Sam Sharpe-USA TODAY Sports
It can be easily argued that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player who has ever set foot on the planet Earth (other planets are yet to be determined, science!). Maybe that is why he has a history of being such an atrocious front office person. I mean, it could be conceivable that Jordan used up all he basketball knowledge and now none of it remains — that would explain Kwame Brown and Adam Morrison.
The sad thing about all of Jordan’s inability to be good at evaluating talent is the lack of quality jokes left. Jordan has been so bad at all his post-playing day careers that poking fun at him feels more redundant than Stuart Scott pointing out his jokes come from the redundancy department. The world of front office slander has now become a harder place to make cool, fun or hip, all because Jordan drafts and trades for players as if he is a few beers deep.
I’m not mad that he doesn’t know a good trade from a bad one, such results are Jordan coveting DeSagana Diop. No sir. It is how he has been able to wield his incredible ineptitude for years in a front office capacity and is now in such a power position (owner of the Charlotte Bobcats) that there is no way to rid the world of “Front Office Draft Day Debacle Maker” Michael Jordan.
To be fair, Jordan does have a redeeming quality. He keeps the night of all drafts he is involved in as interesting as an episode of Law & Order. In fact, Jordan’s draft techniques are very similar to the TV show. The show and Jordan-related draft nights both start with everything in shambles. For the show it is usually a dead body or some horrible, unspeakable crime. For Jordan, well, it is whatever aftermath the previous atrocious season holds as well as the remnants of the worst basketball team ever assembled — from Jordan’s previous “moves” as an evaluator of talent.
There are also those strange twists. In Law & Order, it is usually when you realize the main suspect is not the guy who ate the dog in a religious sacrifice — which ultimately ended up in the untimely death of a journalist about to break a story about the Governor’s corruption. For Jordan related things, it is when he decides to draft Cody Zeller when other, more dynamic players are still on the board because, “whatevs.”
While Jordan’s decisions are far less complicated as a Law & Order script, I do feel the explanation of his decisions would be as weird and unrealistic. For example, I can see someone asking Jordan — after giving him truth serum — why he drafted Zeller instead of Nerlens Noel or Ben McLemore and he responding, “You see, I was really busy smoking cigars and placing bets. I ain’t got time to actually run an NBA franchise. I like to play golf, bet on the ponies and use the Bobcats to pretend I am cool. Mostly a way to pick up chicks, really.”
In a roundabout way I guess I am just trying to say Jordan is really bad at stuff. I get it, you get it, he probably gets it as well. Sadly, the dude who made the Hitler-Stache a thing again, is nowhere near at good at looking at guys play basketball than he was playing it — which makes his “suckitude” that much more glaring. Regardless, Jordan slander is still fun albeit becoming less original.
Somewhere, Scottie Pippen is telling another retired player how “fella x” is better than Jordan at hoops. He will later deny it, but it will result in Pippen being made fun of or mocked for his jealousy. Pippen shouldn’t be mocked for suggesting someone might be better at hurling a ball towards a hoop than Jordan, he should be mocked for taking potshots at him for the wrong thing. If Pippen is really that insecure about Jordan stuff, all he would need to do is scream, “You thought D.J. Augustin would be a thing. Like a real, good, tangible thing!”
Me, Twitter @JosephNardone
