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Michael Jordan stormed into the NBA after he was picked by the Chicago Bulls as the third pick in the 1984 NBA draft. “His Airness” won Rookie of the Year honors, was selected into the All-Star team in his first season and helped push the league to unprecedented heights.
According to former NBA player Gilbert Arenas, MJ is the GOAT for saving the NBA. Here’s what Arenas had to say on his podcast:
“Bron [James], I’m sorry, my guy. Jordan is back, the GOAT, and this is why. You got to be the GOAT if you ran cocaine out of the ‘80s. You literally ran the cocaine out of these players. You was running circles around them that in the ‘90s, they had to clean they sh*t up.
“The NBA had a really huge problem with the booger sugar. They were literally throwing games for drug habits. So, I have to give it to Michael Jordan. He’s back, the GOAT for what he did in the ‘80s.
“He was a clinic by himself.
Before the 1990s started, Michael Jordan was already a four-time scoring champ and a steals champ twice. He had a jaw-dropping 1987-88 season when he won the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year honors in the same year.
Arenas were filled to the rafters wherever Jordan played. He was fast becoming the face of the NBA, a league that had gained notoriety for its drug issues.
Michael Jordan was well aware of the problem hounding the league as the Bulls were hooked into it as well. In an episode of the “Last Dance,” Jordan had this to say about the drug addiction plaguing his team:
“I hear this deep voice, ‘Who is it?’ ‘MJ!’ ‘Ah, f**k he's just a rookie. Don’t worry about it.’ So he opened up the door and I walked in. Practically the whole team was in there. And it was like things I’d never seen in my life as a young kid. You got your lines over here, you got your weeds over here, women over here.
“The first thing I said was, ‘Look, man. I’m out!’ Cause all I can think about was they come in and raid this place right about now. I am just as guilty as everybody else in this room. From that point on, I was more or less on my own.
The Chicago Bulls were called the “Traveling cocaine circus” in the NBA when Michael Jordan entered the league. Chicago wasn’t the only team whose players were hooked on drugs.
In the book “Larceny Games: Sports Gambling, Game Fixing and the FBI,” FBI informants revealed that a few New York Knicks players fixed games. The game-fixing reportedly happened during the 1981-82 season.
The investigation was rumored to have spread across different teams but eventually fizzled out in 1986 due to a lack of physical evidence.
Michael Jordan is still considered to be the GOAT among current NBA players
Michael Jordan retired after the 2002-03 season. Nearly twenty years on, some current NBA players still consider him to be the GOAT over LeBron James.
The Athletic conducted an anonymous poll on who this generation of players considers the greatest to play in the NBA. 58.3% voted for “His Airness” while 33% gave their nod to “King James.”
The GOAT debate will not end anytime soon. But one thing is certain - Jordan made an impact from the day he set foot in the NBA and continues to do so two decades later.
