Michael Jeffrey Jordan also known by his initials MJ, is an American former professional basketball player and businessman. His biography on the official National Basketball Association (NBA) website states: “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.”
MJ played fifteen seasons in the NBA, winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. Jordan is the principal owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA and of 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. He was integral in popularizing the basketball sport and the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s,becoming a global cultural icon.
Early Life
Jordan was born at Cumberland Hospital in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City, on February 17, 1963, the son of bank employee Deloris (née Peoples) and equipment supervisor James R. Jordan Sr. In 1968, he moved with his family to Wilmington, North Carolina. Jordan attended Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, where he highlighted his athletic career by playing basketball, baseball, and football. He tried out for the basketball varsity team during his sophomore year; at 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m), he was deemed too short to play at that level. His taller friend Harvest Leroy Smith was the only sophomore to make the team.
Motivated to prove his worth, Jordan became the star of Laney’s junior varsity team, and tallied some 40-point games. The following summer, he grew four inches (10 cm) and trained rigorously. Upon earning a spot on the varsity roster, Jordan averaged more than 25 points per game (ppg) over his final two seasons of high school play. As a senior, he was selected to play in the 1981 McDonald’s All-American Game and scored 30 points, after averaging 27 ppg, 12 rebounds (rpg), and six assists per game (apg) for the season. Jordan was recruited by numerous college basketball programs, including Duke, North Carolina, South Carolina, Syracuse, and Virginia. In 1981, he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in cultural geography.
Career Summary
Jordan played college basketball for three seasons under coach Dean Smith with the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a freshman, he was a member of the Tar Heels’ national championship team in 1982. Jordan joined the Bulls in 1984 as the third overall draft pick,and quickly emerged as a league star, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring while gaining a reputation as one of the game’s best defensive players. His leaping ability, demonstrated by performing slam dunks from the free-throw line in Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames “Air Jordan” and “His Airness”. Jordan won his first NBA title with the Bulls in 1991, and followed that achievement with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a three-peat. Jordan abruptly retired from basketball before the 1993–94 NBA season to play Minor League Baseball but returned to the Bulls in March 1995 and led them to three more championships in 1996, 1997, and 1998, as well as a then-record 72 regular season wins in the 1995–96 NBA season. He retired for the second time in January 1999 but returned for two more NBA seasons from 2001 to 2003 as a member of the Washington Wizards. During the course of his professional career he was also selected to play for the United States national team, winning four gold medals (at the 1983 Pan American Games, 1984 Summer Olympics, 1992 Tournament of the Americas and 1992 Summer Olympics), while also being undefeated.
Jordan’s individual accolades and accomplishments include six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards, ten NBA scoring titles (both all-time records), five NBA MVP awards, ten All-NBA First Team designations, nine All-Defensive First Team honors, fourteen NBA All-Star Game selections, three NBA All-Star Game MVP awards, three NBA steals titles, and the 1988 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He holds the NBA records for career regular season scoring average (30.12 points per game) and career playoff scoring average (33.4 points per game). In 1999, he was named the 20th century’s greatest North American athlete by ESPN, and was second to Babe Ruth on the Associated Press’ list of athletes of the century. Jordan was twice inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, once in 2009 for his individual career, and again in 2010 as part of the 1992 United States men’s Olympic basketball team (“The Dream Team”). He became a member of the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 2009, a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2010, and an individual member of the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2015 and a “Dream Team” member in 2017. In 2021, Jordan was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
One of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation, Jordan is known for his product endorsements. He fueled the success of Nike’s Air Jordan sneakers, which were introduced in 1984 and remain popular today. Jordan also starred as himself in the 1996 live-action animation hybrid film Space Jam and is the central focus of the Emmy Award-winning documentary miniseries The Last Dance (2020).He became part-owner and head of basketball operations for the Charlotte Bobcats (now named the Hornets) in 2006, and bought a controlling interest in 2010. In 2016, Jordan became the first billionaire player in NBA history.That year, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- Fun Fact:Jordan was the NBA’s highest-paid player only two seasons during his 15-year playing career.
Personal Life
Jordan is the fourth of five children. He has two older brothers, Larry Jordan and James R. Jordan Jr., one older sister, Deloris, and one younger sister, Roslyn. James retired in 2006 as the command sergeant major of the 35th Signal Brigade of the XVIII Airborne Corps in the U.S. Army. Jordan’s nephew through Larry, Justin Jordan, played NCAA Division I basketball for the UNC Greensboro Spartans and is a scout for the Charlotte Hornets.
Jordan has an astonishing height of 6ft 6in.(1.98m)
Jordan married Juanita Vanoy on September 2, 1989, at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. They had two sons, Jeffrey and Marcus, and a daughter, Jasmine.His two sons also play basketball. The Jordans filed for divorce on January 4, 2002, citing irreconcilable differences, but reconciled shortly thereafter. They again filed for divorce and were granted a final decree of dissolution of marriage on December 29, 2006, commenting that the decision was made “mutually and amicably”. It is reported that Juanita received a $168 million settlement (equivalent to $226 million in 2021), making it the largest celebrity divorce settlement on public record at the time.
On July 21, 2006, a judge in Cook County, Illinois, determined that Jordan did not owe his alleged former lover Karla Knafel $5 million in a breach of contract claim. Jordan had allegedly paid Knafel $250,000 to keep their relationship a secret. Knafel claimed Jordan promised her $5 million for remaining silent and agreeing not to file a paternity suit after Knafel learned she was pregnant in 1991; a DNA test showed Jordan was not the father of the child.
Jordan proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Cuban-American model Yvette Prieto, on Christmas 2011, and they were married on April 27, 2013, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church.nIt was announced on November 30, 2013, that the two were expecting their first child together. On February 11, 2014, Prieto gave birth to identical twin daughters named Victoria and Ysabel.
In 2019, Jordan became a grandfather when his daughter Jasmine gave birth to a son, whose father is professional basketball player Rakeem Christmas.
- Fun Fact: Jordan’s first contract with Nike, signed in 1984, was worth $500,000 per year, plus royalties. Nike paid him more than $100 million last year.
Net Worth
As of 2023, Jordan’s net worth is estimated at $2 Billion.
His salary during his career totaled $90 million, but he has earned $1.8 billion (pre-tax) from such corporate partners as Nike, Hanes and Gatorade.
MJ joined sports-betting firm DraftKings as a special advisor to the board and an investor in September 2020.
He also became a NASCAR team co-owner in late 2020.
Jordan, who owns the Charlotte Hornets, agreed to sell a minority stake in a 2019 deal that valued the NBA team at $1.5 billion
In 1991, Jordan purchased a lot in Highland Park, Illinois, where he planned to build a 56,000 square-foot (5,200 m2) mansion. It was completed in 1995. He listed the mansion for sale in 2012. He also owns homes in North Carolina and Jupiter Island, Florida.
