A lack of basic medical care along the Syria-Jordan Rukban crossing, in the area known as the berm, is putting thousands of lives at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, Amnesty International has warned.

The organization is particularly concerned by a lack of maternal health care, which means pregnant women in need of caesarean section are being forced to travel to give birth in territory controlled by the Syrian government. These women are then prevented by Syrian security forces from returning to their families in the camp.

In early 2015, tens of thousands of Syrians displaced by the conflict were trapped in the area in desperate living conditions. At the time of writing, at least 10,000 people remain there, with no access to sanitization and other materials to protect against the spread of COVID-19. The camps only medical centre has no doctors, a few nurses and one midwife.

Pregnant women and other patients in urgent need of care have nowhere to turn to

A UNICEF-run medical centre in the camp, where residents could receive essential treatment, was closed in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The last humanitarian convoy allowed into the berm by the Syrian government dates back to September 2019.

While the Jordanian authorities are right in seeking to protect the population living in Jordan from COVID-19, they must not put others lives at risk while doing so, said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty Internationals Middle East Research Director.

The one medical centre remaining in the berm is simply not equipped for emergency care or specialized treatment. Pregnant women and other patients in urgent need of care have nowhere to turn to.

The Jordanian authorities must allow those seeking medical treatment to access facilities in Jordan, and also allow humanitarian aid and essential services to reach the area.

In March, Jordan announced it would not allow relief aid to pass through its territory to deliver assistance and medical equipment to the camp, citing COVID-19 concerns.

People in the berm have been lacking food, drinkable water and medicines for more than four years, and increasingly so in the past two years. Both the Syrian and Jordanian governments must urgently ensure unfettered access to humanitarian aid, said Lynn Maalouf.

Background

In early 2015, tens of thousands of people seeking safety from the conflict in Syria ended up stranded in the no-mans land known as the berm, between the Jordan and Syria border, near the Rukban and Hadalat crossings. An estimated 75 per cent of the berms population have returned to Syria since mid-2015, according to the UN. Amnesty International has previously documented concerns around access to humanitarian aid, including health and sanitation inside the berm.

Jordan hosts about 650,000 Syrian refugees, which amounts to 10 per cent of its population. Amnesty International continues to call on the international community to take a fair share of responsibility for supporting Syrian refugees, and alleviate the financial burden that has disproportionately fallen on neighbouring countries.

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Jordan: Authorities must allow urgent medical care for displaced Syrians in Rukban during COVID-19 - Amnesty International

Michael Jordans return to the NBA in 2001 was not a glorious one.

He remained a productive player at the end of his career as he averaged more than 20 points in each of his two seasons with the Washington Wizards.

But at 38 and 39 years old, he had devolved into a volume shooter playing on bad basketball teams that failed to eclipse 37 wins.

What if Jordan instead had joined a contender that had prime talent and deployed his leadership and limited skillset in a more surgical fashion?

Mark Cuban tried to make that happen.

The Dallas Mavericks owner told Dallas 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday (h/t @ Mike Fisher) that he tried to talk Jordan and his agent David Falk out of signing with the Wizards in 2001. He had just bought his majority stake of the Mavericks a year prior.

The day he signed with the Washington Wizards to come back, David Falk thats right when I was buying the Mavs said why dont you go meet him? Cuban said. So I went to David Falks office and all the papers were right there. And I was trying to convince MJ to not sign them and to do something with the Mavs.

What would the Mavericks have looked like with Jordan from 2001-03? Pretty strong.

The 01-02 Mavs featured Michael Finley, Steve Nash and a 23-year-old Dirk Nowitzki just coming into his prime. They finished 57-25 and lost in the second round of the playoffs to Chris Webbers Sacramento Kings.

Steve Nash was still in Dallas the next season as the same core led the Mavericks to a 60-22 record and a Western Conference finals loss to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs.

Could Jordan in a limited but more precise role have helped the Mavericks over the hump to cut short the Shaq-Kobe dynasty in 2002 or steal a title from Tim Duncans Spurs in 2003?

Would Jordan have accepted anything but a starring role?

Its all moot, of course. There was no chance Jordans comeback was going to land anywhere but in Washington. He orchestrated his own return to the court as the part owner and president of basketball operationsof the Wizards in 2000. There was a reason former Chicago Bulls head coach Doug Collins was on the Wizards sideline.

Story continues

But Jordan on the early 00s Mavs makes for a fascinating what-if.

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Michael Jordan on the Mavericks? Mark Cuban tried to make it happen - Yahoo Sports

On July 25, 2016, following the police-involved shootings of two black men, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, and the fatal shooting of five Dallas police officers at a protest, Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan donated $1 million each to two organizations in an effort to foster greater understanding, positive change and create a more peaceful world for ourselves, our children, our families and our communities, he wrote in a letter that appeared on The Undefeated.

Those donations to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) were notable, not just because of the size of the grants, but also because of the notable reputation of Jordan.

Throughout his 15-year NBA career, Jordan was a global marketing superstar, with endorsement deals from the likes of Nike, Hanes, Gatorade, McDonalds and Coca-Cola. He was able to captivate the entire country by the sheer force of his charisma and basketball talent over a six-season stretch, Jordan averaged 33 points a game, which is insane to type but also his general ability to not offend the masses. Jordan reportedly once said, Republicans buy sneakers, too, a claim he never admitted to until the recent release of ESPNs The Last Dance documentary.

So, when Jordan announced he would be donating $2 million on July 25, 2016, as a way of furthering social change, society took notice.

Four years later, heres what happened to all that money.

In 2016, Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the LDF, and Chief Terrence M. Cunningham of the IACP appeared on the July 10 episode of the CBS program Face the Nation. They were there to discuss the distance between law enforcement and African American communities across the country. Two weeks later, Jordans people called.

Our executive director got an email out of the blue on a Sunday evening at 7 oclock, where they said that they had a donor that wanted to make a million-dollar donation to the IACP, Cunningham told The Undefeated.

Jordan announced the grants the next day and said he chose the LDF, which separated from the NAACP in 1957, and IACP because he believed the two organizations could make a positive difference while the country reeled from the recent acts of violence against African Americans and police officers.

Ifill believes the LDF was chosen because of its prioritization of constitutional protections for black people and its ability to directly engage with law enforcement.

We understood that Mr. Jordan was deeply concerned about what he saw what all Americans were seeing at that time police killings of unarmed African Americans and a total disconnect in most instances between the way community members and civil rights groups were talking about the issue and the way law enforcement was talking about it, Ifill said via email.

Cunningham, a retired Wellesley, Massachusetts, police chief and current deputy executive director of the IACP, said his organizations ability to change its policy likely made it an attractive law enforcement organization for Jordan. That same year, the IACP had organized a meeting of 17 law enforcement organizations that developed a national consensus use-of-force policy for officers.

I think it was the breadth and the reach of IACP that the Jordan folks saw when they vetted us, Cunningham said. And then you combine that with the power of our relationship with the legal defense fund, theres a real opportunity for change there.

With the $1 million grant, the LDF was able to further employ staff attorneys, researchers and organizers to assist with the work of the campaign in critical cities that have dealt with community-police issues in recent years: from monitoring consent decrees between the Justice Department and the cities of Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri to working with community members in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and North Charleston, South Carolina, following the respective shooting deaths of Terence Crutcher and Walter Scott by police officers.

Jordans donation, Ifill says, was also instrumental in supporting the LDFs Race and Policing Reform Campaign, created in 2018 to promote unbiased and responsible policing policies and practices at the national, state and local levels, according to the LDF website. The funds were used to support staffing hires, travel, community initiatives and convenings, as well as strategic communications, including research and publications.

Ifill said an association with Jordan has allowed the LDF to attract other donors. That directly has provided financing to allow the organization to track the federal funding of police departments and make sure the departments are in compliance with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin.

It has allowed us to respond quickly when terrible police killings of unarmed black people occur, but its also allowed us to anticipate issues and intervene to amplify community voices, or to use our own voices in direct communication with law enforcement, Ifill said.

For the IACP, Cunningham and his colleagues stressed using the grant for substantive programming that could make a difference rather than what Cunningham called bulls. Jordans donation, along with other federal grants, has helped grow the IACPs Institute for Community-Police Relations, whose mission is to advance a culture of cohesion and trust between police and the communities they serve.

The grant covered: two 15-week courses at Howard University, a historically black college and university in Washington, that sought to build a relationship between the police and African Americans (each class was open to 15 students and 15 law enforcement leaders); a postsecondary academic curriculum centered on engaging conversations between law enforcement and communities at George Mason University (in which 15 students and 15 law enforcement leaders participated); another class at the University of Denver (where 40 students and police officers participated); youth-centered programming; task force training; and the organizations Trust Initiative, a campaign aimed at [inspiring] law enforcement officials across the world to join members of their communities in healing and building trust, according to a 53-page document the IACP sent Jordans team this year documenting how the grant was used that Cunningham shared with The Undefeated.

We said, Look, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to really try to make a change and do things differently and change the profession, Cunningham said.

The grant also provided training and educational material for departments when speaking with disenfranchised groups, which a lot of them had never done before.

You start telling a young white cop, particularly from a privileged police department, that when you stop an African American person for speeding, there are two different lenses there, Cunningham said. Youre looking through the lens of, Hey, Im just stopping another car. Theyre looking through the lens of, Oh, my God, whats going to happen? Are they going to shoot me? Are they going to hurt me? Are they gonna kill me?

Both Ifill and Cunningham said they have seen some improvements in the criminal justice system.

Ifill points to the term progressive prosecutor entering the lexicon in recent years as a sign of progress. There has been a wave of elected prosecutors in recent years who have taken more liberal stances on criminal justice, including decriminalizing marijuana and criticizing police conduct.

As a part of the Trust Initiative, Cunningham and his colleagues met with community members in Ferguson; Albany, New York; Sacramento, California; and Fort Collins, Colorado, to build healthier relationships between black communities and law enforcement. He says police departments need to reflect the community better in their ranks and better educate officers about implicit biases and how those biases can manifest when a white officer comes into contact with a black civilian.

At some point, we became very insular and thought that, Hey, well develop the policies and then well let you know what they are and then were going to enforce them. It doesnt work like that. Theres no legitimacy in policing if thats the way to do it, Cunningham said.

While Ifill and Cunningham represent opposite sides on most issues surrounding criminal justice and policing, the two admire each other. Cunningham said he faced pushback from his organization for trying to work with the other, but the two leaders agreed on two things: recruitment and retention.

Cunningham explained that while chiefs of police across the country likely want to root out bad actors, due to laws and the police officers rights, its not as easy as waving a magic wand. But both agree on more accountability and transparency when it comes to police misconduct.

It turns out that police chiefs, on the whole, would like to recruit individuals who have the maturity, intellect, sensitivity and integrity to take on police work, Ifill said. And responsible chiefs want to figure out how to retain competent, trustworthy and experienced officers.

That being said, neither Ifill nor Cunningham were naive to believe $2 million would fundamentally change what Ifill calls a dysfunctional relationship between African Americans and law enforcement that dates to the post-Reconstruction era and the turn of the 20th century.

I tell people we didnt get to where we are in this relationship between the police and minority communities in a year or 10 years; its been decades, centuries to get here, Cunningham said. Its going to take us a while to turn this around.

Ifill said change starts at the top.

What I have believed is that improvement begins with changing the behavior of those with the most power the police and strengthening the voice of those with the least power the black community, she said.

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It is critical especially given the abdication by the U.S. Department of Justice of this work that LDF has been able to bring our resources to continuing the momentum towards reform. We have no intention of turning away from this work, which is imperative now more than ever.

On Oct. 17, 2016, speaking at an IACP conference in San Diego, Cunningham formally apologized on behalf of law enforcement for the actions of the past and the role our profession has played in societys historical mistreatment of communities of color.

Cunningham points to that apology (and subsequent apologies by police chiefs in Georgia and Louisiana), his ongoing relationship with Ifill and the LDF, and the mere fact law enforcement is willing to sit down and have a conversation as steps taken to make change.

Cunningham doesnt believe his profession is inherently broke. The profession needed to change and it needed to evolve, he said.

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A change Jordan has helped continue.

There are plenty of people that have needs and like to sit on the sidelines and say, Hey, there are things that need to change. You need to change them. But for Michael Jordan to actually step up and do what he did, it was amazing, Cunningham said.

And I think its transformed the profession.

Martenzie is an associate editor for The Undefeated. His favorite cinematic moment is when Django said "Y'all want to see somethin?"

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Heres what happened to the $2 million Michael Jordan donated in 2016 - The Undefeated

Perhaps the truest mark of any all-time great is the teams he left in his wake. Bill Russell and the Celtics buried Jerry West and the Lakers throughout the 1960s, and LeBron James has no shortage of Eastern Conference foes decimated throughout the 2010s. But no superstar in history has dispatched a generation of elite players and teams quite like Michael Jordan.

Jordans hit count in the 1990s is iconic. He ended the Bad Boy Pistons, shut down Clyde Drexlers Blazers and out-dueled Charles Barkley en route to a trio of Finals, and that was before his first retirement. Seattles best season of the Gary Payton era came to a bitter end against Jordan. The Jazz got a double dose of Jordan in MJs last two titles. And thats just the Finals. Jordan silenced Madison Square five (!) times. He fought past Indiana on his last legs. Imagining the NBA Finals of the 1990s without Jordan is an interesting parlor game.

So which squads that Jordan dismissed are actually the top teams of the 1990s? We at The Crossover ranked the best squads Jordan kept from seizing that elusive Larry OBrien Trophy.

You could quibble with which Jazz squad deserves the nod here, and both Stockton and Malone squads made Jordan sweat in the Finals. But the 199697 team won more games and had a better offensive rating and defensive rating than Utahs 199798 team, giving them a slight edge.

Perhaps the late-90s Jazz werent stacked with stars, but they were exceptionally deep, playing 12 players over 10 minutes per game in 199697. Jeff Hornacek was still near his prime, and Karl Malone was named MVP. Utah swept the Clippers and dispatched the Lakers in five games in the first two rounds, and Jerry Sloans team then exacted revenge over the Rockets two years after the Mario Elie shot. The title was firmly in reach, but Jordan had other ideas. The Jazz are still awaiting their first title in franchise history.

Charles Barkley & Co. squeaked through to the Finals, needing five games to defeat the Lakers in the first round and seven games to defeat the Sonics in the Western Conference finals. But dont mistake playoff struggles for anything less than dominance for much of 199293. Phoenix ripped off 62 wins before the postseason, and it posted a league-leading 113.3 offensive rating. Barkley came to Phoenix after eight years in Philadelphia and subsequently won MVP. Some may attribute Barkleys honor to Jordan fatigue, but theres no denying Barkleys excellence in his first year with the Suns.

Barkley wasnt a one-man band by any stretch of the imagination. Kevin Johnson remained an electric point guard in 199192though he did struggle in the Finalswhile sharpshooter Dan Majerle led the league in threes. Phoenixs Finals squad was a true offensive juggernaut, and one well suited for the modern era. But Michael Jordan is considered the GOAT for a reason. Jordan averaged 41 points per game in the Finals (on 40% from three), including a 55-point explosion in Game 4. Barkley held his own, but nobody could challenge Jordan at his peak as Chicago sealed the three-peat.

George Karl averaged 59.5 wins in his six full seasons with the SuperSonics, and the 199596 squad was likely his best. Seattle was the leagues No. 2 defense and No. 8 offense, sprinting to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference with 64 wins. And a quick peek at the roster quickly explains the Sonics success.

Both Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton finished in the top 10 of the MVP race, and Detlef Schrempf was still cruising as an impact scorer in 199697. Seattle sported significant stretch with the Schrempf, Sam Perkins and Hershey Hawkins trio.

The Sonics ended the Rockets three-peat bid with a sweep in the second round, then outlasted Utah in a seven-game thriller to reach the Finals. But the Finals ended quicker than the series tally suggests. Chicago won the first three games of the series, then won Game 6 at home by double-digits. Payton and Kemp were a menacing two-man combo in 199596. Yet they stood little chance against a rejuvenated Michael Jordan.

Barkleys Suns would likely thrive in the modern era. Patrick Ewings Knicks? Not so much. New York averaged ranked No. 22 in offensive rating in 199293, and the roster wasnt exactly filled with scoring punch. Ronaldo Blackman was on his last legs by the time he got to New York, and Doc Rivers and Greg Anthony werent exactly scoring dynamos. But after years during which Ewing was largely on his own, 199293 marked the emergence of a dynamic duo.

John Starks had been in New York for two seasons entering 199293, though he was largely a complementary player, failing to enter the starting lineup in a single game in 199192. Starkss third season with New York marked a turning point. He jumped to 17.5 points per game, earning All-Defensive team honors as he started 51 games. New York won 30 of its last 37 contests amid Starkss rise, and the Knicks cruised past Indiana and Charlotte en route to the Eastern Conference finals. Starks held his own against Chicago, including a 25-point performance in Game 1. But Jordan and the Bulls ripped off four straight after falling in a 20 deficit, marking just one of many heartbreaks for the Knicks in the 1990s.

Dethroning Detroit in 1991 remains one of Jordans top career accomplishments, an achievement that was chronicled at length in The Last Dance. The Pistons battered and bruised Jordan for years, continually keeping him out of the esteemed company of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Defeating the Pistons represented Jordan finally getting over the hump. But while Detroit remained a sturdy Finals contender as the 80s ended, the 199091 team is by no means the franchises best.

Detroit won 50 games in 199091, a nine-win dip from the previous season. Both Vinny Johnson and Mark Aguirre were near the end of their careers, as was interior enforcer Bill Laimbeer. This isnt to say that Detroit was some sort of paper Tiger. Isaiah Thomas and Joe Dumars finished in the top 15 of the MVP voting, and Thomas frankly should have fared better than his No. 13 finish. But champions always run out of gas sooner or later, and 1991 marked the end of Detroits golden era. The 199091 run ended in a sweep against Chicago, and it took 11 years for the Pistons to win a playoff series after their loss to the Bulls. The peak Isaiah Pistons could have beaten any team on this list. The 199091 squad ran out of juice with plenty of miles on the odometer.

Portland was well positioned to hoist the Larry OBrien Trophy in 199192 as Clyde Drexler finished behind only Jordan in the MVP voting. The Blazers won 57 games in the regular season and dropped just three playoffs contests en route to the Finals, and it appeared as though Jordan could have his hands full as he eyed back-to-back championships. The prognosticators were quickly proven wrong.

Jordan banged home six first-half threes in Game 1 of the Finalsleading to the famous shrugfinishing the night with 39 points in a 33-point win. And MJ continued to dominate through the Finals. He scored 39 again in Game 2 and an outrageous 46 in Game 5, giving the Bulls a 32 series edge as it returned to Chicago. Portland kept it close in Game 6, but Chicago outscored the Blazers by 19 in the fourth quarter to seal the victory. Portland has yet to return to the Finals after Drexler was shredded by His Airness.

Tim Boyle/AP

Penny and Shaq defeated Jordans Bulls in the second round of the 1995 playoffs, and back-to-back Finals appearances was certainly in play entering the 1996 Eastern Conference finals. The Magic won 60 games in the regular season, then won seven of their first eight playoff games. They quickly ran into a buzzsaw.

Jordan didnt do much heavy lifting in a four-game sweep of Orlando. Dennis Rodman controlled the paint with 13 points and 21 rebounds in Game 1, and Scottie Pippen led Chicago with 27 points in Game 3. But with a sweep in sight, Jordan smelled blood, dropping 45 points in a five-point victory. ONeal left for Los Angeles that summer, stopping what could have been the leagues premier duo in its tracks. Orlando wouldnt reach the Eastern Conference finals for another 13 years.

Indiana reached the Eastern Conference finals in 1998 and 1999, then broke through to the reach the Finals in 2000. But the 199798 squad was perhaps the best Pacers team of the Reggie Miller era. The sharpshooting guard canned 42.9% of triples, and Miller was surrounded by a dominant defensive core. Dale and Antonio Davis packed a serious punch in the middle of Indianas defense, and Rik Smits logged his lone All-Star campaign. And it looked for a second like the Pacers were ready to dethrone the Bulls.

Indiana clawed back from a 20 series deficit with nail-biter wins in Game 3 and 4, and the Pacers pulled off a three-point win in Game 6. Chicago faced a dogfight in Game 7. Jordan made just nine of 25 shots, and Chicago missed 17 free throws while shooting 38.2% from the field. But Indiana scored just four points in the final 5:50 of regulation, sending the Bulls to their sixth straight Finals. Miller would have to wait two more seasons to seize the Eastern Conference crown.

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Who Are the Best Teams Michael Jordan and the Bulls Kept From Winning a Title? - Sports Illustrated

UNC vs. Georgetown, Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing, a legendary game that resulted in the shot that made Jordan a household name.

Since his appearance on 'The Last Dance' Roy Williams has been making his rounds discussing all things Michael Jordan. From discussing Jordan's recruitment to UNC to the day he decided to go pro, Williams seems to have a story for every occasion but this one is about the moment Jordan said he officially became "Michael Jordan"; the night Jordan got the green light to shoot the last shot of regulation for the Heels that resulted in a championship.

For ten years, Roy Williams was an assistant coach for Dean Smith; those ten years are more than a reflection of who Williams is today. During an interview with Dan Patrick, Williams discussed knowing they were going to win, but there was a moment he thought otherwise when he saw the player's faces. Williams' also revealed that it was initially James Worthy who was the hot hand and was going to take the shot but due to great rebound position and the game plan changed, and it favored Jordan.

Well, it was the most amazing change of my feelings I've ever had in my life. I thought the entire year we were going to win the national championship, I thought we were the best team. I never had any doubts and all of a sudden, with I think it's 31 seconds to go, coach called a time out. We had the ball out of bounds on the sideline. And the look on our guys' faces as they came to the bench just shocked me. I said, oh my god, we could actually lose this game. And that had never been a thought of mine, never.

And so players sit down and we as the coaches kneel down in front of them and Coach Smith was the most magical I've ever known anybody in my life. He said, 'Guys, we're in great shape. This is exactly where we want to be. We're going to determine who wins this game.' And I'll admit, I sort of faked a cough so I could look to the scoreboard to make sure, because of course, I was one up. And I didn't want Coach Smith to think I was looking at the score.

And he kept going, he said, guys, we'll run lineup to get it in, I don't think they'll be pressing, I think they'll get in the zone. If they are, he said, let's run two, and James, you'll over for the lob, and Sam's going to set the screen, or Matt's going to set the screen. But if we don't get the lob, which I don't think we will, we'll go weak side, and if we get the shot, we'll take the shot. We'll have the board covered. Sam, you get middle position inside, and James, you'll have weak side board position, so you get the rebound. And if they happen to get the rebound, we'll foul them and there's no way in the world they're going to try a foul shot in this situation, so we'll get another chance.

And all of a sudden everybody, their whole expression, the look on everybody's face, including mine, changed dramatically. And as they're going out, I'm standing two feet away from Coach Smith and he patted Michael on the backside and said, if you get the shot, knock it in, Michael. And that was it. So, originally, yes, we wanted to give the ball to James Worthy. I mean, he had dominated the game. But then we did go to the weak side and Michael had the shot. And if you look at the tape, we had great rebound position and all of a sudden somebody told Freddie Brown to throw the ball to Jake.

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Roy Williams on the Huddle that Led to Michael Jordan's Iconic '82 Shot - Sports Illustrated

Jordan Brand continues its run of kid-exclusive retros with the Jordan 13 Aurora Green, which launches May 8th.

This The Last Dance-featured silhouette forgoes any semblance of the Chicago Bulls uniform in favor of a summer-ready, South Beach-like color scheme. As its unofficial moniker suggests, Aurora Green demands the spotlight as it covers the models signature suede overlays toward the heel and panther-paw inspired midsole and outsole tooling. Elsewhere, the Jordan 13 boasts hits of Soar and Digital Pink, with the latter hue appearing most prominently as speckling on the laces; it also animates the embroidered logo on the lateral ankle.

Enjoy official images of the kids Jordan 13 here below. Pairs arrive to Nike.com on May 8th with a price tag of either $140 USD (Grade School) or $80 USD (Pre-School).

For more Jordan release dates, check out the Jordan 11 Low Bred Concord launches June 20th.

Air Jordan 13Release Date: May 8th, 2020$140/$80/$60Color: White/Soar/Aurora Green/Digital PinkStyle Code: 439358-100 (Grade School)Style Code: 439669-100 (Pre-School)Style Code: 684802-100 (Toddler)

Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.

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Where To Buy The Kids Air Jordan 13 Aurora Green - Sneaker News

Fresh off news that its releasing in full-family sizing, the Air Jordan 6 Hare has finally emerged with official images.

A faithful nod to the original Jordan 7 Hare from 1992, leather overlays across this German-sportscar-inspired silhouette are clad in White. Perforated midfoot underlays and toe boxes borrow Bugs Bunnys Neutral Grey arrangement, which also appears on the tongue, but in a translucent finish. As with the first Hare Jordan, tongues and accents across the heel and outsole boast an eye-catching True Red. And yet, the hue is (arguably) overshadowed by the Hares most iconic detail: a multi-colored pattern on the tongue. The Jordan 6s version, however, ups the ante by also featuring the jagged-graphic on the tongues underside and sockliner. Furthermore, it adds rich purple to its Jumpman logos on the rear and underfoot, as well as vibrant green to carrot-like lace toggles and outsole.

Enjoy a first look at official images of the Jordan 6 Hare here below and mark your calendars for June 5th. As delays are not improbable due to the current health crisis, bookmark our Jordan Release Dates 2020 to stay up-to-date on any changes.

For more from under the NIKE, Inc. umbrella, 2010s Kobe Grinch is rumored to receive the Protro treatment in early 2021.

Air Jordan 6 HareRelease Date: June 5th, 2020$190Color: Neutral Grey/White/True Red/BlackStyle Code: CT8529-062 (Men)Style Code: 384665-062 (Grade School)Style Code: 384666-062 (Pre-School)Style Code: 384667-062 (Toddler)

Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.

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Official Images Of The Air Jordan 6 Hare - Sneaker News

FILE PHOTO: People are seen at a commercial street as they shop ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, amid concerns over the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Amman, Jordan April 21, 2020. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed/File Photo

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan said on Sunday it had lifted all restrictions on economic activity in the latest easing of coronavirus lockdown rules to help jump-start the cash-strapped economy.

Jordan has in the last two weeks been lifting restrictions to allow businesses back to work, but with lower levels of staff and strict social distancing and hygiene guidelines.

Minister of Industry and Trade Tariq Hammouri said businesses and industries would now be able to resume production.

Public transport will be allowed to return to full normal service with safety guidelines following the outbreak, but universities and schools will remain closed and a night curfew will continue.

Jordan has reported 460 confirmed coronavirus cases and nine deaths but says it has now contained the outbreak.

The government of Prime Minister Omar al Razzaz won widespread praise for quick moves to curb the spread of the coronavirus. But as the economic impact deepened, the government faced criticism from business groups and there were fears of social unrest.

Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Timothy Heritage

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Jordan lifts all curbs on economic activity in latest easing of lockdown - Reuters

Michael Jordan is an NBA legend, a Hall of Famer, 6-time champion and sneaker king, but to his kids he is first, and most importantly just "dad." Jordan has three children with his first wife Juanita Vanoy, Jeffrey (31), Marcus (29), Jasmine (27). He also has 6-year-old twins Ysabel and Victoria with his wife Yvette Prieto.

"The Last Dance" documentary has given everyone, including his children, a closer look at who MJ was off the court.

The fascination over the unique access to the GOAT's life has a lot to do with how he lived, as well as how private he has previously been. Jordan carefully selected the events he would appear at, rarely shoving himself in the spotlight.

Jasmine told InStyle magazineher dad is "very much a homebody and has always been a private person."

She continued saying, "He just so happened to have chosen a profession that was made for the public eye, and honestly I think if he could've had his same career without the fame, he'd probably still do it. You won't catch him in New York City or L.A. unless it's for business."

His low profile also meant his kids didn't realize just how famous he was.

"I definitely didn't realize growing up who he was. He was "Dad," and that was it." Jasmine said, sharing in her pre-teens she finally searched him online "to see why everyone was so obsessed"

"It didn't hit me that he was the phenomenon that he is," she said. "I would ask him questions all the time like, "Why do you think you're the greatest?" and he would just laugh."

The kids did see the NBA side of Jordan when they were playing pickup games. "He would treat us exactly the same as any other basketball player he was playing," Marcus toldToday, explaining that he would sometimes call his mom to tell her MJ was picking on them.

Sometimes this competitiveness ended in injury. "Jeff was going for a touchdown and, I'll never forget it, my dad tackled Jeff into a glass table and Jeff hit his head," Marcus shared in an interview with The Breakfast Club, adding, "That's the competitiveness. Obviously, it was an accident."

"One of the biggest misconceptions was that he couldn't turn that [competitiveness] off," Jeffrey said. "He definitely could turn it off and be a dad ... But when it was on, it was on."

The kids welcomed the heightened competition. "I wouldn't want him to hold back anything, because that wouldn't make any of us better," Jeffrey said in an interview with Today.

Despite his competitive nature, MJ never pressured his kids to play basketball. Both boys played, but Jordan said he just wanted his kids to be happy. Jasmine tried her hand at basketball, but said her and her dad agreed, the sport wasn't for her.

As far as their personal lives went, Jasmine said they didn't introduce too many people to their dad. When she introduced him to her fiance Rakeem Christmas, she said it was "hysterical" as they were both nervous and unsure what to say.

While all of his kids were encouraged to find their own path to happiness, they each are still in the world of sports, and sneakers.

Jeffrey leads brand digital innovation for the Jordan Brand and Marcus opened the shoe store "Trophy Room." Jasmine works in sports management with Nike and Jordan Brand and previously worked with the Charlotte Hornets.

All three will be featured in episode 10 of the documentary.

Continued here:

Michael Jordan's kids share what it was like to be raised by the NBA legend - CBS Sports

Theres a scene in the first 10 minutes of "Space Jam" that shows the opposing catcher tipping pitches to Michael Jordan as the basketball star struggles to hit for the minor league Birmingham Barons. The catcher tells Jordan what pitches are coming and thanks him for signing a basketball for his kid.

Im a hero now, the catcher said.

The movie, of course, is fictional and co-stars cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, so youd hope the tipping of pitches didnt really happen. But the constant autograph requests certainly did.

I don't know how he didn't get tired of it, but he really didn't, longtimeWhite Sox head trainer Herm Schneider said. He was very generous and kind to everybody.

Schneider, who now holds the title of head athletic trainer emeritus for the White Sox,was charged with getting Jordan ready for his baseball endeavor in 1994, working with him seven days a week during the winter before spring training. And once they all arrived in Sarasota, Floridain the spring of 94, Schneider had a front row seat for a bizarre team dynamic that featured one of the richest, most famous humans on the planet interacting with next-to-broke minor league baseball players.

He blended in very nicely with everybody and tried not to be Michael Jordan the basketball player, Schneider said. He just tried to be Michael the baseball player, and he worked hard at that. He did. He really did.

RELATED:Inside MJ's secret baseball training sessions with Beltin' Bill

It helped that Jordan took care of the younger players and used his deep Nike connections to help them out.

He would see these young guys that had kind of crummy equipment and crummy shoes, and he would tell them, Go tell Herm your shoe size and what size shirt you wear, etc., whatever you need and then Herm will take care of the rest, Schneider recalled.

Suddenly, the head trainer of the White Sox was putting in daily requests to Howard White, who is now the senior vice president of the Jordan Brand.

I would call him with a list that was extremely long and, by golly, the next morning, that stuff was sitting at my desk to distribute to everybody. It was incredible, Schneider said. And this went on daily. I mean, he would pick four or five guys and he would say, Go tell Herm what you need, and I'd call Nike and tell them what Michael wanted them to have. There was never a question asked of like, 'Why so much?' Nothing like that. It was like, OK, it will be there tomorrow.

And then there were the endless autograph requests.

The players, they had shoes, and basketballs, and pictures and everything else. He never really said no to any one of them at all, Schneider said. He just said, Go put it in Herm's office,and after the workout today, I'll go sign them, and then tomorrow morning you can go pick them up in his office.

According to Schneider, the requests never really stopped, and neither did Jordan's generosity.

I'm not embellishing this at all. This is the truth, the trainer said. What I saw was absolutely incredible of how much he signed and how many people were asking.

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Jordan hooked up young White Sox teammates with Nike gear - NBCSports.com

May 3, 2020

Nick DePaulaESPN

"It's gotta be the shoes."

For many basketball fans in the 1990s, that wasn't just a line said by Spike Lee's Mars Blackmon character in a commercial -- it was a way of life. Michael Jordan helped turn basketball sneakers into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Episode 5 of "The Last Dance" (9 p.m. ET, Sunday on ESPN and the ESPN App) delves into the global phenomenon that was the Air Jordan sneaker franchise and the off-court business surrounding the Chicago Bulls.

In advance of that episode, longtime designer Tinker Hatfield and Jordan VP of Footwear Gentry Humphrey spoke with ESPN about the iconic Air Jordan line and the sneakers that were on Jordan's feet when he won each of his six championships.

Air Jordan 6

Jordan established himself atop the NBA hierarchy, knocking off Converse icon Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers in his first NBA Finals. Jordan ushered in a new era in the NBA in an amplified shade of Bulls red -- dubbed "infrared" -- with a molded heel tab inspired by the rear spoiler on his Porsche.

1 Related

"Michael actually started influencing more design power over the process, and I was cool with that," Hatfield said. "He started feeling like his signature look shouldn't have a [toe] tip. He was wearing dress shoes at the time that had a cleaner toe and a molded toe."

Gone was the extra toe panel that defined each of his models to that point, while the heel tab was complemented by a taller, rubberized tongue that allowed for easier entry.

"We always say that if some things are similar from one year to the next, there should always be something that's radically different," Hatfield said.

Air Jordan 7

The VII marked a new chapter for the Air Jordan series, dropping the "Nike Air" branding and iconic swoosh logo entirely.

"I recognized early on that MJ, especially with his Jumpman, I felt could survive and even flourish without a Swoosh," Hatfield said. "It was part of the strategy of mine to sort of create a Brand Jordan before there ever was one."

Hatfield never looked back, sticking with just the Jumpman branding going forward. With angular lines and accent colors inspired by Afropop art and music of the early 1990s, the outsole was highlighted by a dotted halftone traction pattern. While Jordan wore the shoe in black, purple and red during the '92 Finals, it was the Barcelona Olympics edition with gold accents that would define the model.

Air Jordan 8

The reductionist approach of the VI and VII was thrown out the window for the Air Jordan VIII, for which Hatfield used a "baroque design philosophy."

"[It was] adorned, complex and with lots of detail," he said. "It's what was happening in his life at the time, as well. The Bulls were about to win their third straight championship, and everything was getting bigger for Michael, on and off the court."

The only Air Jordan worn by Michael to feature a strap -- two overlapping ones, at that -- the sneaker also featured a cubic dipped graphic heel and a new textured tongue logo.

"It ended up looking like a chenille patch on a letterman's jacket, and by combining that with a sort of a Mercedes Benz-esque Jumpman logo, I think made for an interesting look," Hatfield said. "People probably either loved it or hated it, but at least people had some sort of response."

Air Jordan XI

The Jordan XI is instantly recognizable because of its patent leather accent, a design feature that Jordan himself had pushed for years earlier.

"Michael actually wanted to put patent leather on the IX. We weren't ready for that. When you talk about being comfortable with being uncomfortable -- we were hella uncomfortable," Humphrey said with a laugh.

The patent leather served a performance benefit, providing strategic support in a lightweight solution. The shoe also featured a full translucent bottom, showcasing the carbon-fiber plate that ran from heel to toe.

SneakerCenter explores sneaker culture across sports and entertainment, as told by the athletes, artists, enthusiasts and brands who power the movement. Watch on ESPN+

"The XI became the foundation of what performance greatness was going to be in a truly high-performing basketball product," Humphrey said.

The first time Jordan saw the final sample, the unmistakable look prompted him to predict it would be worn for basketball, sure, but also with tuxedos and suits. Amazingly, the shoe almost never came to be. Hatfield began designing it in 1994, after Jordan had stepped away from basketball. Many at Nike thought the Air Jordan line should stop, but Hatfield and longtime Jordan VP Howard White felt it should continue.

"I've never seen [the Jordan brand] as [only] basketball," White said. "Hope is something that the world needs every day, and they need it in large supplies. And I think Michael Jordan represented that to a lot of people."

Air Jordan 12

The expected move would've been to simply repeat the use of patent leather, the unique shimmery material that made the beloved Air Jordan XI an instant classic. But as Hatfield and Humphrey both often joke about competition and expectations, the brand would rather "zig when they zag."

The Jordan XII was defined by its luxury, with thick, full-grain leathers used throughout, along with contrasting lizard-textured panels and metallic eyelets. Jordan specifically added the "TWO 3" lettering down the tongue. The brand then added its own daringly confident badging along the heel strip, which read, "Quality inspired by the greatest player ever."

The Jordan XII has become forever associated with "The Flu Game." Wearing the red-and-black XII, Jordan poured in 38 points while ill to lead the Bulls to a win over the Jazz in Game 5 of the Finals. The iconic image of an exhausted Jordan leaning on Pippen has since become a hallmark of that Bulls title run.

"No matter how great you are, you always have to be humble enough to accept someone else's hand," White said. "For me, that moment signified the achievement that this brand was built on. It may have been forged in the likeness of an individual, but it took many individuals to bring it into greatness and the light."

Air Jordan 13

When the 13th annual Air Jordan was unveiled at a New York media conference just weeks before the start of the 1997-98 season, launching yet another new sneaker wasn't the main purpose of the day. Jordan was joined onstage by the first five roster members of Team Jordan as the group announced the launch of Brand Jordan. That laid the foundation for what has become a $3 billion brand nearly 23 years later. "CEO Jordan" commercials soon followed.

"People needed to believe that," White said. "They needed to believe, 'Michael Jordan, CEO. Wow, he's the CEO of his brand. Oh my goodness, you can be anything in life.' And those are the building blocks that started it."

The 10-part Michael Jordan documentary "The Last Dance" is here.

Latest updates, full schedule Lowe: How Kukoc remembers the Bulls MacMullan: The Michael Jordan I knew Big moments from episodes 5 and 6

The shoe's design was inspired by a nickname for Jordan that few people outside the NBA used.

"By the guys in the league, he was called the 'Black Cat,'" Humphrey said. "If you think about how he moved on the court, he was pretty relentless. Very smooth, stealthlike, but could strike at any time. It was a pretty good analogy for a player that moved like that."

The sneaker took on a paw-like shape featuring articulated pods. The midsole was wrapped in suede, a first for a basketball sneaker. The green hologram Jordan logo along the heel channeled a panther's peering eyes. The project pulling from MJ's behind-the-scenes persona was fit for Jordan's final season in Chicago, though he had one more surprise in store before leaving the Bulls for good.

Air Jordan 14

When the Bulls returned to Chicago for Game 3 of the Finals, Jordan took to the floor in a never-before-seen model. Long before early online leaks made sneaker surprises a rarity, the curiosity among collectors was rampant.

"We had an opportunity to showcase him in something different," Humphrey said. "Also, knowing that literally, this could be the last dance."

Shifting gears once again, the design inspiration for Hatfield and crew drew from Jordan's new Ferrari 550 Maranello.

The high-gloss midsole and shape mimicked the car's silhouette and body, and the stitched leather panels pulled from the interior's seat construction. An air duct vent could be found along the arch, with molded accents throughout adding to the detailing. The Jumpman was also housed inside of a yellow shield, no small coincidence.

"Tinker did a masterful job of bringing in details that drafted off of the car," Humphrey said.

Jordan went on to wear the sneakers in Games 3, 4 and 6, closing out the Jazz with an iconic Finals-clinching shot to win his sixth championship. With the black colorway not slated to release until March 1999, some nine months later, Jordan's "Last Shot" ramped up anticipation for the sneaker.

"You can't write a better ending," Humphrey said. "It just doesn't get any better than that. Everybody likes to be associated with a winner, and the success that comes with that. It just allowed the brand to evolve to the next level."

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The iconic sneakers that defined Michael Jordan's title runs - ESPN

Michael Jordan didn't get close to too many players. One of the few he famously did build a relationship with was Kobe Bryant. Kobe spent most of his career drawing comparisons to Jordan, and while he ultimately fell short of Jordan's six championships and general historical standing, he was far and away the closest thing the NBA has ever seen to His Airness since the original's retirement in 2003. That was due in large part to Jordan's willingness to mentor Bryant, as they both discussed in episode 5 of "The Last Dance."

Among the many things the two had in common was trainer Tim Grover. Both were renowned for their work ethic and dedication to the game, and as Grover revealed in an interview on The Jim Rome Show (video at the top), that is what allowed the two of them to become so close.

"The reason Kobe was different in MJ's eyes is because Kobe looked at Michael as a reference book, encyclopedia, whatever you want to call it. He didn't look at him as a fan. He wasn't interested in, 'Mike can I have your shoes after the game? Can I get the signed jersey? Can you do this?' He wanted to absorb the knowledge that MJ had, and MJ would test individuals. He would give them a little, and then he would see if they actually applied it, and if they actually learned it, and if they actually learned to use it.

Then if he did that, and you came back and asked for more, he would give you more, but most people never got past that first stage because they were more enamored by the MJ aura than about the actual learning process of becoming the best basketball player. This was his test to see how dedicated these individuals were for the game. You know Michael, the one big thing he's always big about, 'I don't like individuals, I don't like players, I don't like players, I don't like anybody that disrespects the game.'"

Bryant died in a helicopter crash in January, and Jordan gave an emotional speech at his public memorial. Even if their relationship started with basketball, it grew into something far greater. The two respected one another on the court, and that allowed them to develop a deep friendship off of it.

Continued here:

How Kobe Bryant forged such a strong relationship with Michael Jordan, according to their shared trainer - CBS Sports

What if Michael Jordan had played in the age of social media?

Its a question as intriguing as it is unanswerable. But with the airing of The Last Dance during a global pandemic that has effectively paused the world as we know it, weve gotten a taste of how the biggest storylines from the NBA of yesteryear would play out in the theater of sports talk/debate television, podcasts, Twitter and the blogosphere.

Chief among those storylines is the public beef between Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas, which centers around a handful of flashpoint moments throughout each of their careers: The 1985 All-Star freezeout (not depicted or referenced in The Last Dance), the Pistons walk-off without shaking hands after being swept by the Bulls in the 1991 Eastern Conference finals and Isiah Thomas exclusion from the Dream Team of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics a decision that its long been speculated Jordan played a part in.

The latter two points of contention have been blown out across the sports media universe since Episodes 3 and 4 of The Last Dance debuted, with Episode 4 chronicling the Bulls rivalry with the Bad Boy Pistons and the walk-off, and Episode 5 detailing Thomas being left off the Dream Team.

Its been quite a sight to behold. Decades-old controversy, debated with the same fervor as as a present-day free agent signing or public feud.

I hope the full content of what I was trying to express in the admiration we all had for him as a player is shown from my comments, Thomas told The Detroit News on April 14.

Heres an (aggregated) account of how its all gone down since then:

***

The Walk-Off

After falling to the Pistons in the postseason two years in a row, the Bulls finally dethroned their most heated rivals with a sweep in the 1991 Eastern Conference finals. But the real trouble began when, with just under ten seconds left in the decisive Game 4, most of the Pistons players (led by Bill Laimbeer and including Isiah Thomas) walked off their home floor without shaking the Bulls hands. Accounts differ on the exact reasoning behind the move.

John Salley (Pistons center 1986-1992) to Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter: Bill Laimbeer said, 'Lets hand them the torch the same way the Celtics handed it to us.

Isiah Thomas (Pistons guard 1981-1993) in 2013 on NBATVs Open Court: We had dethroned the Celtics, we had dethroned the Lakers, and we thought that we deserved a little bit of respect as a champion. Everyone and every team could play and act like the Pistons, and adopt our philosophy, except the Pistons.

They (the Bulls) went on a day, day-and-a-half tirade about how we were bad for the game, how we were bad people, how Laimbeer was a thug, and all the time, they were getting ready to win, they were up 3-0. And then they had this press conference just totally disrespecting us as champions.

Thomas in Episode 4 of The Last Dance: Knowing what we know now and the aftermath of what took place, I think all of us would have stopped and said, Hey, congratulations like they do now. I mean, we wouldve done it, of course we would have done it. But during that period of time, thats just now how it was passed. When you lost, you left the floor. That was it.

Michael Jordan (Bulls guard 1984-1993; 1994-1998) in Episode 4: Well, I know its all bulls**t. Whatever he (Thomas) says now, you know it wasnt his true actions then. Hes had time enough to think about it, or the reactions of the public has kind of changed his perspective of it. You can show me whatever you want. Theres no way you can convince he wasnt an a**hole.

Horace Grant (Bulls forward 1987-1994) in Episode 4: Straight up b**ches. Thats what they walked off like.

Thomas to Bill Reiter of CBS Sports: "I was definitely surprised (to hear Jordan call him an a**hole). Because we've been in each other's presence before, and I've never gotten that type of reaction from him. We were even at dinner a couple times and he was always pleasant. Always good to my kids. Always good to my son. He even gave my son a pair of gym shoes.

"The competition that we all had on the floor, I truly just thought it was on the floor."

Chris Broussard (FOX Sports Analyst) on The Association: He (Thomas) was stunned to see Jordan talk about him, use the expletive about him Isiah didnt know that that was coming, and thought that his interactions with Jordan had been cordial over the years.

Shannon Sharpe (FOX Sports Co-Host) on Undisputed: "Listen to Michael talk, listen to his body language and his demeanor. He aint forgot that. Hell never forgive Isiah.

The Shade

Jordan and Thomas public airing of grievances over the walk-off inspired a week of think-pieces, public interviews by Thomas and other members of the Pistons and Bulls, and countless televised Zoom debates. That discourse seemed to reveal deeper fissures in the Thomas-Jordan relationship.

Thomas, to Bill Reiter of CBS Sports: "When you put Jordan and his basketball team in the '80s, they weren't a very successful team. They just weren't. When you talk about Jordan and his team dominating, they dominated the '90s. But when you put him with those Lakers teams and those Pistons teams and those Celtics teams, they all beat him. They just did.

"What separated Jordan from all of us was he was the first one to three-peat. But he didn't three-peat against Magic, Larry and Dr. J."

Thomas is asked by Reiterto give his list of the top five players he played against. This is what he said:

Skip Bayless (FOX Sports Co-Host) on Undisputed: "This is nothing but bitter, bad blood from Isiah Thomas. He still mistakenly holds it against Michael Jordan for keeping him off a Dream Team that he didn't make on sheer ability."

Jordan in Episode 5:I respect Isiah Thomas talent. To me, the best point guard of all time is Magic Johnson and right behind him is Isiah Thomas. No matter how much I hate him, I respect his game.

Bill Laimbeer (Pistons center 1982-1994) on ESPNs The Jump!: They whined and cried for a year and a half about how bad we were for the game. But more importantly, (they said) were bad people. We werent bad people. We were just basketball players winning. And that really stuck with me because they didnt know who we were or what we were about as individuals in our family life."

Will Perdue (Bulls center 1988-1995) on the Bulls Talk Podcast: At the time, I kind of thought it was classless as far as, at least recognize the team that beat you. But later on, as I reflect on that, I thought about, I kinda understand where they were coming from because they just got their ass handed to them, and I can imagine that they were probably in denial.

Isaiah Thomas (NBA player 2011-2020) on Twitter: Yall be tweeting me mad at me like I was tryna hurt Jordan lol

Isiah Thomas repeatedly expressed regret for the incident, saying he paid a heavy price for it, that he would do it differently if given the chance, and even apologizing to the city of Detroit. Had he known the scope of the ramifications of his actions, he said he would have done things differently.

Isiah Thomas on ESPNs Get Up: Being left off the Dream Team, that personally hurt me. In 1980, I was on the Olympic team. As a matter of fact, I was voted the male athlete of the year in 1980 for the USA Olympic team. And the only thing thats missing from my resume is not being on the Dream Team.

If I'm not a part of the Dream Team because of a lapse in emotion in terms of not shaking someone's hand, if that's the reason why I didn't make the Dream Team, then I am more disappointed today than I was back then when I wasn't selected."

The Snub

And then theres the Dream Team controversy. In the 1991-92 season, Thomas age 30 campaign, he made his 11th consecutive All-Star appearance and played 78 games, averaging 18.5 points, 7.2 assists and 1.5 steals per game. To that point in his career, he was a one-time NCAA champion, two-time NBA champion, a Finals MVP and had earned five All-NBA selections. Yet, on the greatest basketball team ever assembled, he was excluded. Conspiracies swirl as to why, with many speculating it was his dispute with Jordan that led to him not being selected.

Isiah Thomas in Episode 5: I dont know what went into that process. I met the criteria to be selected. But I wasnt.

Magic Johnson (Lakers guard 1979-1991; 1995-1996 and Dream Team member): "I know hes hurt During that time, he was one of those top ten players for sure.

Charles Barkley (NBA player 1984-2000, Dream Team member) on ESPNs Waddle & Silvy: I have zero knowledge of why Isiah was left off the team. Obviously, I heard the rumors. I was never asked about Isiah. Michael had never mentioned to me anything about Isiah ever Isiah probably should have been on the team.

Michael Wilbon (ESPN NBA Analyst) on ESPNs The Jump!: My best guess would be, having covered the team and having been there, Im gonna say nine of those guys were just not in favor of hanging out with Isiah Thomas at the time. And thats what that summer was, Rachel (Nichols), it was a big hang out They knew who they wanted to spend the summer with and they knew who they didnt want to spend the summer with. And hanging that on Michael Jordan (alone) is just inaccurate.

Wilbon has since amended this statement, saying on Twitter that he was dead wrong and that nowhere near nine players objected to Thomas inclusion on the team. Thomas responded.

Rod Thorn (chair of the USA Basketball Men's National Team Selection Committee in 1992) on ESPNs Golic & Wingo: When I called Jordan, his first inclination was he didnt know if he wanted to play or not because, as he said, I played on an Olympic team before (in 1988)... 'Its for the younger guys as far as Im concerned.'

So we continued the conversation, and at the end of the conversation, he said, You know something, Ill do it. There was never anything in my conversation with him that had to do with Isiah Thomas. Period.

Jason Hehir (The Last Dance director) on the "Jalen & Jacoby Aftershow":More than one person told me that Joe Dumars is the guard that would have been chosen for the Dream Team because he was a defensive stopper in the backcourt and they had Magic Johnson in the backcourt.

"But I also agree that a lot of guys on that team at that time had beef with Isiah.

Jordan in Episode 5: It was insinuated that I was asking about him, but I never threw his name in there Based on the environment and camaraderie that happened on that team, it was the best harmony. Would Isiah have made a different feeling on that team? Yes.

You want to attribute it to me? Go ahead, be my guest. But it wasnt me.

***

So, yeah, quite the whirlwind. And quite frankly, this merely scratches the surface.

But with the Bulls first three-peat and Jordans meteoric rise (and gambling-related PR foibles) in the rearview after Episode 6, theres a solid chance this news cycle is behind us.

When we tell our grandchildren tales of American sports in the time of coronavirus, this storys break neck, twisting nature will be an essential inclusion. What would it have been like to consume the NBA of the early 1980s and 1990s in the era of social media? We just got something of a taste.

Daniel Santaromita contributed to this aggregation.

Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Bulls easily on your device.

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Aggregated Oral History of MJ, Isiah feud ruling sports media in 2020 - NBCSports.com

It pays to be the greatest of all time. Michael Jordan, with his six NBA titles and extensive list of accolades, earned millions over his 15-season basketball career. Today, the 57-year-old legend still has sponsorship deals with major brands, is the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets and is worth an estimated $2.1 billion.

But there was a time when Jordan had to write home and ask for spending money.

In "The Last Dance," a Netflix-ESPN joint documentary series on Jordan and the Chicago Bulls' dynasty he helped create, Deloris Jordan shares a letter she received from her son in the early 80s, when he was a college student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In the letter, a teenage Jordan checks in on his family and asks for stamps and some extra cash, as his bank account balance was hovering at about $20. Here's what he wrote:

Dear Mom,

How has life been treating you? Fine, I hope. I am doing just fine. I am sending you my account number so that you can deposit some money in my account. I have only $20 in there. Tell everyone I said hello and smile. God and I love you.

Love, Michael.

P.S. Sorry about the phone bill. Please also send me some stamps.

Jordan was born in Brooklyn, New York, but grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, with his four siblings. His dad, James, worked at General Electric and his mom was a bank teller. Since they both worked, they signed their kids up for organized sports to keep them busy after school.

Jordan famously didn't make his high school's varsity basketball team as a sophomore, but a strong work ethic and five-inch growth spurt helped him make the teamhis junior year.

When he arrived at UNC in 1981, he wasn't immediately the best player. Jordan was "very inconsistent as a freshman," Dean Smith, former head coach at Chapel Hill, said in one interview included in the documentary. But, "he wanted to get better and then he had the ability to get better."

By the end of his freshman year, Jordan was a household name, thanks to the game-winning shot he hit in the 1982 NCAA Championship game. His jumper sealed UNC's victory over Georgetown, 63-62.

"That was the birth of Michael Jordan," Jordan later recalled of the shot."Before that I was Mike. All of a sudden I make that shot and I'm Michael."

Don't miss:NBA legend Scottie Pippen started out as the equipment manager in college before earning a spot on the team

Check out:The best credit cards of 2020 could earn you over $1,000 in 5 years

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Michael Jordan's mom shares a letter he wrote to her in college asking for stamps and spending money: 'I only have $20' - CNBC

Before Mychal Mulder's freshman season at Catholic Central High School, he waited as upperclassmen picked through jerseys with desirable numbers. One of the last players to choose, he found a number that would connect him with a future teammate.

"I was like, 'OKthis is kind of cool, Klay Thompson, number 11,'"Mulder told the Runnin' Plays Podcast. "I always joked if I ever get a chance, I'd fight him for that number 11."

Now a member of the Warriors, Mulder is reconciling playing alongside Thompson and StephCurry while taking advantage of watching their games up close.

"Yeah, I studied countless hours of both those guys," he said. "Being a shooter myself, I was really studying the way those guys get open, setting screens for each other, the way that they're constantly moving."

[RUNNIN' PLAYS PODCAST:Listen to the latest episode]

Mulder's connection to the Thompsons makes sense. His father, Randy, a huge Lakers fan, named his baby boy Mychal after Klay's father, who played four seasons in Los Angeles, bringing his career full circle.

"If you go to my house, there's all types of Lakers gear, guy has hundreds of hats and coats," Mulder said. "He's got all the old VHSfrom the games from the '80s. Just growing up, I was a Lakers fan, I was born into basketball and his love for basketball came out in me, and he instilled a lot of things in me that I'm fortunate to have."

Mulder, 25, played in six games with the Warriors, averaging 11 points per game, including an 18-point performance against the Philadelphia 76ers. Along the way, he was among the team's leaders in plus-minus (plus-33) and shot 30.8 percent from 3-point range, using everything Thompson and Curry taught him from afar.

[RELATED:Klay pinpoints biggest challenge of rehab from torn ACL]

"That's a job I always wanted. Klay, in particular, I studied him a lot, the way he moves without the basketball and gets in position to get open," Mulder said. "I had studied tons and tons of hours on that and tried to add that to my game as well."

"I'm super excited to be in the locker room with those guys, to be able to grow. I feel like they'll help me grow tremendously during my time with them."

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MJ-Kerr fight shows NBA conflicts have evolved over time - NBCSports.com

Despite being unfortunately postponed until later this Summer, the Air Jordan 6 Hare has lost no momentum regarding its release the colorway still one of the most exciting for the silhouette ever since the return of the DMP. Effectively a love letter to Bugs Bunny, the nostalgic offering encapsulates MJs relationship with the Looney Tunes icon, one marked by many a playful advert as well as the ever-unforgettable Space Jam. As such, the same-named scheme from back in 1992 is reproduced faithfully on newer terrain, all notable accents effectively intact with very few tweaks.

And despite arriving in a full family size run, the most iconic details are still represented, each pair from GS to TD donning the leather constructions of Sail and pure white. Lace shields are seemingly struck with red velvet and pronounced Jumpman insignia, matching that of the midsoles color blocking whose look is nearly identical to its inspirations. Elsewhere, instead of a full patterned tongue, the modern variation hides the same treatment behind a lighter see-through film, essentially dialing down the saturation of the once loud retro graphic. Nearby, lace toggles are likened to carrots, outsoles are treated to reminiscent coloring, and the insole hides its abstract mosaic of yellow, red, and black.

Grab a detailed look at these right here and expect a release to arrive at Nike.com as well select stores come June 5th.

In other news, check out the official images of the Air Jordan 1 Royal Toe.

Air Jordan 6 HareRelease Date: June 5th, 2020$190Style Code: CT8529-062 (Men)Style Code: 384665-062 (Grade School)Style Code: 384666-062 (Pre School)Style Code: 384667-062 (Toddler)

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The Air Jordan 6 Hare Will Be Available In Full Family Sizes - Sneaker News

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Champaign County GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, who argued that a panel the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is creating to oversee the coronavirus crisis is actually a Democratic plot to discredit President Donald Trump, was appointed to the new panel on Thursday by House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.

Jordan contends the fact that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn to chair the panel shows it will be used to help Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden attack Trump, given Clyburns role in helping Biden clinch the Democratic partys presidential nomination by endorsing Biden before his states primary.

The House of Representatives voted along party lines last month on a resolution to formally establish the select committee. It passed on a vote of 212-182, with Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) voting with Republicans in opposition.

Pelosi, of Calfornia, has described the committee as a bipartisan oversight panel that will examine all aspects of the federal response to coronavirus to ensure that tax dollars are being spent wisely and efficiently. She says it will be modelled after the Truman Committee that saved lives and billions of tax dollars by preventing waste, fraud and abuse during World War II

We must make sure that the historic investment of taxpayer dollars made in the CARES Act is being used wisely and efficiently to help those in need, not be exploited by profiteers and price-gougers, said a statement from Pelosi. In addition to Clyburn, she named Democrats Maxine Waters of California, New Yorkers Carolyn Maloney and Nydia Velzquez, Bill Foster of Illinois, Andy Kim of New Jersey and Jamie Raskin of Maryland to serve on the committee.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California on Thursday named Jordan, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, Jackie Walorski of Indiana, and Mark Green of Tennessee to serve on the panel.

While Democrats might use this to take another stab at impeachment 2.0, Republicans will remain committed to truth and transparency, McCarthy pledged.

A statement from Jordan thanked McCarthy for giving him the opportunity to work with colleagues to help fight for the truth and push back against this blatant attempt to use the coronavirus pandemic for partisan ends. Jordan argued there are already numerous mechanisms in place to provide oversight of tax dollars spent in response to the crisis.

We fear this Select Committee is nothing more than the Speakers politicization of a crisis in a last-ditch attempt to attack the President after her impeachment sham and other witch hunts failed, said Jordan. "The Oversight Committee and the other relevant committees are more than equipped to ensure accountability for taxpayers. Instead of relying on them, Speaker Pelosi put Joe Bidens key House advocate in charge of a powerful new panel that is more like an arm of the DNC than the U.S. Congress.

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Rep. Jim Jordan to serve on coronavirus oversight committee he argued against creating - cleveland.com

It was once thought that Jordan Spieth could -- and I even made a bet that he would -- win 40 PGA Tour events. We have a few years to go, but it might be time to start counting out the cash because what once seemed like such a certainty -- Spieth winning twice a year for two decades -- has become one of the worst propositions in golf.

Spieth has struggled over the last three years. That's no secret. He won five times in 2015, two more in 2016 and another three in 2017 with three majors under his belt. It all felt so simple and easy, and then it was not.

Before we discuss his tribulations, though, let's take a look at his overall PGA Tour profile after seven full seasons as a professional.

PGA Tour events:181 |Wins:11 (6%) |Best win:Masters, U.S. Open, The OpenTop 10s:63 (35%) |Top 25s:108 (60%)

These are good numbers, although they don't look quite as good when you remember that he won his 11th PGa Tour event in his 121st attempt at the 2017 Open Championship. For most of the first 150 events of his career, Spieth's top-five percentage and top-20 percentage intertwined nicely in comparison to somebody like Rory McIlroy even if McIlroy has consistently won at a slightly more efficient clip (currently 10%).

For most of the first part of Spieth's career, McIlroy was an easy comp -- from the ball-striking to the major championship wins. But McIlroy has not fallen out of the top 50 in the world (like Spieth did recently) since he entered it in 2008. The lowest McIlroy has been in the Official World Golf Rankings since 2010 is No. 13. Spieth is currently No. 56.

There are innumerable reasons for this, and many of them have been discussed ad nauseam. The most prominent, though, is that Spieth's ball-striking has fallen off the planet. Here are his tee-to-green rankings on the PGA Tour over the last five years.

That's problematic and no way to win golf tournaments, something Spieth has not accomplished in three years. There's no need to belabor the point, though. Unless Spieth improves his ball-striking, he's not likely to win many tournaments ... if any at all.

Still, his resume as it stands right now is historically good. He basically has Payne Stewart's career -- 11 wins, three majors -- by the age of 26. The early trajectory was more like Tom Watson, though; Watson had 39 wins and eight major championships.

And the conversation when it comes to major championships shifts a little bit. Having three majors at Spieth's age with the runway he has left is a big deal. Heck, having three majors total in a career is a big deal.

This is why I'll be living on Spieth Island until it is completely submerged by the salty waters of the Atlantic.

There are only 14 Americans who have won more majors than Spieth. All are household names: Jack Nicklaus (18), Tiger Woods (15), Ben Hogan (9), Arnold Palmer (7), Lee Trevino (6), Phil Mickelson (5), Byron Nelson (5) and Brooks Koepka (4) ... to name a few. This is the company Spieth has been keeping and chasing.

The encouraging part? Though the bottom has dropped out of his game over the past three years, he's still figured out a way to contend at majors. In some ways, this is Spieth's ethos.

It doesn't make sense that -- even with his normal game -- he would win three majors by the age of 23 in the same way it doesn't make sense that he could notch top 10s at Augusta National and Bethpage Black with the suboptimal competencies he's been carrying for the last three seasons.

He's finished in the top three in at least one major every year since 2014.

This is a big deal because he's giving himself runs at titles. There is a world that exists where Spieth is a five- or six-time major winner instead of "just" a three-time champion.

I do wonder -- when it comes to majors -- whether Spieth's career is going to look a little bit like that of Trevino, who won his first five majors in a seven-year span marked by top 10 finish after top 10 finish. Then, over the next decade, times were more fallow. He still had a top 10 here or there, but Trevino didn't win his sixth major for another decade during a period marked by several more top 10s at majors.

When it comes to winning majors and discussing trajectories, I always go back to Mickelson. Despite loads of success at a young age, he didn't win his first until he was 33. Spieth has a seven-year and three-major head start on one of the few Americans ahead of him in the career major championship race.

Spieth may have lost his game for a bit, but there's something about multiple major winners who double as elite ball-strikers that doesn't go away. It's part of who you are. You don't stumble into wins at Augusta, Royal Birkdale and a U.S. Open by accident. And as long as the fire is still lit, it's something you can get back. And Spieth certainly had it earlier in his career.

I have confidence Spieth will find it. The longer this difficult stretch lasts, however, the more I begin to wonder. I'll never be convinced that there's not something special about Spieth, so maybe anything I say around this has to be viewed through that lens. If things continue to spiral, I'll probably pin the blame elsewhere.

There's something there, though -- not just him winning majors but the way he won them. The way he deconstructed Augusta. The way he downed Matt Kuchar at Birkdale. The way Mickelson made him the heir apparent of the U.S. team room for the next few decades.

Jordan Spieth is special. It's a golf thread I'll cling to until there's nothing left. Even if it costs me on the payout of that future bet.

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What happened to Jordan Spieth? How a golfer on an all-time great trajectory has slipped - CBS Sports

In the third episode of "The Last Dance," Michael Jordan colorfully explains what was going through his head after "The Shot," as he jumped and screamed and punched the air while Craig Ehlo crumpled to the floor.

"Get the f--- out of here," Jordan says. "Go f---in' anywhere, but you're out of here. Whoever's not with us, all you f---ers go to hell."

All these years later, it is a thrill to see Jordan take himself back there. On May 7, 1989, he wasn't a champion yet, and each of his fist pumps in Cleveland were fueled by contempt for anyone who didn't believe he'd become one. This was only his second playoff series victory, but both he and Doug Collins, then the coach of the Chicago Bulls, say it propelled the team toward greatness.

"We started to get over the hump of loser's mentality," Jordan says. "We were starting to become a winning franchise. And the sky was the limit."

The ESPN/Netflix documentary, which uses the 1997-98 season as a jumping-off point to tell the larger story of Jordan and the Bulls, spends more than five minutes setting up and covering the three seconds that shook Richfield Coliseum and haunted Ohio for decades. Here's what it does and doesn't tell you about one of the most iconic moments in sports history:

The Cleveland Cavaliers were heavy favorites in the series. The Bulls had won 47 games to Cleveland's 55 and the Cavs had won all six of their regular-season meetings.

"In our mind, we got nothing to lose," Jordan says in "The Last Dance."

More context: The last of those matchups was on the last day of the regular season. The Cavs won 90-84 at Chicago Stadium, without the injured Mark Price, Larry Nance and Brad Daugherty.

"We couldn't even beat their subs," Jordan said, via the Chicago Sun-Times, adding that the Bulls will "certainly get swept" if they don't play better in the postseason. The headline of the story read, "Bulls resemble cadavers in sorry loss to Cavaliers."

Chicago entered the playoffs having lost eight of its last 10 games, but stole Game 1 on the road on the strength of 31 points and 11 assists from Jordan. The Bulls had the opportunity to advance in Game 4, but, as mentioned in the documentary, Jordan missed a clutch free throw in the fourth quarter and they lost in overtime.

The doc does not mention that Jordan called that missed free throw "my second worst hurt in basketball," behind not making his varsity team as a sophomore in high school, via the Sun-Times. Nor does it mention that, per the Chicago Tribune, Jesse Jackson "stuck his head into the shower" after the loss and offered words of encouragement to Jordan: Forget about it and concentrate on the next game.

"I had never been cheered up by a presidential candidate before," Jordan said in the game story that ran in the Tribune the morning after "The Shot."

Before Game 5, Jordan approached beatwriters Lacy Banks of the Sun-Times, Kent McDill of the Chicago Herald and Sam Smith of the Tribune, who had picked the Cavs to win the series in 3, 4 and 5 game respectively.

"We took care of you," Jordan told Banks. "We took care of you," he told McDill. Then he looked at Smith. "We take care of you today."

Smith had shared this anecdote previously, but it works perfectly in "The Last Dance" because it sets up Jordan's post-game interview on the court, in which he brings up the people who wrote him off and says he feels vindicated.

It would have also been worth telling viewers that Jordan had publicly predicted Chicago would win the series in four games, adding another layer to his anguish after the missed free throw.

"I was a little bit off in my prediction -- but we won," Jordan said in the Sun-Times' game story from Richfield.

Two-thirds of the way through the 1988-89 season, the Bulls tried something unconventional: They moved the greatest shooting guard in NBA history to point guard. "The Last Dance" doesn't get into it, but fortunately The Ringer's Dan Devine went deep on this just last month. As Devine explains, the rationale wasn't all that different from what we've heard from coaches say about LeBron James, Luka Doncic and James Harden in recent years: Give the brilliant, impossible-to-guard playmaker the ball more often, and your offense should be better.

At first, the switch invigorated the team. Jordan had 18 points and 15 assists in an easy win in his first game at the point, and the Bulls won 11 of their first 14 games with Jordan running the show. His seven-game triple-double streak remains legendary.

After Chicago's late-season nosedive, though, the Sun-Times' Terry Boers wrote a column titled, "Jordan at point seems pointless." (In the column, Boers also argued that Horace Grant should be playing small forward rather than power forward, but that's neither here nor there.)

Jordan averaged 39.8 points, 8.2 assists, 5.8 rebounds and 3.0 steals in the Cavs series. He had a usage rate of 40.5 percent and a true shooting percentage of 59.8 percent, per Basketball-Reference. But when Chicago lost to the Detroit Pistons in the conference finals, largely because the Bad Boys were content to let anyone but Jordan beat them, it was the end of the experiment.

Later, the triangle offense would provide the ideal framework for Jordan to dominate while keeping teammates involved. If Point Jordan had the benefit of modern spacing, though, just imagine the kind of damage he could have done.

My favorite part of Episode 3 features then-Cavs guard Ron Harper talking about the timeout before the final play. In the huddle, Harper announced that he'd cover Jordan. Cleveland coach Lenny Wilkens, however, decided to put Ehlo on him.

"And I'm like, 'Yeah, OK, whatever. F--- this bulls---,'" Harper says.

You know what happens next. But "The Last Dance" also shows you what preceded it: Jordan had already hit a clutch jumper, a pull-up over Larry Nance that gave the Bulls a one-point lead with six seconds left. The Cavs had then taken the lead with a layup from Ehlo off a simple but flawlessly executed give-and-go.

This is where Ehlo probably hoped he'd get some shine. That layup gave him 15 points in the fourth quarter and 24 in the game. It was the best playoff performance of his career, even if all anybody would remember was the play that followed.

Instead, the focus in the documentary is on Wilkens' decision to go with Ehlo over Harper. Jordan calls it a mistake, as Harper was "the guy that played me better."

Jordan might be right, but it didn't particularly matter when these teams met in the playoffs the previous season. Harper missed Game 1 of that series, in which Jordan scored 50 against Ehlo. "Michael would never get 50 on me," Harper said, via the Tribune, and then Jordan dropped 55 on him in Game 2.

(Shortly after that, the New York Times ran a feature by Ira Berkow attempting to explain Jordan's aerial exploits. Phil Jackson, then an assistant coach, offered this theory: "Simple. Michael Jordan is from another planet." Ehlo, Wilkens and the head of the Department of Astronautics at the Air Force Academy are also quoted.)

The most unusual decision Wilkens made in the huddle was not going with Ehlo over Harper, but leaving inbounder Brad Sellers uncovered. Wilkens wanted Nance to double-team Jordan because everybody assumed the ball was going to him. These are Ehlo's words, from "The Cleveland Cavaliers: A History of the Wine & Gold" by Vince McKee:

To tell you the truth, we did something that we never did before. Coach Wilkens was one of those coaches that kept someone on the vision of the ball, for some reason he chose to pull Nance off that assignment and called for a double team on Jordan. I think if I had been playing one-on-one with him, I would have played him harder. But because I had the help, I may have slacked off a little bit. When Jordan juked Larry on the first move, I ran over to catch him, and by the time I got there Jordan was already coming back the other way, so I went flying across him like E.T. across the moon and went right by him.

"In retrospect," Ehlo wrote in a 2018 essay on the website Amico Hoops, "you say, "Maybe we should have had a quicker guy along with myself guarding him." The two players he named were Harper and Price.

Ultimately, though, all of this second-guessing is about a possession that was defended well. Ehlo might have flown by Jordan, but his contest would have been good enough against anyone who couldn't stop on dime, rise up for a jumper, hang in the air until the defender is descending and make the most pressure-packed shot of his career.

The more interesting huddle was the other one. From "Michael Jordan: The Life" by Roland Lazenby:

During the time-out, Collins quickly drew up a play for center Dave Corzine to take the last shot, with the logic that it wouldn't be expected. Jordan reacted by angrily whacking the clipboard and telling his coach, "Just give me the f---in' ball!" Collins quickly drew up a new look, with Brad Sellers inbounding. As he walked on the floor, Jordan whispered to teammate Craig Hodges that he was going to make the shot.

Ehlo had words for Jordan, too: "Mr. Jordan, I can't let you score." Five years ago, Ehlo told the New York Times' Harvey Araton that he perhaps should have just called him Michael.

Jordan's celebration was unforgettable as "The Shot" itself, and he might've jumped even higher for it. That night, though, he said it was "uncharacteristic of me," via the Tribune. "But they had been on me all day. Yelling 'choke' and telling me to get a tee time."

He also immediately called it "my most memorable shot ever." For almost any other player, this would be a no-brainer, but seven years earlier he had made the game-winning shot in the NCAA national championship game.

Given how then-Bulls executive Jerry Krause is portrayed in "The Last Dance," it's a bit of a surprise that his reaction wasn't featured. Krause's first thought was not even about "The Shot" but the pass that led to it.

"That was the best pass I ever saw in basketball," he said in 2011, per Lazenby. "He got that pass between three guys, really threaded the needle. I ran down on the floor and hugged Brad Sellers."

Krause had drafted Sellers in 1986 despite Jordan urging the team to select Johnny Dawkins, one of many sources of tension between the two.

Also relevant, per a Sports Illustrated feature by Jack McCallum: A year before "The Shot," when a rookie Scottie Pippen helped Jordan's Bulls win their first playoff series with a big game in the first start of his professional career, Krause was in the locker room, yelling, "One-man team, huh? No way! No way this is a one-man team!"

The Cavs series was when the Bulls started wearing black shoes in the playoffs. Back then, nobody was doing that. A couple of months before the postseason, Sellers came up with the idea when Pippen entered the locker room with black shoes.

"So I said let's all try to get some black shoes for the playoffs," Sellers told the Sun-Times. "And everybody thought it was a good idea. We had to have five pairs dyed Wednesday night so we'd all be able to wear black."

According to then-Bulls center Will Perdue, the dye presented some problems.

"The game was over, you'd go to take your shoes off and your socks would be all black, and then you'd get black all over your uniforms," Perdue said on NBC Sports Chicago's Bulls Talk podcast in 2018.

No one would dare say that Jordan's jumper would have missed if he were wearing different shoes, but maybe the shoes had something to do with him being in that position. At least that's what Ehlo thinks.

"It gave them this special mojo," Ehlo said, via McKee. "It's not that Michael needed the extra help, but it seemed to make his teammates play better."

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Michael Jordan hits 'The Shot' over Ehlo: What 'The Last Dance' does and doesn't say about the iconic moment - CBS Sports

All this footage of Jordan at his apex is his shield against time, a bulletproof defense of his legacy. The Last Dance isnt the first attempt hes made to defend his place in the public imagination, nor is it the first time his return to the spotlight has intersected with global tragedy. The day before 9/11, a 38-year-old Jordan, who stewed for years in annoyance at the attention that younger stars such as Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter were receiving during his second retirement, played a pickup game in Chicago. To the three reporters who were in attendance, Jordan hinted at another comeback. News of the tease wouldnt be printed until the day of the attacks, when American life instantly changed. He made the official announcement two weeks later, but, playing for the nations capital in all his faded glory, Jordans return hardly struck the right tone. Amid such widespread, collective trauma, the power of celebrity didnt have much pull, especially given his deteriorated physical prowess.

This time around, hes returned as a much-needed distraction, not an enfeebled one. And hes back not as a player, but as a parableone that is unconcerned with how Jordan, the person, has aged. Hes been buffeted by time in the 21st century, becoming a disembodied face of meme culture and witnessing the dominance of a basketball phenom in James, who has come perilously close to matching Jordans on-court accomplishments. Its likely no coincidence that Jordan signed off on using the footage in a documentary, after years of holding off, on the same day that James celebrated his third title at the Cleveland Cavaliers championship parade in 2016.

I imagine Jordan at peace. The Last Dance offers his commentary on his own legacy in a way hes never shared beforethe final word on his self-contained empire. I imagine it is thrilling for him to see, once again, the most astounding aspect of his game: his levitation, and, by extension, his mastery of time. The series third and fourth installments, which aired last night, dove into that particular gift of Jordans through the lens of the Bulls rivalry with the Detroit Pistons, undoubtedly the most intense of his career. We are reintroduced to the Jordan Rules, a brutalizing defensive scheme that the Pistons deployed to keep Jordan grounded. The teams center John Salley explains in the documentary succinctly: You have to stop him before he takes flight, cause you know hes not human.

Of course, it didnt work for long. You can measure the passage of time in Jordans career by the distinct ways he toyed with defenders. In his younger days, he suspended himself in the air several beats longer than anyone else in the league, waiting for the oppositions guard to drop before releasing the shot. In his latter days, he floated away from them, perfecting his signature turnaround jumper by influencing his defenders decisions using directional fakes, before drifting aside to create an unguardable pocket of space in which to shoot. The older he got, the more patience he had. So, perhaps in the Jordan oeuvre, The Last Dance is what follows the fadeaway. Its Jordan on offense, just like the good old days.

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The Mythos of Michael Jordan Continues - The Atlantic