Michael Jordan expresses concerns with NBA's competitive balance
Jordan's spokesperson Estee Portnoy told The Associated Press on Monday (Oct 9) that the Hornets owner "feels so great about being able to impact the Charlotte community and help people who really deserve it. Michael and Novant are really excited about this project". After all, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony joined Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City, Chris Paul teamed up with James Harden in Houston and Boston brought in Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward.
Jordan also said in the interview that he smokes six cigars a day (h/t Daniel Rapaport of SI.com) and elaborated on the never-ending debate of which player is the greatest in National Basketball Association history. You're going to have one or two teams that are going to be great, and another 28 teams that are going to be garbage.
He also talked about his pal Tiger Woods, a 14-time major champion golfer struggling to return after multiple back operations, and said he himself might not have "survived in this Twitter time". However, that was a special case, as he is a native of nearby Akron and was originally drafted by the Cavs, spending his first seven seasons with that team before returning in 2014.
As far as Jordan's comments on the business environment, if there are always just one or two teams stacked up with all of the best talent, it could potentially make fans of lesser teams shy away from the game more, as they may just develop a "what's the point?" mentality. Tiger evolved it to where it crossed a lot of different boundaries, where it's not just a white guy's sport ― black guys, African-Americans, all minorities play the game. He is, to me, in a very unique situation. What changed between that timeframe to now - social media, Twitter, all those types of things that have invaded the personality and personal time of individuals. "I was more into stock vehicle racing than I was into anything else". That's what they think. Make me better than him?
On possibly coaching: "No". "No. I have no patience for coaching". "My biggest problem from a competitive standpoint is the focus of today's athlete. And if he didn't do it, there's no telling where my emotions would be".
Jordan also talked about the state of Woods at the moment.
In those championship seasons from 1991-93 and 1996-98, Jordan's teams won 61, 67, 57, 72, 69 and 62 games, dominating the league.