How Michael Jordan became a generation's biggest sports star
No athlete on the planet dominated or defined the 1990s quite like His Airness, Michael Jordan.
Jordan entered the decade having already become basketball’s marquee star in the late '80s, but it was the '90s that cemented his legacy as a champion, and as one of the most influential athletes the world has ever seen.
In the spring of 1990, Jordan’s Bulls had just lost a hard fought Eastern Conference Final series to the eventual champion Pistons for the second year in a row. Detroit’s Jordan Rules stymied M.J., the Pistons bullied Chicago, and the basketball world wondered whether Jordan was really cut out for this championship stuff, which seems insane to consider in retrospect.
Jordan and the Bulls broke through, of course, the following year, ending the Pistons’ Bad Boy era in the 1991 East Final before trouncing the Lakers in The Finals, leaving Jordan to an indelible, emotional first date with the Larry O’Brien trophy.
From there, Jordan the champion and Jordan the brand took off and soared to new heights, punctuated by an iconic slogan coined by a Gatorade commercial that began running just months after he captured that first title.
The whole world wanted to be like Mike, and simply dressing like Mike in signature Air Jordans and Jumpman gear, or drinking like Mike with a bottle of Gatorade, wouldn’t suffice – You had to walk like Mike, talk like Mike, keep your tongue out like Mike, chew your gum like Mike. It’s likely that no athlete has ever been mimicked as much or spawned a generation of copycats as large as Jordan has.
His Bulls won two more titles in 1992 and 1993 to complete the NBA’s first threepeat since the mid-60’s Celtics. And then, with the greatest basketball player to ever walk the earth at the height of his powers and seemingly nothing between himself and more championships and accolades, Jordan walked away from the game at the age of 30.
The announcement, which came just weeks before the start of the 1993-94 season, stunned the sports world. At the time, Jordan stated having reached the pinnacle and having nothing left to prove were behind his early retirement, but the tragic loss of his father, whom he was so close to and who was murdered just months earlier, surely played a part.
Jordan famously signed a minor league baseball contract with the White Sox early in ’94, pursuing a dream that his father had for him. He played Double-A ball for the Birmingham Barons and Fall League ball for the Scottsdale Scorpions, with fans following his every at-bat. Jordan improved at the plate throughout the year, but a man with such superhuman abilities and an insatiable appetite for success wasn’t meant for mediocrity.
Michael Jordan wasn’t put on this earth to play baseball. He knew it, we all knew it, and on March 18, 1995, with a two-word press release containing the words “I’m back,” he announced his return to basketball.
The very next day, donning the No. 45, since his iconic 23 had been retired upon his retirement, after having not played professional basketball in nearly two years, Jordan scored 19 points against the Pacers. Nine days after that, he dropped 55 points on the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
As Bob Costas said in the NBA on NBC opening before Jordan’s first game back against Indiana, “There may be many interesting peripheral aspects to both his departure and return, but at the heart of it is simply this, the best in the world is back.”
The Bulls fell to Shaquille O’Neal and the Magic in the 1995 East semifinals, but in his first full season back on the court in 95-96 - wearing No. 23 again - Jordan led the Bulls to an NBA-record 72 wins and their first of three more consecutive championships, which they won on Father’s Day to boot.
He was in his thirties, had already retired once, already had his jersey retired and already had a statue outside of Chicago’s United Center, and yet for three seasons between 1995-96 and 1997-98, Jordan averaged 29.6 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.9 steals in 38 minutes per game, shot 48 percent from the field and nearly 37 percent from three, posted a three-year PER above 27, won three championships, and took home three Finals MVP awards, two NBA MVP awards and two All-Star game MVP’s.
Along the way in that second threepeat, Jordan gave a new generation of fans, too young to recall his prime years, memories of his greatness to call their own. In addition to teaming up with the Looney Tunes to vanquish the Monstars, there was The Flu Game, which still inspires rec league ballers to fight through illness every day in gyms around the world, and The Last Shot, the last truly defining singular moment of his illustrious career, which clinched championship No. 6.
It’s those moments of brilliance, the ones that make you aware in an instant that you’re witnessing greatness, and the ones that need only a few words to leave their mark – The Mid-air Switch, The Shrug, The Shot II, “I’m Back,” The Double-Nickel, The Flu Game, The Last Shot – that make it impossible to revisit the 1990s in sports without giving Michael Jordan center stage.