Michael goes to the Hall tomorrow

[Tigers_eye]

The greatest player ever to lace them up will be inducted in the Hall of Fame tommorow. Sept 11, 2009. His legacy will remain in my heart. I was fortunate enough to watch him fly. Unworldly moves that could never been drawn up by coaches. Tenacity unmatched. Willing a team to win unheard of. Superstars make others around better. He did that and some. Not forgetting his roots shows his character. Giving homage to David Thompson (Wolf pack - NC state) is priceless. David Thompson was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan (Tar heels - NC).

Some where Dean smith will be smiling, so will all his once coaches, teammates and opponents. I hope Scottie is present there.

Air Jordan,
You changed the game. "I believe I can fly".

[Tigers_eye]

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP)—Michael Jordan was the best, no doubt about it.
That’s what Charles Barkley was forced to acknowledge in 1984, when he came to the U.S. Olympic trials believing he was the best player in the nation and left realizing someone was better.

“I think it wouldn’t be fair or realistic to say I thought he was going to turn out to be the greatest basketball player ever,” Barkley said, “but I knew he was good.”

Countless others would call Jordan the best in the 25 years since.
Best on the biggest stages. Best in the clutch. Best product pitchman.

Best basketball player ever.

“Oh, yeah, and I mean I don’t think it’s even close,” said Phoenix Suns general manager and former Jordan teammate Steve Kerr.
And now he takes his place alongside all the greats that came before him.
Jordan will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame on Friday, a final honor for someone who’s already won everything else.
...
Others have won more or scored more, but Jordan might top them all.
“I think you have to be realistic,” Barkley said. “Michael Jordan to me is the best basketball player ever.”

His entrance into the Hall is bringing unprecedented attention, forcing the enshrinement ceremonies to be moved to Springfield’s Symphony Hall, with a capacity of about 2,600 that is more than double what the Hall of Fame can hold.
“Every class is special, there’s no question about that, but this one seems to rise a bit above the normal class and obviously it’s because of who’s in the class,” said John Doleva, the Hall’s president and CEO.

“Not only Michael Jordan, but others that are joining him in this class. But he does bring a lot of notoriety and a lot of interest and obviously has a very broad fan base around the world, so I would say this is the biggest enshrinement we’ve had.”

Doleva said nearly 60 Hall of Famers—more than for any induction—are returning for the festivities. He estimated there were nearly double the usual number of requests for media credentials. [even hall of famers don't want to miss the event. Everyone wants to be part of the history]

“I’m anxious to see who’s there, but I’ve got to think there are going to be a lot of former teammates,” said Kerr, who won titles with Jordan and Robinson and was traveling to Springfield on Thursday.

Besides replica jerseys and rings from the championships he won playing for North Carolina, the Chicago Bulls, and the U.S. Olympic team, Jordan’s exhibit honors his legacy as a pitchman. There’s a collection of his Air Jordans, the backbone of an endorsement empire that won the sneaker market for Nike and paved the way for today’s players to make millions off the court.

“We all owe Michael Jordan a lot of money,” said Barkley, who is Sloan’s presenter. “There’s three guys we owe a lot of money to. First there was Magic (Johnson), then (Larry) Bird. They really turned the NBA around, but Michael Jordan really took it to a whole other level. If you talk about golf, there was Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger (Woods) took it to a whole other stratosphere. And we do, we do owe Michael Jordan and I thank him a great deal for that.”

Woods, as fierce a competitor as anyone, has succeeded Jordan as perhaps the world’s most recognizable athlete.

“I remember the countless hours I spent with Michael in the gym feeding him balls,” Woods said. “He would just shoot all night. And we thought that, yeah, he just showed up to the game and off he went and scored 45 and went home. You don’t realize what he did to prepare for that.”
The weekend events began Thursday night, with the enshrinement Friday night followed by a ring ceremony Saturday at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. Though it’s largely a celebration of Jordan, he said during the election news conference in April that the Hall of Fame wasn’t fun for him, “because at that time, your basketball career is completely over.”

Maybe the greatest one in history.

“Michael Jordan—unparalleled skills, ultimate competitor, consummate team player, and an assassin in clutch time,” Hall of Fame coach and ESPN analyst Jack Ramsay said.
And on Friday, a Hall of Famer.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...v=ap&type=lgns
+++
We all know What Magic would say about Michael. Larry already said it while playing against him. He is indeed the greatest. Even greater than Wilt, Oscar, Russel.

[cricman]

Micheal Jordans Resume

.200 Minor Legaue Baseball Player
Drafted Kwame Brown
Traded Rip Hamilton
Didn't Want Pip drafted
Had Stern Cheat for him in 93, 97, 98
Horrible Gambler
Didn't get his degree
Horrible Hanes Ad's

[One World]

Shaq is King.

[ialbd]

when you visit banglacricket.com/alochona main page, under Other sports this thread reads as "Michael goes to Hall..." and I first read this as Michael goes to Hell [Michael Jackson].....

was just getting ready for a good laugh before I found its the other legend Michael....

[Tigers_eye]

History remembers Joe Dumars as one of the best defenders of his generation, strong and sturdy, swift and sure. As soon as the Detroit Pistons drafted him, Dumars understood his division dictated the most arduous job in basketball would belong to him for a long, long time: Defend Michael Jordan. Over and over.


Everyone has his stories of defending Jordan. Mostly, they are nightmares. Mostly, they never end well. Jordan wasn’t so much a basketball player, but a force of nature. He had a relentless resolve. On his way to his Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction, Jordan treated every game as a referendum on his greatness. From preseason to the playoffs for 14 years, Dumars’ was among the most thrilling and thankless job in the game. All M.J., all the time.
“The thing that I always felt was that I could never get discouraged,” Dumars said. “He could mentally and emotionally wear down a lot of guys, and it was so easy to let that happen when a guy is dominant, and can score with such ease. The thing was: You were going to witness phenomenal plays up close against him. And you could never drop your head or show any kind of emotion.

“You had to just turn back and go down the other end of the court, even though, in the back of your mind, you’re saying to yourself, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no way he just made that play.’ ”

Only, Jordan did. Over and over. Until Jordan had a complete supporting cast, Dumars and the Pistons made life hell for him. They were the late ’80s hurdle to the Bulls’ championship cusp. Chuck Daly transformed the NBA with the Jordan Rules, the defensive alignment that delivered help to Dumars on Jordan everywhere on the floor. From Bill Laimbeer to Dennis Rodman, Rick Mahorn to John Sally, the Bad Boys treated Jordan with a collaborative contempt.

The Pistons ended the Bulls’ season twice in the Eastern Conference playoffs late in the decade, and did it with a physicality and tenacity that began an era of brutish basketball born out of a belief that it was the way to stop Jordan.

“Wherever he caught the ball, I knew where the help [defense] was going to be,” Dumars said. “I wouldn’t have to look around, or call for it, or force him one way or another. When you were defending him, it was a big deal that you didn’t have to look around and call for help. When you have to turn around and start pointing to spots for guys to go, you had no chance.

“For me, you had to put yourself out there against Michael. You couldn’t play conservatively. You had to take some chances if you were going to have any success. He’s still going to make spectacular plays on you, and yet you have to be willing to not just sit back and play it safe and think, ‘Well, I’m going to play off him and just give up shots.’ That’s not going to work.

“If Michael was ever frustrated against us, he never showed it. He would never let anyone see it.”

Once the Bulls had a fully bloomed supporting cast around Jordan, the Pistons could no longer hold them off. Jordan would own the Eastern Conference. Indiana would rise and fall. So would the New York Knicks. “You could beat him in a game, and maybe stretch him to the limit in a series, but at the end of the day, you couldn’t conquer Mt. Jordan,” former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy says now.

Funny thing, too: Dumars would watch those series with the Knicks and Indiana Pacers, watch Jordan get into vicious trash-talking episodes with John Starks and Reggie Miller, and it amazed him. With Dumars and Jordan, that never happened. “Not in 14 years was there ever a negative word said between us,” Dumars said.
In fact, Jordan would ask about Dumars’ wife and kids, and Dumars would ask about Jordan’s, and there wouldn’t be much else for the next 2½ hours of basketball. “I would take a tough screen and get hit hard by another player and he would walk by under his breath, ‘You OK?’ And I’d do the same with him. But for us, that was it.”

Through it all, Michael Jordan had a way of testing and trying defenders like no one else. Now, he goes to the Hall maybe they can all take a deep, deep breath. Finally, the ball is out of his hands.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...yhoo&type=lgns

Indeed a nice read. What pleasure it was to see him dominate any body and every body.

[cricman]

Not a humble bone in that Mans Body, He roasted everybody he could ... He just wanted to let the world know that he his still the best ever.

Tex: No I in Team
MJ: Theres an I in Win.

He was clearly drunk ... I was cracking up the entire time. He's a funny guy