Michael Jordan Biography

Michael Jeffrey Jordan, also known as “Air Jordan, Black Cat, MJ, His Airness” is an American former professional basketball player, Olympic athlete, entrepreneur, and actor. Born in Brooklyn, New York on February 17, 1963.

He is considered one of the best basketball players in history. Michael Jordan dominated the sport from the mid-1980s until the late 1990s. He played in the Chicago Bulls team with which he achieved six NBA championships and won the Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) five times.

Growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina, Jordan developed great competitiveness at an early age. He always wanted to win every game I played.

Jordan joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1981 and soon became an important member of the University’s basketball team. His team won the NCAA Division I championship in 1982, a season in which Jordan would score the winning points to defeat Georgetown University. He was selected as the “NCAA College Player of the Year” in 1983 and in 1984.

In the summer of 1984, Jordan had his first participation in an Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California and he did so as a member of the United States Olympic basketball team whose team won the gold in these games. Jordan also won the gold medal for the United States at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, ​​Spain.

 

IN THE NBA “SUPERSTAR”

Jordan retired from college in his junior year to join the NBA. He signed for the Chicago Bulls and he soon showed his quality on the court. He helped the team to reach the playoffs and scored an average of 28.2 points per game that season. For his performance, Jordan received the “NBA Rookie of the Year Award” and was selected for the NBA All-Star Game.

In 1985, he finished his undergraduate degree in Geography and continued to play professional basketball. When his second season was over, he got injured. “MJ” fell ill and fractured a bone in his right leg.

Jordan returned to the court again during the 1986-1987 season. He became the first player since Wilt Chamberlin to score more than 3,000 points in a single season.

The following season, Jordan would receive his first NBA Most Valuable Player Award. An honor that he would win four times more in 1991, 1992, 1996 and 1998.

At the end of the 80’s, the Chicago Bulls had become a very successful team and Jordan was an essential part of the team’s success. The Bulls made it to the Finals of the Conference (the penultimate round of the NBA Playoffs) in 1990 and won their first NBA championship the following year by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers.

Jordan, known for his power and agility on the court and for his leadership skills, got several sponsoring agreements with companies like Nike among others, which put him in the center of the spotlight.

In 1992, the Chicago Bulls beat the Portland Trail Blazers to win their second NBA championship. The team was going to its third championship the following year, dominating in the world of basketball. However, Jordan would lose his father, James, at the end of the 1992-93 season. On July 23, 1993, two teenagers shot James Jordan during a robbery attempted, later they were captured and convicted of the crime. Michael Jordan decided to retire from basketball for a while and look for luck in the sport of the ‘hot ball’, baseball, by a promise to his father.

He ventured into Baseball thanks to the help of Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago Bulls. He started at the White Sox, where he only had 17 appearances before being dropped to the double-A team of the minor leagues of the White Sox “Birmingham Barons” as an outfielder for a year.

 

RETURN TO THE BASKETBALL

In March 1995, he rejoined the Chicago Bulls and finally helped them win the championship against Seattle Sonics in the 1995-96 season. That same year, Jordan made a great stellar debut in the Cinema with Space Jam (1996). The film mixed with cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

The following season, Jordan came back even stronger, with an average of 30.4 points per game. A starter in all 82 games of the season, he helped the team finish the season with 72 wins and win the NBA Final against the Utah Jazz. The two teams would meet again for the championship in 1998, and Jordan again helped the Bulls beat them for the second year in a row.

 

RETIREMENT

Retiring in the 1997-98 season, Jordan did not leave the sport for too long. He joined the Washington Wizards as owner and CEO. In the fall of 2001, Jordan resigned from this position to return to the courts once again. He played for the Wizards for two seasons before retiring forever in 2003.

 

PERSONAL LIFE

In 2006, Jordan bought a portion of the Charlotte Bobcats and joined the executive group of the team as its operations member. He experienced some personal changes that same year, ended his 17 years of marriage with his wife Juanita Vanoy. The couple divorced in December 2006. They had three children together during their marriage: Jeffrey, Marcus, and Jasmine.

In April 2009, Jordan received one of the highest honors in basketball: he was included in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Attending this ceremony was bittersweet for Jordan because this event meant that “his basketball career had completely ended,” he explained.