Michael Jordan was the most dominant player in the history of basketball. He deserves our respect for being the very best in the world at something. He's a hero in my book. Anyone who writes an article like this is deserving of my contempt.

And this comes from a Clevelander, whose basketball team was regularly humiliated by Mr. Jordan.

How dare he earn money!

"This is Michael Jordan's kind of sin."

What kind of puritanical soul thinks that gambling or earning money is a sin?

I luuuuuuv Jordan as much as anyone. Hell, I'd have had his baby if it was medically possible. But I think Pierce is getting at something (unrelated to any claims that Jordan should have a social conscience) that's true - there is an increasingly large difference between what we thought of Jordan during his playing career and what reasonably seems true to say of him now.

A lot of that is simply a function of the way in which the hype-machine, uncontrolled and unmanipulated by Jordan, went into overdrive for Jordan. He was an excellent player (I still think he was the best player of all time), but no one is the repository of all the virtues that were claimed for him. And, as we see more and more players that are, at a minimum, opaque shadows of him, his excellence gets better defined and less mystical.

(As much as I hate to admit it (I still have the four panel Jordan dunk poster), I think LeBron is going to be better).

How dare Michael Jordan not change our current consumer culture? Clearly such a great leader and winner on the basketball court should be able to change what Americans want to consume and how they decide what to consume. To think any less clearly indicates that his basketball career was vastly over-estimated. We have all seen the profound changes in society that Larry Bird pioneered through the behaviorial norms of the team (Indiana Pacers) he has put together. So we know it is possible for a basketball player to change the world! Why can't MJ do it????

Is this the same Charles Pierce that serves as Eric Alterman's even-more-unhinged Alter-ego? Man, that guy needs some lithium.

Perhaps Pierce is angling for a job at Harper's, where they specialize in this sort of thing.

My favorite part of the essay was Pierce's slam of Jordan for not "embracing" hip-hop. If only MJ had made a rap album the NBA and the world would be a much, much better place.

As an old fashion liberal that grew up in the south under segregation I think what Jordan is doing is fantastic and is exactly what we liberals fought for over all those years.

There was always a good place to get coffee in Hyde Park. The drugstore on the corner of Blackstone and 53rd, Jimmy's on 53rd and Woodlawn, Mellow Yellow and others. It just wasn't homogenized into an experience. If you need beer try Gill's

Eh, Pierce's piece was waaaaay overblown as most such pieces are, but he did have a slight point. Jordan was very, very good at Basketball in a way that was kinda uninfluential. Even his trademark slam dunk is only so great. He did not innovate, he simply flew and dunked and shot perfectly. A young player can't really try to learn from him. You're either that tall and well-built and well coordinated, or you're not. Moreover, he kept his public personality so bland, that he didn't really bring any flair the aura of the sport--just sheer, blinding glam. He had such deep natural talent and such a profoundly devoted marketshare, he could have afforded to take more risks, try new things, speak out more.

Look at it this way---there's every possibility that even without cancer Lance Armstrong would have ended up dominating the sport of bicycling to the extent that he has. Like Jordan, he's almost preternaturally engineered for his sport of choice. It would be hard to design better athletic bodies. But Armstrong is so incredibly compelling not because of his sheer dominance of the sport--this has been done before--but because of his story, and his personality, and his charitable work. It's all about the risks.

Of course, a lot of that might be itself a problem of spin. Personally I think trying trying minor league baseball was a good, interesting risk.

Grew up in NC the same time as MJ. Even the liberals in the South are pretty conservative when it comes to economics. (I'm one of them, too.) As Spencer points out above, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, among others, were an important step towards achieving a higher level of integration in America, towards cementing the accomplishments of their predecessors. Remember the separate drinking fountains and bathrooms anyone?

They are the first generation of considerable wealth that might provide seed money -- or at least inspiration -- for a whole new generation of black entrepreneurs. I really admire Magic Johnson's projects. Talk about being positive role models.

I can take or leave Las Vegas. It has turned into a Disney World for grown-ups and no longer reeks of mob activity. If that's where Jordan wants to invest, so be it. If he makes a ton of money, all the better.

Think about this: compared to many of the the beaver traders and robber barons whose descendants populate Manhattan, Newport and West Palm Beach, these black athletes earned their money in a very reputable way -- and oh what a joy they were to watch! Welcome to the club guys; can you spare a dime?

???

So waht's Mr. Jordan suppossed to do with his money? Burn it in the back yard? Buy more cars?

The other big windy success story has said the following for a long time: It's not about being rich, it's about building wealth. She should know. The good that that woman has done by building wealth instead of merely being content with being "rich", should qualify her for sainthood. Just ask all those new Army moms at Fort Campbell.

Best wishes, Mike

Pierce wrote "He gave of himself very little, and that only to sell us something."

On what basis does he claim that the purpose of the Michael Jordan Foundation was to sell Michael Jordan? And likewise his presumably other insignificant charitable work?

Deep inside, Pierce is a hateful little man...with the emphasis on little.

Dan, you overlooked Pierce's complaint that Jordan didn't campaign for Harvey Gantt for the Senate. Ultimately, he's angry at Jordan for not using his fame on behalf of Democratic politicians.

Jordan may not have contributed a signature play on the court, but he was an innovative player in regard to his work ethic and sheer will to win. So Pierce is wrong to say that he left a small mark on the NBA. Commentators today, when talking about who "the next Jordan" might be, do not talk about his physical characteristics or God-given talent, they talk about the mental commitment he made to winning, and the hard work required to achieve what he did. People like Kobe and Lebron have Jordan-like talent, but not necessarily his commitment and will. The reason Jordan was fired in Washington was that he simply couldn't understand why the young players there didn't have the discipline and desire he has.

That being said, I can see how someone would be turned off by Jordan's commitment to turning himself into a brand.

I read the Pierce essay before seeing Dan's comments and had a radically different reading. I don't think Pierce was arguing that Jordan should have been some sort of Martin Luther King like figure of social change. What he argues, I think, is that in his drive to make himself the most attractive sort of endorser he could be Jordan utterly homogenized his public personality.

This mattered less when he was playing. After all we all watched him when he played both for his physical gifts (possibly the best set of basketball related athletic skills to ever play the game) and his mental (he was always the most commited to winning, the most serious about the act of pitting himself against all comers of anyone on the court). Of course we knew that when we only ever saw him in nonbasketball situations dressed in Armani suits that his image (and his clothes) were well tailored but because of the competitiveness his on court time seemed less so. I think we could feel watching him that he left some important part of himself on the court every time he suited up).

Once he finished playing we no longer get to see Jordan in any arena in which he seems to give something of himself.

The point of Pierce's piece, then, was that if Jordan could have figured out how to give more of himself, to let his public persona better reflect his private one we all would have cared a bit more about him in his playing days, and would care much more about him now.

If being talked about after you've left the game is an end in itself, it's tough to top O.J. Simpson's strategy.