“All Men
would beTyrants if they could” Daniel Defoe
It was bound to happen, when one man dominates so thoroughly
and runs roughshod over a generation of foes with no remorse the day will come
when his inferiors get the pleasure of picking at his carcass. Getting old is a
bitch, especially when you’ve “paid the cost to be the Boss”; now everybody you
trampled going up can put you under the harsh light of perspective and
mortality on the way down. Michael Jordan is 50, but his spirit is still the
same, if he could have taped up for Indiana last week he would have -which is what made him special-infinitely
more special than Scottie Pippen. But now he can only play golf, run a crappy
franchise and absorb the pot shots aimed at him from former contemporaries and
rivals-and watch as the incomparable LeBron James is used as a proxy for the
frustrations of those who couldn’t step to him on their own merit years ago. Wilt
Chamberlain once said “Nobody likes Goliath”, but he probably didn’t intend on
the next “giant” to be a 6’6 guard. Magic Johnson is lauded for doing Majesty
in a way that frankly none of us normal guys would, because human nature has
proven that most of us if given power earned or unearned would be assholes-just
like MJ. So I for one want to defend Michael Jordan against the Alonzo Mourning’s
of the world, because when Michael was ruling the landscape Mourning and his
ilk had every opportunity to spill his blood and couldn’t.
So now like little School girls they live vicariously through
a self-appointed King.
How surprised were you when he made his HOF speech?
Really? You watched a man play like his ass was on fire for
13 years, step to anybody (including “enforcers” like Xavier McDaniel) head on
who challenged his supremacy and now you’re surprised he’s kind of a jerk?
Scottie Pippen is the most underappreciated basketball player in history, but
I’d appreciate him more if he were man enough to simply call Mike a dick and
stop making LeBron the instrument of his redemption. Get it over with Scottie,
you let us know that LeBron can “kick Mike’s ass” because you couldn’t- and it
kept you from demanding the credit you deserved. Michael Jordan’s reign of
terror came with megalomania and transgressions against teammates but not one
of them had the courage of a Horace Grant who made a conscious choice to do
what was right for himself. Grant may not have 6 rings like Pippen but he’s got
his money and his peace of mind which allows him to speak the truth to power, just
notice how he isn’t in a rush to chump Michael off as if it’s so easy for James
to supplant him. He’s at (personal) peace, something you can’t arrive at when
you don’t at least try to hit the
bully back- Grant did and on his own terms with Orlando. That Eastern
conference finals victory in 1995 may have been counterfeit but it was good
enough for him to look himself in the mirror. Larry Bird foretold Michael as a
Basketball Tyrant and shared the same jerk DNA, and in interviews his logic
told him LeBron is better than Kobe but his instinct tells him he could win
“more” with Kobe-because “game recognize game”, jerk game that is. He burned
like Michael burned, and probably shrugged at all of the Hall of Fame “outrage”
generated by the unsettling peak inside MJ’s mind- former Bulls/Orlando Magic
GM Pat Williams calls it a “Predator” mindset which is much different than the “competitor”
mindset of LeBron James.
I had a friend (a former Bulls cheerleader) take great
pleasure from how MJ was used and jettisoned by the Wizards ownership group
because she personally witnessed him as the voracious shark in Chicago waters- and
it felt good to view him as corporate prey to men who make money without having
to sweat. Michael’s time in uniform emblazoned Omega Psi like scars real and
imagined on a generation of proud men and when they “throw shade” in 2013 you
can see the leaky puss. Michael stood up at that podium and called out
everybody but the fucking janitor and still after all of these years cats just
cringed and took it, now that’s some Nino Brown shit. The secret desire every
man has is to defeat all of his adversaries and tell him about it to his damned
face, twice! and there isn’t a media blowhard that could talk any of you out of
it if you could get away with it. To this day he’s as accessible as Howard
Hughes and in that lack accessibility there’s power, the kind that engenders
backlash, awe and an attempt to deconstruct the myth. At this stage in the
Tyrants life many try to use Kobe and LeBron to humanize him but comparison
only sheds light on the one thing that nobody can impugn-his reputation. For
all that he may not have been he was never humbled and for that those who were
have an obligation to make him pay for his audacity.
Law of Power #5 Guard your Reputation with your Life
Old Heads love them some LeBron, and it’s a myth that we
don’t, but not at the expense of Mike-he’s put in his work and we’ll guard his
rep with our own. It isn’t about being old; it’s merely about the
predictability of explosiveness, of seeing NBC run commercials a week from a
Madison Square Garden appearance asking “will he go for 50?” You could pencil
in “where were you when?” performances and there’s nothing that sticks in your
head like “running” a local park 10 game straight with your boys and having
that one homie give you that look that says “ our dynasty is over because Mike
is coming on in an hour. Maybe we were more alive then because we too were
running full court ourselves, but I’ll be damned if we’re gonna let Alonzo
Mourning tell us anything about Michael Jordan. In our memory he was one of the
inanimate objects Michael use to jump over on his way to 50, just another dude
who Michael TOLD he wasn’t gonna do shit about it, and he didn’t until Mike was
long gone. MJ’s reputation may be up to debate for those who are paid to make
everything a metric or revisionist history but to a nation of OG’s his
reputation is unassailable. When you’re 16 years old you don’t give a shit
whether he was as nice or inclusive as Magic and you don’t care if the same can
be said about LeBron now.
Law of Power #2 never put too much Trust in Friends
Charles Oakley is the real hangout, but Charles Barkley plays
the best friend on TV, the one you can roll out to legitimize any shot you want
to take at the throne. Few friendships endure between cats that wanted the same
thing and one friend got it all, the girl, the job, whatever it is. Magic and
Bird thrive because they both got a piece of one another, and Bird knows you can’t
have the 1980’s without the Celtics. Barkley is comfortable in his own skin but
in defense of Jordan he was made to accept that because Champion was not going
to be a part of his “skin”. Many of you have that friend who is either doing
better or worse than you and you wouldn’t want either to be an authority on
you. Mikes friends are always going to be cats on the low, maybe anonymous, but
never dudes in a position to let envy make them dangerous. I never bought
Barkley as his #1 homeboy and I never will, I truth I think Barkley is a dude
he’s cool with, who tickles him to death-especially in 1993.
Law of Power #15 Crush your enemy totally
Unlike Kobe and LeBron when Michael got in position to
compete for championships there were no more questions about which the 1990’s
would belong to. When he caught up to Isiah, it was a wrap-there was to be no
back and forth-no “we’ll get you guys next year”. Had the world been more
evolved and Magic been able to play he would have won no more, and Michael had
little problem letting him know it during the legendary Dream Team scrimmage in
1992. Patrick Ewing, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, and John
Stockton on the court at once in those same Olympics drew jam-packed crowds and
none of them were allowed to win a damned thing after the ceremonies
closed due to Michael Jeffrey Jordan. Before him, losing in the finals wasn’t
the scarlet letter it is today, but he so thoroughly demoralized a generation
that it became a discussion topic-for the first time since Russell we had to
consider a man’s mental makeup as a determining factor. Barkley is the only
former foe with a bully pulpit and he attacks Michael “the executive” at every
opportunity, a lame recourse for the athlete who experienced the rarest
opportunity in a man’s life-to physically kick somebodies ass for a living.
Karl Malone is so crushed he can’t even stomach the idea of picking Jordan on
his All Time starting 5, a group that nobody who knew basketball would pick him
for. LeBron and Kobe have to live with several “what about that time” a moment
in their career, but Michael Jordan lives with crickets and hushed tones- not
all of them kind.
Only Two Men Deserve to “BEEF” with MJ, Isiah Thomas and
Craig Hodges
Both are from the City Michael ruled but they both have
reasons that I consider Political and significant to still have a “thing” for
MJ. Isaiah Thomas had his legacy muted and obscured by Michael, few remember
how thoroughly he and his Bad Boys put it on the Bulls-built I do. I remember
sitting there welling up and feeling like the Bulls would never break through,
hating the Pistons for the physical brand of ball they played. But I’m an adult
now, and since then I’ve tugged a few shorts and ran off a few illegal screens
and I wouldn’t give back one bucket I made or prevented. Isiah “son’d” MJ and
like any rebel his punishment was disproportionate to set an example for anyone
who dares challenge a Tyrant. Isiah deserved to be on the Dream Team, in fact
he deserved to start and be Co-Captain because his pedigree merited the
assignment. The NBA had no right to present the Olympic opportunity to Mike in
such a way that allowed him veto power over Thomas; they should have assembled
the team and made it something he couldn’t refuse. There were no amount of hard
fouls that should have led to such an omission, and the fact that Jordan
admitted it so many years later suggests that he knew as the years went by it
was a small thing to do-the NBA should have saved the brotha from himself.
Craig Hodges was politically outspoken and was cool with Farrakhan
at a time when the Nation of Islam leader was coming to the attention of the
ADL and powerful media forces. I’m not a fan of the man myself for reasons
pertaining to Malcolm X but his theories on our young men and the messages that
harm them do hit home with me. Craig called MJ out for not using his power to
be more to our youth than a slam dunking sneaker selling machine, and he’s
right-in fact what is MJ to the “20 something” crowd who inherited his brand
from their parents?. Clearly he is the representation of what NBA Ballers want
to be today, a brand, something sterile and corporate and of no cultural
significance to young Black Men. What Hodges got for this challenge was
blackballed from a league that was always in need of shooters, where Steve Kerr
went into the front office Hodges damned near went into the poorhouse for his political
consciousness. He deserves to have “beef” with MJ, and those of you who call
him a “conspiracy theorist” take a look out your window and ask yourself if he
could have left us more than 200$ shoes.
