My Opinion
Without its shining star, NBA will be passe

From what I can tell through my limited life experiences, when employees of most major industries go on strike, we all get by.

The coffee-breathing Greyhound bus drivers don’t feel like dropping commuters off in the city? Oh well, take the train. The brown sockers who make up the UPS army don’t feel like delivering packages in subur bia? Try Fed Ex.

Hence it came as no surprise that when the financially struggling (yeah, right) employees of the National Basketball Association refused to lace up their sneaks and shoot hoops, most of the sports world barely blinked.

Up went NFL and college basketball ratings and down went profits on sales of Patrick Ewing jerseys.

Then, last week, just when it seemed all was lost, someone decided there ought to be some pro hoops in 1999, and the players and owners scrapped together the loose edges for an NBA schedule.

And the questions rained like errant 3-pointers: How many games? What players were still free agents? What was the name of that No. 1 draft pick again? How popular will the NBA be in the upcoming strike-shortened season and will anybody really care?

Personally, I like college basketball better than pro -- more enthusiasm, more genuine spirited competition, less money, less ego. But it's almost impossible to completely ignore the NBA, and anyone with two eyes and/or ears knows the name of the NBA's greatest ambassador, Michael Jordan.

Maybe they don't know of his role in Space Jam, or of his ridiculously long line of sneakers, or of his futile attempt to take his skills to the baseball diamond. But whether or not you are a sports fan infatuated with detail, in fact, whether or not you are even a sports fan at all, you know the name. He's Mike. MJ. Jordan. Mr. October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May and June. Ya know, "If I could be like Mike." The world knows Michael Jordan.

OK, so let's analyze this. We've got a league on the ropes, suddenly interested in playing again. We've got a single player more well known than milk and cookies. With the NBA strike over, the logistics seemed simple. Floundering league plus heroic player … salvation for the NBA, right? Wrong, at least according to the front pages of yesterday's USA Today and New York Times.

Both national publications yesterday reported Jordan has likely decided to retire before the start of this season. On first instinct, I thought maybe the papers were wrong. Maybe it's just temporary, like MJ's stint in minor league baseball. But at 35, this seems to be the real deal. Or the last deal.

So today as we all soak in the somewhat shock that No. 23 turned 45 turned back to 23 may never again light up hardwoods, let's take a moment of silence to remember his career…

OK, that's enough. I'll spit out the stuff that everyone will write and say over the next few weeks to spare you all. Jordan was and is the greatest basketball player of all time. He did it all -- MVPs, championship rings, scoring titles, putting up with Dennis Rodman, etc. For his entire career, when Jordan did something, it never went unnoticed. When his father was killed, the sports world shared his pain. When his baseball career flopped, the sports world rooted for his return to the Chicago Bulls. When he sneezed the sports world said God bless you. When he won a game with a buzzer beater the sports world vicariously mobbed the floor, and when he claimed to have been fouled, the sports world nodded in accordance.

Now he says he wants out. The NBA players and owners are probably upset. In interviews they'll say he may have been the best ever. They'll say he will be missed.

I say it serves the NBA right.

With Jordan's entrance into retirement ignites the sports world's entrance into a state of apathy toward the NBA.

You see if it was ever to happen in the near future that the NBA would somehow be saved and restored to its state of popularity before the strike -- quite the superhuman task -- it would have been Jordan doing the saving.

The NBA isn't only losing its greatest player of all time. It's losing its greatest salesman. But the NBA doesn't deserve to be saved. It no longer deserves Jordan.

Maybe had the season started on time, Jordan would have decided to give it a final go-around. Maybe if the two opposing factions had been a little firmer in deliberations, MJ would have participated. Maybe had he not wasted a year swinging bats he would have put in another year slamming basketballs.

Maybe the NBA is doomed.

And you know what else? Maybe nobody cares.