COUNTERPOINT: Michael Jordan's 3-Minute "Interview" On Last Night's NBA On NBC Was Amazing. (And Better Than Anything Lebron James Has Done In 20 Years.) Give Us More MJ Because He Could Make Talking About Watching Paint Dry Captivating

Last night, the greatest player to ever play the game of basketball, Michael Jordan made his much-awaited, highly anticipated return(?) to basketball television. 

And despite the wet-blankets, of which there are many, downplaying his appearance on NBC's opening night broadcast, it was fucking great.

Greenie did what Greenie does and mentioned it in his blog - 

and to his credit, he had the right take. 

Some fluff here and there, but really if we're being honest, the whole segment I just kept repeating to myself

"holy shit, Michael Jordan is back on my TV talking basketball"

Then today, Hubbs came back and said it was a big snooze fest. 

And although I love Hubbs, and find myself agreeing with his level-headedness and commonsense very often, I couldn't disagree with him more here.

Michael Jordan doing a tight, three-minute halftime feature wasn’t a letdown. It was the whole point. The entire value of Jordan in 2025 is that he doesn’t show up and act like every other retired All-Star auditioning for a full-time media gig.

Would I have fucking LOVED getting 30 minutes of Jordan talking about the gaping, Bonnie Blue sized hole in the Eastern Conference now that the Celtics are essentially on hiatus this season, the Bucks are irrelevent, and the two most jinxed franchises- The Knicks and Cavs- are front runners to represent the conference in The Finals? Would I have loved hearing Jordan tear the Bulls front-office to shreds for bumbling, fumbling, and stumbling their way through the entire post-Jordan era (minus a short period where the league fixed the draft for them to land hometown hero Derrick Rose)? You betcha. 

In fact, you could ask Mike to talk about something as mundane as watching the grass grow, or paint drying, and people would be locked the fuck in. Hanging on every word. Fascinated and hypnotized. He's just that enigmatic and captivating. 

But baby steps, guys. 

It's a long season.

People confuse “longer” with “better” because they think access is supposed to mean saturation. 

Jordan has spent 30 years doing the exact opposite. The guy appears twice a decade, drops a few perfectly crafted lines, and suddenly everybody everbody remembers why he still feels bigger than any active athlete today. 

If he’s sitting on a couch every week breaking down pick-and-roll coverage, that aura evaporates in two months.

NBC wasn’t trying to turn him into Charles Barkley. They are treating him like what he is- a once-in-a-lifetime presence whose voice lands harder because it isn’t casual. 

You don’t take someone like Jordan and stick him at a folding table to spit out hot takes between Subway ads. You let him enter the broadcast the way a movie uses a score- short, sharp, precise, and memorable.

The whole “he’s cashing in” thing is lazy. 

If MJ really wanted to cash in, he could sit in a studio five nights a week collecting a blank check. This is the complete fucking oppsoite of that. This is him protecting his own mythology. When you’re actually the standard, you don’t need to campaign for relevance. You define it already. Which Jordan does. 

And NBC isn’t burning him all at once. Which, despite my selfishly wanting an hour of him each week, they're being smart about, and rationing him. They’re pacing it out. They know the moment you make him a weekly pundit, he becomes just another former superstar yelling about effort or defense, bitching about how soft these guys today are. The mystique disappears the second he becomes regularley accessible.

Jordan doesn’t need three segments a night and a swivel chair. He shows up like a comet, not a weatherman. He is one of one. 

And make no mistake. I think Lebron is one of the greatest players to ever play the game. But he is no Michael Jeffrey Jordan. And nothing he has done interview, commentary, or media wise off of a basketball court comes close to as fascinating or captivating as that 3-minute tidbit with Jordan was. Sorry but facts are facts. 

p.s. - for everybody slamming Tirico for being awestruck and saying "come on", and "stop it", over and over- glass houses man. Or whatever. I would like to see anybody sitting in a chair across from His Airness and just get a few simple words out. How can you blame the guy? You'd turn into Simple Jack so fast your head would spin and you know it. So cut my paisan Mike some slack.

p.p.s. - Lebron's army are big time mad at me for "dragging him into" this when it had nothing to do with him. But I couldn't disagree more. He, and they, have made the entire last 10 years about measuring up to Jordan in every which way and using trigonometry to prove why he's better. Again, quality > quantity always. Jordan is a fine Louis XIII, Lebron is a well, or bottom shelf Hennessey. 

Speaking of Hennessey. What a whore. Imagine MJ ever lowering himself to this kind of charade? Not on your lfie