Athletes - Michael Jordan

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	Athletes - Michael Jordan

Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17 1963 in Brooklyn, New York), is an American former NBA player, and is generally considered to be the greatest basketball player of all time.

Considered a remarkable force at both ends of the floor, "M.J." ended a career of 15 full seasons with a regular-season scoring average of 30.12 points per game, the highest in NBA history (ahead of Wilt Chamberlain's 30.06). He won six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls, notched up 10 scoring titles, and was league MVP five times. He was named to the All-Defensive First Team nine times, and led the league in steals three times. Since 1983, he has appeared on the front cover of Sports Illustrated a record 49 times, and was named the magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" in 1991. In 1999, he was named "the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century" by ESPN, and placed second on the Associated Press list of top athletes of the century. His leaping ability, vividly illustrated by dunking from the foul line and other feats, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness."

Early years

Michael was born in Brooklyn, New York to James and Delores Jordan. The family moved to Wilmington, North Carolina when he was still a young child. Jordan has two older brothers, one older sister, and one younger sister. As a teenager he was the only one of his siblings who did not maintain a steady job and could have been viewed as the least likely to succeed. Michael was not very focused academically until he reached high school. Various suspensions, and trouble in general during his freshman year of high school allowed him to mature. He attended Emsley A. Laney High School, where he evolved into a B+ student and a three-sport star in football (he played quarterback), baseball, and basketball. He was cut from his varsity basketball team during his sophomore year. He began focusing more on basketball, practicing every morning before school with his high school varsity coach.

Jordan earned a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in geography. As a freshman, Jordan was an exciting, but not dominant, player. Nonetheless, he made the winning shot in the 1982 NCAA Basketball Championship game against Georgetown, which was led by future NBA rival Patrick Ewing. After winning the Naismith College Player of the Year award in 1984, he left school early to enter the NBA Draft, and was selected by the Chicago Bulls in the first round as the 3rd pick overall, after Houston Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie of the Portland Trail Blazers.

NBA career

Jordan played thirteen seasons for the Bulls, generally as a shooting guard, but his height of 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m), skills, and physical conditioning also made him a versatile threat at point guard and small forward. He won six NBA Championships (1991-1993 and 1996-1998) and was league MVP five times (1988, 1991, 1992, 1996 and 1998). He was also named Rookie of the Year (1985) and Defensive Player of the Year (1988), and won the Finals MVP award every year the Bulls reached the Finals. He also earned the elusive MVP Triple Crown (regular season, Finals, All-Star Game) twice, in 1996 and 1998. Only Willis Reed (1970) and Shaquille O'Neal (2000) have won all three MVP awards in the same season. In 1997, he also recorded the only triple-double in an All-Star game.

Jordan's coach for most of his career was Phil Jackson, who said: ::"The thing about Michael is he takes nothing for granted. When he first came into the league in 1984, he was primarily a penetrator. His outside shooting wasn't up to professional standards. So he put in his gym time in the off-season, shooting hundreds of shots each day. Eventually, he became a deadly three-point shooter."
Early NBA career
Despite scoring "only" 16 points in his first NBA game, Jordan took the league by storm in his rookie year, scoring 40 or more points seven times en route to a 28.2 PPG season. He also averaged 6.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.4 steals per game. He revived interest in a floundering Bulls franchise, received a spot on the All-Star team, and won the Rookie of the Year award.

In the third game of the 1985-1986 NBA season, Jordan broke a bone in his foot and missed all but 18 regular season games. Upon his return, as advised by team doctors Jordan was restricted to a limited number of minutes per game by Coach Stan Albeck
and General Manager Jerry Krause. Jordan disagreed with this decision and this soured his relationship with Krause for the rest of his career, as he felt that Krause was intentionally trying to lose games in order to gain a better pick in the NBA draft. In spite of Jordan's injury, the Bulls still managed to make the playoffs, where they were defeated in three games by the eventual champion Boston Celtics. The series is best remembered for Jordan's 63 points in Game 2, an NBA playoff scoring record for a single game that still stands.
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Michael Jordan ]

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Athletes - Michael Jordan

Early years

NBA career

Early NBA career

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