ESPN - ESPN The Magazine
"DON'T TRY TO DUPLICATE"
Nearly seven in 10 sports fans say Michael Jordan is still the man. So who better than His Airness to ask if the league is headed in the right direction?
by Michael Jordan (as told to Ric Bucher)
The NBA doesn't have an image problem.
It has young guys who have young ideas. Maturity comes later, and sometimes too late to realize you should've done this or you should've done that. Kids shouldn't come out of school as early as they do. A year in college isn't enough. They shouldn't be allowed to come out until they are adults—21 years old.
Now, why shouldn't a black kid who isn't wealthy have a chance to provide for his family? That is an issue; I'm not walking away from that. The problem is some kids are mature and ready to deal with the whole NBA atmosphere, but many more kids are not.
I was a mature guy coming out of North Carolina, so when a negative thing happened—someone misinterprets what gambling means to me—it didn't stick. I stepped forward and said, "This is what I did, this is not jeopardizing anything, this is not an addiction," and the public listened. But I was a lot more mature when it happened. If I'd been in that position and had been asked that question at 18 or 19, I may have had a very different way of handling it.
When I turned pro, the league was looking for a change. I had the personality and the game and a style of play, and all that came together at the same time. All the stars lined up and catapulted everything that came after—23 different shoes, Jordan Brand, everything. It's a phenomenon. How do you explain a phenomenon? You can't. The only advice I can give to someone in the league now is to be original. The consumer isn't dumb. He or she can sense things being knocked off. Originality is what lasts.
David Stern hates when I say this, but in some ways he created his own problem. Look at the way the league markets its players. When I came in, they marketed the athletes themselves, how they performed, what they accomplished. To reinvent someone is very difficult. When you say a player is today's Michael Jordan or today's Magic Johnson, the first thing the public will do is compare him to the real Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson. When the public doesn't see the same degree of success, you've just dug yourself a deeper hole.
"DON'T TRY TO DUPLICATE"
Nearly seven in 10 sports fans say Michael Jordan is still the man. So who better than His Airness to ask if the league is headed in the right direction?
by Michael Jordan (as told to Ric Bucher)
The NBA doesn't have an image problem.
It has young guys who have young ideas. Maturity comes later, and sometimes too late to realize you should've done this or you should've done that. Kids shouldn't come out of school as early as they do. A year in college isn't enough. They shouldn't be allowed to come out until they are adults—21 years old.
Now, why shouldn't a black kid who isn't wealthy have a chance to provide for his family? That is an issue; I'm not walking away from that. The problem is some kids are mature and ready to deal with the whole NBA atmosphere, but many more kids are not.
I was a mature guy coming out of North Carolina, so when a negative thing happened—someone misinterprets what gambling means to me—it didn't stick. I stepped forward and said, "This is what I did, this is not jeopardizing anything, this is not an addiction," and the public listened. But I was a lot more mature when it happened. If I'd been in that position and had been asked that question at 18 or 19, I may have had a very different way of handling it.
When I turned pro, the league was looking for a change. I had the personality and the game and a style of play, and all that came together at the same time. All the stars lined up and catapulted everything that came after—23 different shoes, Jordan Brand, everything. It's a phenomenon. How do you explain a phenomenon? You can't. The only advice I can give to someone in the league now is to be original. The consumer isn't dumb. He or she can sense things being knocked off. Originality is what lasts.
David Stern hates when I say this, but in some ways he created his own problem. Look at the way the league markets its players. When I came in, they marketed the athletes themselves, how they performed, what they accomplished. To reinvent someone is very difficult. When you say a player is today's Michael Jordan or today's Magic Johnson, the first thing the public will do is compare him to the real Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson. When the public doesn't see the same degree of success, you've just dug yourself a deeper hole.
