Jordan will be featured throughout the season in what the network calls “MJ: Insights to Excellence.”
Mike Tirico and NBC did on Tuesday what few NBA defenders had ever done — they made Michael Jordan miss.
Tuesday marked a night of returns for the NBA. The regular season tipped off with a double-header. The league found its way back to NBC after more than 23 seasons elsewhere. John Tesh’s ‘Roundball Rock’ serenaded us, and Michael Jordan returned.
My plan was to come for Roundball Rock and stay for MJ. I bought in. I’m an ‘80s baby who grew up drinking Gatorade and begging my parents to buy me Jordan’s, both of which would be crucial to me (spoiler alert, not) becoming an NBA player.
There I was sometime around 8:30 pm ET, anxiously waiting for Mike Tirico’s interview with Jordan to occupy my screen. I was already fat and happy because, well, I am fat. And two, Roundball Rock returned just long enough to take me back to simpler days. Days that were occupied mostly by thoughts of Saved by the Bell’s Kelly Kapowski, AOL, and Pizza Hut’s $5 streetball.
Ahh, the ‘90s.
CHICAGO – 1997: Michael Jordan #23, Scottie Pippen #33 and Dennis Rodman #91 of the Chicago Bulls catch their breath during a 1997 NBA game at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. Copyright 1997 NBAE (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
Michael Jordan Was Back For NBA Opening Night
Finally, Tirico and Jordan hit my TV from one of MJ’s mansions, both suited up.
My God, it’s finally happening.
Where are Pippen and Rodman hiding? Is Phil Jackson roaming around the kitchen? Do I spy Luc Longley in the foyer?
I’m pretty sure this is the first time most of us have had the chance to see and hear Jordan speak at any length since The Last Dance.
Is Michael Jordan going to talk about LeBron? How about his falling out with Charles Barkley? Will he tear into the league All-Star game? And what about the unwatchable Dunk Contest?
Answer: none of the above.
Instead, in the first installment of what NBC has titled “MJ: Insights to Excellence,” we got less than five minutes of vanilla Jordan rather than Rare Air.
About the only thing Jordan said that was semi-interesting was that he hadn’t touched a basketball in years, outside of shooting one nerve-inducing free throw in front of a bunch of kids and a homeowner at the Ryder Cup.
It was a decent enough story, but certainly not worthy of the belly laugh Tirico offered (at the 1:17 mark of the video below).
That’s a manufactured laugh you keep in your back pocket for when you’re on a first date seated across from a potential slump buster.
I hoped that Tirico, running the point for NBC, would feed MJ the same way B.J. Armstrong and Ron Harper did during the Bulls days, paving the way for Jordan to finish things with an exclamation point.
What we got was Tirico playing the role of point guard Juan Dixon, feeding Wizards’ Mike in his 40-year-old final season.
Even Jordan can’t make ‘em all.
Follow along on X @OhioAF or email me: anthony.farris@outkick.com
