The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy

by Bill Simmons

The single greatest Russell statistic other than eleven rings? Russell’s teams finished 10–0 in deciding Game 5’s or Game 7’s. The single greatest Jordan statistic? The Bulls lost their first three games of the 1990–91 season, but after that, they never lost three in a row again with Jordan wearing a Chicago uniform.

Russell embraced his biggest foe, befriended him and allowed him to shine in meaningless moments, even as he was secretly ripping out the guy’s heart without him realizing it. Jordan settled for tearing out hearts and holding them up like the dude from Temple of Doom. He wanted his rivals to know it was happening. That’s what he loved most—not the winning as much as the vanquishing. Russell just loved winning.

They maintain that you cannot place a statistical value on what he accomplished on a daily basis. Code words like “sacrifice” and “teammate” and “unselfish” pop up every time he’s remembered. He’s the only player who realized every component of basketball as a team game—not just playing, but coming together as a group, respecting one another, and embracing common goals—from the first game of his career through the last.

You never hear Jordan’s teammates and coaches discuss him that way. Not even now. The most compelling part of his storyline, for years and years, was the collective attempt to channel his competitiveness into the greater good of the team. He needed to “trust” his teammates and “make them better.”

We heard this again and again. Then his supporting cast improved and Chicago started winning titles, so we stopped hearing it … even though he was playing the same way he always did.

But with close-knit, unselfish teams and an alpha dog who lives to make everyone else better, how much of it is really luck? In a tight game of teams between equal talents with the pressure mounting, wouldn’t you wager on the close-knit/unselfish team led by the best defensive player ever? Isn’t that what basketball is all about?

“Wait a second … so why isn’t Russell no. 1?” Because it’s so difficult to project Russell into today’s game. Athletically, he could have survived. No question. But Russell wasn’t taller or thicker than Kevin Durant.

It was easier to block shots when nobody was attacking the rim except for Wilt, just like it was easier to grab rebounds when opposing forwards were six-four and six-three instead of six-eight and six-eleven.

by the ’09 season, when only five players averaged more than 10.0 rebounds and 39 players shot better than 40 percent on threes, you were better off with a LeBron-like scorer who created quality shots for himself and his teammates.

it’s nearly impossible to assemble an unselfish infrastructure of team-first players and keep it in place—last decade, only the Spurs were able to do it for more than four years—which means Russell would battle 1-in-30 odds just that he’d be landing on the perfect team for him. So

Stick ’92 MJ or ’96 MJ in any era and he immediately becomes the alpha dog. From 1946 to 1965, it would have been unfair and scientists would have tested him in the mistaken belief that he was an alien. From 1965 to 1976, he would have dominated on a higher level than West did … and West won a title and reached six other Finals. From 1977 to 1983, he would have crushed it. You know everything that happened from 1984 on.

Our society enabled the competitor that Michael Jordan became: we value athletes who treasure winning, maximize their own potential, stay in superior shape, pump their fists, slap asses and would rather maim themselves than lose a game.

We will always love the guys who care just a little more than everyone else, just like we will always hate the ones who don’t. Why? Because we like to think that we’d play that way if we were blessed with those same gifts. Or something. That’s why we never judged Michael Jordan for his competitive disorder.P64

If anything, we deified it. The man could do anything and it was okay.

Jordan pulled all the same shit that Kobe did this decade, only in a more indefensible and debilitating way. When Sam Smith finally called him out in his turned-out-to-be-totally-accurate 1992 book, The Jordan Rules, everyone reacted like we would now if Perez Hilton started lobbing online grenades at Obama’s da...

we gravitated toward tearing people down over building them up, so that’s what we did. Had Jordan come along fifteen years later, the ...

Kobe’s diva routine happened out of weakness: he couldn’t figure out his own identity and settled on a slightly creepy Jordan impression, pursuing that goal by trying to excel on both ends (did it), win a few rings (did it), score as many points as possible (did it), mimic Jordan’s celebratory fist pump (did it) and lead his own team to the title (finally did it). Everything about Kobe’s handling of the inevitable transition from “t...

He bribed airport baggage guys to put out his suitcase first once, then wagered teammates that his bag would be the first one on the conveyor belt. He stormed out of a Bulls scrimmage once like a little kid because he thought Doug Collins screwed up the score.

Jordan measured everything by the result and every teammate by his capacity to care about that result. He tested them constantly and weeded out the ones who folded: Dennis Hopson, Brad Sellers, Will Perdue, Stacey King … it’s a longer list than you think.

He demoralized eight memorable teams in eight years—the Bad Boy Pistons, the Showtime Lakers, Riley’s Knicks, Drexler’s Blazers, Barkley’s Suns, Shaq’s Magic, Malone’s Jazz and Miller’s Pacers—and none was ever quite the same.

When he captured that last title in 1998, we all agreed: This is the greatest basketball player we will ever see. That didn’t stop us from looking for the next

He’s a savvier all-around player, with a better sense of how (to use his teammates) and when (is the right time to take over a game), even defending his teammates (which he did repeatedly against Riley’s Knicks, personified by the memorable “And one!” layup where he stood over Xavier McDaniel and yelped angrily at him) instead of undermining them publicly and privately. Only one problem: the man suddenly has no peers.

His baseball foibles taught him to embrace his teammates, accept their faults and adapt his own considerable skills to complement theirs. He finally understands The Secret.

You could say he evolved from the greatest basketball player ever to the greatest closer ever, and his collection of performances against superior Pacers and Jazz teams—as he fought the effects of his third straight 100-game season, coaxed as much as he could from a thirty-six-year-old body, carried Scottie Pippen’s slack (derailed by a bad back) in the final two games and still managed to carry the Bulls to a title—remains the most extraordinary athletic achievement of my lifetime.

When Jordan and Barkley became close, part of me always wondered if Jordan sniffed out Barkley as a potential rival—a little like Russell with Wilt, or even how Natasha Henstridge hunted for a mate in Species—then befriended him as a way to undermine him competitively.

Here’s what happens when MJ enters a room: it immediately becomes an Entourage scene. No matter how you felt about the party leading up to the moment, the party jumps from ______ (fill in whatever grade) to a solid A+. Like MJ’s presence validates the entire night.

Every male patron with good seats had a glazed, giddy, “I’m important because I’m attending this important game” glow. Every female patron looked like she’d spent an extra ten minutes getting ready. Every little kid looked ready to spontaneously self-combust. Wide-eyed teenagers stood in the first few rows, rocking back and forth, holding pens, pathetically desperate, praying against billion-to-one odds that MJ would inexplicably leave the layup line, vault the press table and glide into the stands to sign autographs. As soon as Jordan made his grand entrance, he stopped the place cold. Every eye shifted to him. Fans started making strange sounds. Squeals and cries mixed with appreciative applause, and then a slow-developing roar emerged, almost like a chain reaction: “hhh-hhrrrrrrrHHHRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!” MJ was in the house.

The moment always seemed bigger than you or me, as did the ongoing thrill of witnessing a vintage MJ performance and appreciating all the little things that made him him. He never slacked and always gave a crap. Physically, he controlled himself with a grace that nobody else quite had. Technically, he was perfect in every way—perfect physique, perfect running style, perfect defensive technique, perfect footwork, perfect shooting form—which always made it seem wrong if he dribbled a ball off his foot or threw a pass out of bounds. Spiritually, his teammates reacted to him the same way sitcom kids react to Dad when he comes home from work: everyone killing themselves to please him and hanging on his every word. The little things stood out more than the dunks and the breathtaking drives.

We watched the JumboTron show a closeup of Jordan lining up his first foul shot, an enormous grin spread across his face. His night had been made. So had ours. But that’s what makes me laugh whenever I hear guys like Wade, Kobe and LeBron compared to him. Nobody had moments like the one I just described. They might be close physically or athletically, but in the “command of the room” sense? Not even LeBron could approach him.

everything—Jordan glanced over to everyone in my section at midcourt, his eyebrows raised, and unleashed a defiant grin. And he melted us. He fucking melted us. Imagine a busty senior cheerleader winking at a school bus filled with ninth-grade boys, triple the reaction, and that was us. We spent the next twenty seconds buzzing and nudging each other. I don’t even remember who won the game. I really don’t. All I remember was this: MJ was back, MJ was on his game, MJ was feeling it … and the possibilities were endless. Some people are just larger than life.

evening. People stream over to say hello, pay tribute to Jordan, kiss his ring … he’s like the real-life Michael Corleone (with Oakley as Luca Brasi). At one point, agent David Falk sits about thirty feet away, patiently waiting for an invite, finally giving up and coming over to say hello. (Falk asks MJ, “How late did you stay out last night?” followed by MJ casually saying “Seven-thirty,” as we nod admiringly.)