentals. Tongues were wagging all over the country. Jordan, more than anything else, ushered in the hip hop era of the NBA.

Games became nothing more than glorified one-on-one matchups. You can quote stat after stat that agrees with me or you can make excuses about rule changes for why the style of play deteriorated, but I can tell you as someone who watches the game as a fan and someone who knows good ball when he sees it….the game sucked for a long time. I would say from the mid 90s until LeBron and the running Suns. The league became a side show. Gone was the fluidity and five-as-one feeling of the 80s. In was the era of isolation and bricked jumpers.

It isn’t all Jordan’s fault, but he was an overrated player that was more a product of a marketing machine and a weak league than anything else. Look at the 1st 8 years of his career. Look at his 3 point shooting. He was a gunner on mediocre teams.

At the end of his career, he was playing in a weak league on overrated teams. His first three titles came as he conquered his early career demons. But those were against aging teams in the twilight of their careers. Then he took two years off as the league got weaker every year as the Jordan-lytes took over the league with their weak fundamentals and almost zero understanding about how the game is meant to be played.

His last three titles came against no other great teams. None. Orlando, Seattle, Miami, the Knicks, and Utah…all

After coming out of retirement the first time, Michael Jordan wore the number 45 until the Chicago Bulls could un-retire him #23.

historically insignificant teams. Inferior opponents. Weak.

He left the NBA worse than he found it. There is no doubt in that. And while he didn’t directly or wholly cause the deterioration of the play in the league, he and his Ruthian image played a bigger part than anything. The league struggled to find an identity and to rebuild fundamentals. The proof is in the US’s performance in international play. We are a bunch of 1-on-1 types playing a team game and when it was actually called according to the rules, we got smoked. It wasn’t until LeBron, the KG trade, and the hand checking rule change that the NBA has begun to look and feel like the NBA again.

So why is he deified as if he is Babe Ruth? He piggie backed his career off the Bad Boys, Celts, and Lakers of the 80s. They created the modern NBA and made it into the international juggernaut it is. So basically he was springboarded into superstardom by virtue of being there to take the torch. This coincided with the rise of ESPN. They needed him and he wouldn’t be what he is without them. Throw in the marketing of Nike and Gatorade and Michael Jordan is more myth than reality. Like the beef in a McDonald’s burger…which brings me back to his speech.

He acted like he was bigger than the game. Who could blame him? Similar to another MJ, I am sure he has led a pretty sheltered life. But I can’t remember hearing a worse acceptance speech. Rickey Henderson, the epitome of ego and irreverence, was infinitely more gracious, humble, and likeable. And I don’t want to hear that he had to be that way to be great. Magic and Bird weren’t that way. Russell and Havlichek weren’t. Do you think Derek Jeter will ever utter an arrogant word in his speech? Did Joe Montana? I will never be able to look at him the same way again.