INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION In the world of basketball Michael Jordan is the G.O.A.T The Greatest Of All Time Need proof A national championship in college Two Olympic gold medals Six NBA championships including two three-peats and six Finals MVP awards Slam dunk champion Scoring titles The Shot The Shrug The Flu Game But MJ was also so much more Michael changed the way we think about basketball and turned it into one of the world’s most popular sports He made collecting sneakers cool and changed pop culture forever He dominated the NBA on the court left to follow a boyhood dream then returned and dominated again He became the first former player to own an NBA team He also starred in a hit movie with Bugs Bunny The following pages look back on MJ’s incredible life and career from his earliest days playing the game he loved to his unforgettable final shot with the Chicago Bulls to his current status as an American icon
1 THE LEGEND BEGINS THE LEGEND BEGINS Michael Jeffrey Jordan was born on February 17 1963 Despite spending most of his childhood in Wilmington North Carolina Michael was actually born in Brooklyn New York an area where he’d stage some of his most thrilling moments on the court decades later His parents James and Deloris were in Brooklyn for just 18 months while James was studying airplane hydraulics As a newborn Michael was kept in the hospital for several days for observation The family had another scare several years later when he was shocked after touching a live electrical wire I’ve got to believe one thing James Jordan told the Chicago Tribune One day God was sitting around and decided to make the perfect basketball player He gave him a little hardship early to make him appreciate what he would earn in the end and called him Michael Jordan Michael was interested in sports from a young age and his first love was baseball not basketball Perhaps he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps James had been a semipro player in his younger days Thankfully for the rest of us eventually Michael found the game of basketball 4
