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Michael Jordan thread
#1
Here's an interesting article on how Michael Jordan helped to establish wearing long shorts in NBA

Quote:Ask virtually anyone who the greatest basketball player of all time is and they'€™ll reply with the name Michael Jordan. His legacy is astounding; even Magic Johnson, an all-time great in his own right, has been quoted as saying 'There'€™s Michael Jordan and then there'€™s the rest of us.'€ And his effect on the game of basketball is undeniable, as fans and players alike aimed to emulate him. The ad campaigns featuring him even encouraged this. Most explicitly, in 1992, Gatorade released an ad called '€œLike Mikeâ€' (watch it here) in which a chorus of voices sang their desire to be more like His Airness. And Nike had another ad (seen here), one hawking his trademark Air Jordans sneakers with the catch phrase, 'It'€™s gotta be the shoes'€ as a tongue-in-cheek reason as to why Jordan was such a good basketball player. While Jordan'€™s effect on shoe wear is impressive, it'€™s not the only effect he had on fashion. Most likely, Michael Jordan also changed the way we think about gym shorts.

Michael Jordan played college basketball for the University of North Carolina from 1981 to 1984. And as seen above, the shorts he wore were, colloquially, 'short shorts.' These were the common garb of the era and for a generation or two earlier, exhibited by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, Julius Erving, and even Wilt Chamberlain. Jordan's shorts '€” at least the UNC ones '€” were of particular importance to him. According to Jordan's official NBA biography, when he made his way into the NBA, he wanted to keep his college experience close by '€” so he wore his North Carolina shorts under his NBA ones.

This decision, per the NBA's website, had an interesting side effect: Michael Jordan'€™s UNC short shorts wouldn'€™t fit under his Chicago Bulls short shorts, so he had to wear baggy, knee-length Bulls shorts instead, as seen here. In doing so, he broke the mold set forth by players before him. As proof, in the above-mentioned '€œIt'€™s gotta be the shoes' ad, you'€™ll note that at the 0:13 mark, Mars Blackmon (played by Spike Lee) asks if the secret to MJ'€™s game '€œis the extra long shorts.'€ Even then, the shorts were still considered a deviation from norms of proper basketball apparel.

But soon, these extra long shorts became the favored style. By 2003, almost every single NBA player had jettisoned the short shorts for the longer variety (with future Hall of Famer John Stockton being a notable holdout). Looking back, it is clear that Jordan had something to do with this change in basketball fashion trends. In 1991, the University of Michigan's Fab Five, featuring two future NBA All-Stars in Chris Webber and Juwan Howard, wore the same type of shorts as Jordan did ' to the extreme point where ESPN, in a documentary about these five Michigan freshman, featured their shorts on a promotional poster. And in that same documentary, the Fab Five explained why they wore the long shorts:

They wanted to be like Mike.

Source: Now I Know
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#2
There will be other great players, but they aren't going to have his story, and there is no such thing as close enough to follow the footstep of Michael Jordan, the best basketball player of all time and a legacy as well, The greatest time in basketball was when he played and the bulls owned for years. Never again will that been seen!
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#3
/|\ Agree Thup Others can be only bad copy of him Agree
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#4
I don't know if anyone will ever surpass Jordan as the greatest basketball player in history (I mean, there will be million of players to come. If you think of the hundreds of years left, this league is still too young) but what I do know is that almost (?) impossible for anyone to surpass Jordan's legacy.

What he did for basketball is unique. He made NBA a worldwide phenomenon, he was the reason that millions of kids around the world started playing basketball, he was the reason that basketball is probably the second most popular game on the planet and he's the reason the NBA players have such huge contracts. He skyrocketed the marketing in the NBA.

The guy is an icon, a legend.

So, it's difficult for anyone to surpass him because they just can't do something already done. Soccer will always be the king of sports, so basketball is probably at its peak in terms of popularity. It's very unlikely that a single player will influence the game of basketball more than MJ!

But we can sure witness better players than him.
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#5
One of my absolute heroes, struggling to think of a more influential sportsperson of recent decades.
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#6
Photo 
[Image: jordan_04ad8f61-a529-43a0-8097-7db7c8245...4x1024.jpg]
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#7
So, no new topics from the last NBA Finals.  A GSW fan here but Lebron is really good!
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