Writer For Fansided Has the Hottest of Hot Michael Jordan Takes

Bleacher Report has sort of cleaned up it's act and gotten away from the amateur writers who provided the really shitty content on the site and hired real sportswriters for the site. It's sad, but happy. Sad, because I need those shitty writers for this site, but happy because that means there is less bad journalism in the world. Well, that's bad for this site too. Dammit! Fortunately, there are still sites like Fansided with micro-sites run by morons. I shouldn't be mean, but fuck it, many of these micro-sites do seem like they are run by morons.

Hat tip to the emailer who sent this article to me. It is truly one of the hottest of hot takes about what an asshole Michael Jordan is. This micro-site is called Sir Charles in Charge, while the author's name is Mark. Okay. What's nice is Mark has a warning up on the micro-site so that anyone who reads his columns isn't in shock from what he/she/it is reading:

Mark is not your typical NBA fan or writer. While some may look the other way when their favorite team or player has a bad game Mark will usually attack that story and go against the grain. 

Because NOBODY gives hot takes and reactionary points of view about a player's bad game. If I had to make a list of those who have the guts to do this then the list would only include Mark, most of the ESPN staff paid to give a opinion, everyone on talk radio whether it is a host or caller, anyone in the comment section on a sports article, and professional sportswriters. It's some elite company Mark finds himself in. LeBron didn't have a good few games in a row? Mark is going to attack the fuck out of that story and point out that LeBron is a piece of shit. Can't handle it? Mark (or Charles) is in charge, so get the hell out of here.

This is what he finds fun about writing, giving fans the honest truth even if they wish not to hear it.

He gives the very truth AT THAT VERY MINUTE to fans, even if they don't like it. "Like it" being defined as "Aren't partial to hot takes based on a player having one bad game and these hot takes only serve the sole purpose of helping the person giving the hot take to gain attention."

Speaking of attention, here is his article about how Michael Jordan is the most disrespectful and overrated man in NBA history. That doesn't seem like an extreme or non-factual statement at all. Is it possible this conclusion is not based on facts and instead is simply a reflection of the author's biased opinion? The answer, is that it could not be possible. Try to disprove how disrespectful and overrated Michael Jordan is. You can't, because Mark is spitting the truth and you just don't want to hear it. It's not that he's wrong, you just can't handle the truth.

Just because Michael Jordan is viewed as the Greatest of All Time doesn’t mean he deserves the respect of everyone — certainly not mine

Well then. I wish I didn't hear this, but someone had to tell me.  

Michael Jordan may be the greatest in many eyes, “The GOAT,  Money,  ICON” or whatever other name he is called these days, but I never saw him as much more than a product of great marketing. 

This could be because you are stupid and confuse "Michael Jordan the basketball player" with "Michael Jordan the business man." There are a lot of athletes who receive chances to market products and they receive these opportunities because they are good at a sports. The fact an athlete has a lot of endorsements and is well-marketed doesn't mean that athlete is a product of marketing. It's especially hilarious that Michael Jordan is being criticized as a product of great marketing, especially considering those six NBA titles and all of the NBA records he holds speak for themselves with zero marketing required. 

Could he play the game? 

Uh-oh. I hope the answer to this isn't another thing I don't want to hear. 

Yes, he was a bad dude on the court and accomplished many wonderful things

Product of marketing. That's all.  

but the majority of those plays were being done by half of the league back then, he was just the one they decided to immortalize in commercials.

Wow, I seem to only recall one NBA player switching hands on a layup during the 1991 NBA Finals, but I'm sure I missed it. The NBA probably erased my memory and removed all evidence of other players doing this. I also don't remember too many players starting from the foul line and dunking the basketball, but I'm sure Jon Koncak and Cliff Livington were doing this type of thing all the time while Uwe Blab waited his turn to show off his dunking skills. I must have missed Alvin Robertson putting on a dunk clinic from the foul line or winning a dunk contest. I blame the vast conspiracy to prop up Michael Jordan that makes me forget that Jordan was just one of hundreds of players doing the things he did. I didn't realize half the league was scoring 30 points per game either. I wonder if these players noticed when they scored a basket their team didn't get credit for the points? What a conspiracy to market a single individual.

Have you ever seen Clyde “The Glide” Drexler play? 

No, only you have seen Clyde Drexler play because he has been edited out of NBA history forever in order to further the myth of Michael Jordan. 

If you have, then you would know of the great plays he made throughout his career as well, but rarely do you see him in any NBA spots for advertising.

Part of the reason is he wasn't exactly a natural in front of a camera in local ads.

Not to mention, you don't see Drexler in any NBA spots for advertising because he's been retired for almost two decades now. You don't see Michael Jordan in any NBA advertisements anymore either. The only reason Jordan is still relevant in the NBA is because he owns an NBA team. Like he owns the team and so that sort of still gives him some connection to the NBA today. It's hilarious this writer (and I'm being kind in calling him that) is using Clyde Drexler has a comparison to Jordan, because Drexler has been recognized for his talents. He was on the Dream Team and he is in the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame. It's not like he's getting the short end of the stick when comparing his achievements to Michael Jordan's achievements. Drexler has one NBA title. Jordan has six NBA titles. Who cares which player was in the NBA ads? Jordan was a better player than Drexler and probably had a better agent (David Falk) than Clyde Drexler. But if you insist on pushing the point, here is Drexler in the signature NBA ads of the 80's. This is awkward now. 

Jordan shoes were being sold to the public for $100+ and for the kids that couldn’t afford them they were out robbing the kids that could.

Okay, well then. Now that you bring it up, Michael Jordan probably is responsible for kids robbing kids so they could have his shoes. What's weird is I have heard this argument before. I just don't know where. 

At some point make a statement to the public to stop the nonsense, drop the prices of your shoes to make them affordable, the same way that Stephon Marbury and Chris Webber did.

Now I know where I heard this argument. From Stephon Marbury. So basically the author is stealing talking points from Stephon Marbury in an effort to show how overrated Michael Jordan is and how he is a jerk.

But again, the author is stealing talking points from Chris Webber. Webber wanted more reasonably priced shoes, so his Fila shoes sold for $85 to $90, which is more reasonable than how much Jordan's shoes costs, but also not exactly cheap. The only examples of cheap shoes the author could come up with were shoes from Chris Webber and Stephon Marbury. I had to double check to make sure this article wasn't written in 1999.
 
Through all the ball-hogging, push-offs and crying when someone dared to touch him, 

It's like this article was not just written in 1999, but written in 1989. These are many of the same criticisms people had of Jordan back then. By the way, Jordan is 42nd all-time in career assists and he averaged 5.3 assists per game during his career, while Clyde Drexler averaged 5.6 assists per game. Maybe Jordan ball-hogged in a way where he got his teammates involved nearly as much as Clyde Drexler did. 

I still admired his game until the NBA decided it was time to win the gold medal, that’s when my hate for Jordan really became apparent.

This is when the author's hate for Jordan became apparent...to himself? The 1992 Olympics is when the author became fully self-aware.

He was the face of the NBA 

But only because the other players were edited out of commercials and erased from the memory of those watching the games. 

but it wasn’t going to be a “Dream Team” without him and he used that power to his advantage. Before the team ever assembled there was a power struggle going on between the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons, mainly between Jordan and Isiah Thomas.

The struggle on the court was mainly between Jordan and the entire Pistons team. The Pistons had the "Jordan Rules" where they essentially beat the shit out of him if he got near to the rim with the basketball. 

The Pistons treated the Bulls with as much respect that an alcoholic step-father treats his step-children.

The alcoholic step-father, who became an alcoholic from years spent trying to convince everyone of Clyde Drexler's greatness, treats his children terribly by robbing them and stealing their Air Jordan shoes. If they were Marbury or Webber shoes, it wouldn't come to this, but because Air Jordan shoes are so expensive, sometimes a child just has to get robbed. 

Jordan’s hate for Detroit was evident on the court, but behind closed doors he was plotting. When the call came to construct the Dream Team he saw his chance to put his power to use. He wasn’t going to play if a certain player was on the team.

Let's see, I hated the Pistons and I hated Michael Jordan. The Dream Team was winning the Gold medal no matter if Isiah Thomas or Marlo Thomas (just to stick with the 80's theme of this article) was the point guard. Yep, I don't really care what Jordan did or didn't do to keep Thomas off the team.

The author also conveniently leaves out that Isiah Thomas started the whole beef back in 1985 by freezing Michael Jordan out in the All-Star Game, but any evidence that may not make Jordan seem like the jerk the author believes him to be should be omitted. So the author complains the NBA made Michael Jordan into a product of marketing while claiming they were ignoring other NBA stars (which is absolutely false) in their marketing for the league, but in this column he only uses information that makes Jordan look bad in his treatment of Isiah Thomas while ignoring any culpability of Thomas in Jordan's behavior towards him.

At the time, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas and John Stockton were the best PG’s in the NBA.

And two of them were on the Dream Team. Only 12 players could make the team. There are five positions on an NBA team and 12 spots on the Dream Team roster. There can't be three players at every position on the roster, so Thomas didn't make the team because Jordan (and a couple others) could play point guard if they absolutely needed him to. 

Even Jordan, with his childish ways, knew that, but because of the disrespect he felt the Pistons gave him over the years and with them walking off the court when they finally beat the “Bad Boys,” Jordan was going to make sure Thomas would never play for the gold.

So Jordan wouldn't play if Thomas was on the team because Thomas froze him out of an exhibition game and then Thomas acted like a fucking baby and wouldn't shake hands after the Bulls finally beat the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals? Jordan is the bad guy though? I don't like Michael Jordan, but it seems Thomas had some karma coming back to him for the bitch move of walking his team off the court in the Eastern Conference Finals. Maybe Thomas shouldn't piss off the best player in the NBA.

If Thomas played on the team, Jordan would not and the league was too busy making money off his brand that they could not afford to let that happen, so what did they do? The same thing they always done, they kissed his butt, gave him another pacifier and let him have his way.

So let me get this straight. The NBA was so busy making money off the 1992 Olympics they couldn't afford to have Michael Jordan not participate as part of the squad? It's hard to speculate accurately, but did the NBA have a reason to want Michael Jordan on the 1992 Dream Team instead of Isiah Thomas? I don't know, but I do know there were a lot of really good players left off the team. James Worthy didn't make the team either.

Despite this author's attempts to pin Thomas not being on the Dream Team solely on Michael Jordan, there were plenty of other players who may not have participated had Thomas joined the team. So losing Jordan probably wasn't ideal, but losing Barkley, Pippen, Bird and Jordan? That's enough to keep the third-best point guard in the NBA off the team. Tough choices had to be made anyway, so why choose a player who was on the border of not making the team AND there were plenty of guys on the team who didn't like him?

But in came Chuck Daly to head the Dream Team, one of the greatest coaches in history and also the coach of said Pistons and Thomas. That’s how you know this was all personal between Jordan and Thomas.

Why play for the coach and not with the player?

I don't think it's a question of whether Michael Jordan liked Isiah Thomas or not. He didn't. The fact Jordan didn't like Thomas doesn't mean that Jordan alone had Thomas kept off the Olympic team and that's why he's overrated and a jerk. 

Like I said, I respect what he accomplished on the court, but what he did to Thomas always rubbed me the wrong way. Imagine if LeBron did the same to Kevin Durant or Kobe Bryant — he would get crucified, but since it was Jordan it’s like it gets swept under the rug.

Yes, it gets swept under the rug in that 23 years later it is still talked about. If anything, the idea Jordan kept Thomas off the Dream Team has been discussed too much over the past 23 years. It's part of the lore of Michael Jordan and how competitive he was. If the author thinks Jordan allegedly keeping Thomas off the Dream Team has been swept under the rug then he hasn't been paying attention. 

He took his position of power within the NBA and took away a once in a lifetime chance for one of the games greats.

The numbers situation took away a lifetime chance for one of the games greats. That's what happened. I would love to hear from the author on which player (outside of Laettner, because one college player was making the team) that he would have left off. Who would it have been? The 11th person to make the team after the first 10 players was named was...get ready for it...Clyde Drexler. So should the guy who the author thinks was just as good at basketball as Jordan have been removed from the Dream Team? If not, who should have not made the team? There were only two centers who made the team, so one of those can't be removed. Pippen or Chris Mullin? That leaves the team short in terms of small forwards, and especially since Pippen could also play point guard, he had added value. The bottom line is there wasn't room for Thomas even if players other than Jordan didn't like him. 

I have mixed feelings about Daly as well.

Well, that's good to know. 

Thomas was your player and you agreed to go on without him. Tell Jordan to suck it up and be a man about the situation.

This would have been awkward for Chuck Daly to say considering he didn't pick the players that made the Dream Team. I'm sure Daly could have worked hard to get Thomas on the team, but he probably knew that would make his job a lot harder than it needed to be. Why fight so hard to bring on a guy that many of the players don't like anyway, a guy who is the third-best point guard on the roster? 

What about his Hall Of Fame speech? To some it was funny and entertaining but the reality of it was he took another opportunity and the spotlight of many others to stand on his mighty soapbox and show his true colors.

That's Michael Jordan. It's who he is. 

Wow, talk about a guy with a serious hero complex. He was still taking shots at guys for no reason. Still taking shots at Magic Johnson and George Gervin for freezing him out in the 1985 NBA All Star game, he flew the player he was passed over for in high school simply to rub it in his face.

How can we forget the classic line the “organization didn’t play with the flu in Utah” — oh wow, some balls on this guy.

Yes, wow, some balls on this guy. Jordan almost as much balls as it takes to claim in an article that Jordan was just the product of great marketing. And that link about Johnson and Gervin freezing out Jordan in the 1985 All Star Game is actually an article about Isiah Thomas freezing Jordan out. The author clearly wants to mislead his readers and pretend it wasn't Thomas who was behind Jordan being frozen out. If anyone is trying to sweep the truth under the rug, it's the author trying to sweep the truth of Thomas and his involvement in the Jordan freeze out under the rug.

There is a reason why Charles Barkley and Jordan have remained so close throughout the years while he and Pippen have not. Pippen was the flunky, while Chuck would easily tell Jordan about himself.

A person like Jordan needs that one to put him in his place (Derek Fisher and Bryant) and he respects that about Barkley. When everyone is kissing your backside you need someone to slap you in the face every once in a while.

So because Jordan wants someone to slap him in the fact and stop kissing his ass, he tried hard to get a player who probably at some point actually slapped him in the face and wouldn't kiss his ass left off the 1992 Dream Team? If you don't use logic at all, then this might make sense. Unfortunately, the idea Jordan respects people who don't kiss his ass, but conspired to have an NBA player who didn't kiss his ass left off the Dream Team doesn't square.

Respect is earned and as fast as you get it, it can be taken away. To many, Michael Jordan is untouchable, they can’t see why someone could not like they guy.

This article isn't about liking or not liking Jordan. It says that Michael Jordan is the most overrated NBA player. Please argue the point you are trying make in an effort to prove your claim. Don't move the goalposts or try to make it seem like you didn't call Jordan overrated and that's the same thing as simply not liking Jordan.

You like who you like, simple as that.

I just didn’t — or don’t — respect Michael Jordan.

You don't have to respect Michael Jordan. Even a stupid person knows not respecting someone doesn't mean that player is the most overrated person in NBA history. Don't be stupid and stop with the hot takes. I'm going to write something that you may not want to hear. Your writing is not good at all. This is an embarrassment on so many levels.