The day I met Jordan

In the absence of live cricket, SIMON HUGHES has been filling his spare time with Netflix's documentary on the basketball great, and it has taken him back to a memorable Manhattan meeting more than 20 years ago…

All sports shops are still closed because of Covid, but Nike are happy. 

The sporting shutdown has boosted audience figures for The Last Dance, the Netflix series following Michael Jordan in his final Chicago Bulls season (1997/8) to already more than 10million per episode. 

It has especially drawn in the 18-34 age group, many of whom were not necessarily acquainted with the genius of the man known as His Royal Airness. 

One episode is almost entirely devoted to how his first $250,000 contract with Nike came about. It’s the best money they ever spent. And there’s now bound to be another spike in sales of Nike’s Air Jordans which already bring the company $3billion in annual revenue. Jordan is the first billionaire sportsman – his personal value is estimated at $2.1billion - and he still pulls in more than four times the annual salary of the world’s highest-earning cricketer, Virat Kohli ($25million).

I have particularly enjoyed The Last Dance as I was there, sort of. In those halcyon days of sports writing when daily newspapers sent ‘colour writers’ overseas to cover special events, I was dispatched to New York to be courtside as Jordan’s Bulls confronted New Jersey Nets in those 1998 play-offs, seeking a sixth NBA title in eight years. 

And you are ‘courtside’ too – the press got the very best seats, centimetres from the playing surface from where you look up in wonder at the size and athleticism of these superhumans, feeling the wind as they glide past, and even getting the odd droplet of sweat on your notepad. And that was just in the warm-ups. 

They know how to put on a show across the pond. The lights went down low, the music rose to a crescendo as the announcer introduced every player individually in a blaze of spinning lasers. 

“And finally, here comes The King himself,” he boomed, reeling off a series of staggering statistics about Jordan’s career. “He is the man who is basketball. You’re in for a treat tonight. Come in No.23……Myyyyyyyyyyykallllllll Jorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrdannnn!!!”  There was hysteria in the 20,000 crowd as he swaggered onto the playing surface. 

His performance lived up to the billing, of course. The body swerves, the swivels on a dime, the feints, the dribbles, the electrifying changes of pace, the through the leg transfers, the slam dunks and his inimitable ‘head and shoulder fake’  - the key body-parts going in one direction while the ball impossibly went in the other, ran tantalisingly around the rim and plopped obediently into the basket – were all there in abundance. 

^{Michael Jordan, 1988}

The real Jordan genius though, was saved for the final few seconds of a quarter. The score is 46-all, the clock is ticking down – 20 seconds, 19, 18, 17, and Jordan is standing mid-court, idly bouncing the ball from hand to hand, waiting for someone to challenge him. No one does. He seems untouchable. Then as the clock gest to 10, 9, 8 he makes his move. Exploding down one side, weaving past one defender, bobbing past another, tongue out, biceps rippling, ducking under outstretched hands til he’s virtually under the basket to score with that gravity-defying fading jump shot. 48-46. The klaxon sounds.

Everyone on the court – and in the arena – knew Jordan was going to do this. He knew they knew. But they were all powerless to stop him. ‘Michael’s eyes look right through you as if he could read your brain,’ said Jayson Williams, one of his opponents that night. ‘He’s like Medusa that way.” 

Jordan scored 38 points that night and the Bulls won the game comfortably to go through to the NBA Finals, (which they won 4-2). 

I have closely analysed many great sporting performances  - Brian Lara’s 375 in 1994, Maradona’s 1986 goal against England, Tiger Woods winning the US Open by 15 strokes, Jim Laker’s 19 wickets at Old Trafford, Usain Bolt, Roger Federer, Lionel Messi, Michael Johnson, Michael Phelps. This was something else. Jordan was as close to sporting perfection as it is possible to get.  

I watched the camera crews and journalists jostling around him after the game, the reporters and photographers hustling after him as he left the arena with his entourage and was bustled into a waiting Mercedes. I met him for a short, pre-arranged one-to-one interview in a Manhattan hotel sometime later. Looking immaculate in a sharp cream suit, he had squeezed his huge frame into an armchair and sat crosslegged and calmly, graciously answered my questions. 

How do you cope with all this incessant attention, I asked. “The basketball court for me is, during a game, the most peaceful place I can imagine,” he said. ‘Being out there is one of the most private parts of my life. I’m untouchable out there. When I’m playing serious basketball, it’s like meditation.”  

After our short chat, I got up to go, shaking his vast hand and marvelling at the smoothness of his shaved dome, his colossal shoulders, his meaningful stare. He had a presence, a real aura I have only experienced in one other person – Viv Richards. The same swagger, total self-confidence, devastating inevitability.

Being in their midst your legs turn momentarily to jelly.

I left reflecting that he was the same height, 6ft 6in, as one of my best friends in cricket – Angus Fraser – yet his earnings were 500 times greater. (Oh to have grown up in North Carolina rather than Harrow, Gussy!) And he made 23 the most sought-after number in world sport.

Save 30% when you subscribe to The Cricketer’s print & digital bundle. £35 for 12 issues