Jordan did his part, too, by turning his anger into a searing focus, first with 54 points to drive Chicago to a win in Game 4, 105–95. Then, it was Jordan’s triple-double (29 points, 10 rebounds, and 14 assists) that dominated the statistics column in Game 5, when Chicago took the series lead, 3–2. But it was Pippen’s successive blocks of putback attempts by New York’s Charles Smith late in Game 5 in New York that closed off the Knicks’ hopes. Then, when the Bulls completed their comeback in Game 6 in Chicago, it was Pippen again doing the final damage, a corner jumper and a trey, in a 96–88 victory.
The road had been rocky, but the Bulls were returning to their third straight NBA Finals, where Jordan would face his old caddy Charles Barkley, both of them at the top of the game for that instant. After several frustrating years in Philadelphia, Barkley had been traded to Phoenix before the 1992–93 season, and like that he had been reborn, earning league MVP honors and leading the Suns to sixty-two wins and a trip to the Finals after a serious playoffs bout with the Houston Rockets.
“It was a great Finals, when you look back on it, from an entertainment standpoint, competitive standpoint,” recalled Matt Guokas, who had coached Barkley in Philadelphia. “I think Charles, in his mind, felt recognized as a guy who was on the same plane with Michael Jordan.”
With the championship meeting, the personal competition between the two friends would now fall under the view of the larger audience. “Any time we’d get in a close game with the Bulls, Charles would want to guard Michael the last two or three minutes down the stretch,” Guokas recalled. “He had the guts, he had the stones. And Charles was not afraid to fail, either. He knew that there was a possibility that Michael could make him look bad. But he was almost the equal of an athlete that Michael was.”
Barkley was always annoyed by Jordan’s seemingly constant residence in a hotel room somewhere. “Sir Charles” loved to get out and carouse, to interact with the public, which was where he’d always found trouble in his Philadelphia days. But in Phoenix, the array of golf courses in the Valley of the Sun had meant that he had no trouble attracting Jordan for some fun.
The title bout between them was certainly hard fought, but it left a bitter aftertaste, with suggestions from the Bulls camp that Jordan had intentionally “played” Barkley for several years, softening him up with lavish gifts, so that he could dominate him on the court. Barkley himself would later be left to wonder, despite three years of friendship. Jordan had been displeased with Barkley’s practice habits with the Dream Team in Barcelona, and would later admit that he drew a competitive edge from that. Pippen, meanwhile, was not a Sir Charles fan and would later publicly berate him for “kissing Michael’s ass,” an accusation that left Barkley bristling. Yet it would remain largely an unanswered question. Had Jordan hoodwinked Barkley just when he was close to the main prize? Afterward, Jordan offered that the main difference between them was experience. He knew what to expect from the series in terms of pressure, but Barkley really didn’t. You had to be ready for that kind of burden, Jordan said.
For the TV audience, Barkley and Jordan were squared off in a pop culture war. Nike commercial versus Nike commercial. In his ads, Jordan pondered, “What if I were just a basketball player?” while Barkley in his spot declared, “I am not a role model,” playing on his controversial public image. Some critics saw him as another highly paid but irresponsible performer. Others understood that Barkley’s statement was a reminder that pro athletes were merely media images and that the real responsibility for instilling values in young people belonged in the home. Barkley explained as much, but that did little to deter his critics, who focused on the tabloid gossip, highlighted by supposed sightings of him with Madonna at a Phoenix restaurant. There was Jordan’s gambling, and Sir Charles was always Sir Charles.
The irony in 1993 was that Barkley had shown no forethought, no hesitation in trashing his own public image during his early NBA seasons, while the more circumspect Jordan had proceeded cautiously, always saying and doing the correct corporate things while persistently building Chicago into a winner. At times, when Barkley’s occasional bar fights or misguided public statements made headlines, Jordan had publicly come to his defense, the primary message being that Charles may tend to run his mouth before thinking, but he is an honest, genuine person and a tough competitor. Now, however, Jordan had arrived in Phoenix with his own pack of tabloid hounds sniffing out the trail of scandal.
Fortunately, the basketball was good enough to eclipse the other story lines. When the series opened in the brand-new America West Arena, the Bulls had plenty of confidence. They had always done well against Barkley’s Philadelphia teams. Pippen’s and Grant’s defense would shackle the burly forward again, and B. J. Armstrong had the quickness to stay with Phoenix point guard Kevin Johnson.
As if willed by a media strategist’s perfect timing, Jordan’s shadow life again surfaced on the eve of the championship series. No sooner had the Atlantic City casino jaunt fallen out of the news than Richard Esquinas stepped forward with a self-published book, Michael & Me: Our Gambling Addiction… My Cry for Help! In the book Esquinas went into great detail about his high-stakes golf wagering with Jordan.
In a taped interview on NBC at halftime of Game 1 of the Finals, Jordan admitted that he had lost substantial sums to Esquinas but nowhere near the figure claimed. Esquinas, meanwhile, presented copies of his tax returns and copies of Jordan’s checks. He had apparently paid off approximately $300,000 of the debt before turning to a Chicago lawyer to keep Esquinas at bay.
“Gamblers don’t belong in sports,” wrote columnist Dave Kindred in Sporting News. “They are vulnerable to extortion. They are vulnerable to temptations to bet on what they know best, their game. These vulnerabilities undermine the public’s confidence that the games are honest. But Jordan doesn’t seem to care. It’s as if he lives his life by the gospel decreed in his shoe shill’s pitch: Just do it.”
At no time was Jordan alleged to have bet on any NBA games, his defenders pointed out. If that was the case, it was the only thing Jordan didn’t bet on, Newsweek suggested. “At practice he’ll wager on trick shots or play Horse for cash. On the Chicago Bulls’ plane, he runs games of twenty-one or tonk, a sort of gin rummy. On the road, he hosts all-night poker games in his hotel room. Three years ago the team began using its own charter plane to protect the players’ privacy—but also, it seems now, to keep away the embarrassing view of the hundreds of dollars spread across airport-lounge tables, the stakes in Jordan’s card games.”
Questions about whether these distractions would hinder the Bulls were quickly put aside when Chicago claimed the first game, 100–92. Jordan scored 31 and Pippen 27, while the Bulls’ defense harassed Barkley into shooting just 9 for 25.
Perhaps the Suns had merely blinked in their first time in the championship spotlight, but they sank deeper into trouble in Game 2. Barkley and Jordan each scored 42 points, but Jordan’s accompanied a near triple-double with his 12 rebounds and 9 assists, plus 2 steals, all in forty minutes of playing time. He also made 18 of his 36 shots from the field and both of his three-point attempts, helping the Bulls to a 111–108 win.
The Chicago defense also clamped down on Kevin Johnson and wing Dan Majerle to take the 2–0 series lead. Part of the win can be attributed to a defensive scheme drawn up by Johnny Bach for Armstrong to counter Kevin Johnson, who grew frustrated and sat out much of the fourth quarter. Suddenly Phoenix faced three games in Chicago and the prospects of a sweep. But somehow the Suns managed to scratch out a 129–121, triple-overtime win in Game 3. “I thought it was never going to end,” Jackson said afterward.
Jordan responded with 55 points for a 108–98 win in Game 4 to give the Bulls a 3–1 series lead. Phoenix allowed him time and again to glide inside for handsome little dunks and bank shots. In forty-six minutes of playing time, he had made 21 of 37 from the floor, to go with 13 made free throws, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists. Phoenix pulled to within two at the end, but Armstrong�
�s pressure and a key late steal closed it out. Jordan’s point total tied Golden State’s Rick Barry for second place on the all-time NBA Finals single-game list. The record was held by Elgin Baylor, who scored 61 in a game against Boston in 1962.
Up three games to one with Game 5 on their home floor, the Bulls stood on the verge of their third straight. However, they strangely teetered there. Jordan swore to his teammates that he wouldn’t accompany them back to Phoenix if they failed to deliver the championship in the Stadium. To back that up, he scored 41 points in forty-four minutes on 16 of 29 shooting from the field, with 7 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 blocks. Regardless, Chicago stumbled, and the Suns busied themselves with defense. Jordan’s easy baskets disappeared as Phoenix congregated in the lane.
With Johnson scoring 25 and Barkley 24, the Suns got the win they needed, 108–98, to return the series to Arizona. Chicago’s previous championships had been marked by riotous celebration that rocked the city, so before Game 5, many merchants had boarded up their stores. “We did the city a favor,” Barkley said as he left town. “You can take all those boards down now. We’re going to Phoenix.”
Jordan was furious over the loss and angry with his teammates, who were grappling with their own disappointment. Behind the scenes, his wife and older sister pleaded with him to arrange for his jet to take the family to Game 6. He finally relented, perhaps figuring that the cost of the trip would stoke his focus on the task at hand.
The Jordan family remained riddled with division, with James and Deloris still fighting over proceeds and royalties from the sale of the Flight 23 stores. Sis described the circumstances as miserable as her parents sought to pull their children into the conflict, especially Michael. Sis sat back and looked at her brother in that moment with “no longer enough hours in his days, or enough hands to handle the many tasks that had been set before him.” She recalled, “I watched from afar as Michael juggled life on and off the court… riding the waves of mega success and bringing his teammates as well as his family along for the ride.”
“Michael seems to sense what a team needs,” recalled Bulls broadcaster Tom Dore. “They had just lost. But Michael walked on the plane going to Phoenix and said, ‘Hello, World Champs.’ He’s got a foot-long cigar, and he’s celebrating already because he knows the series is over. He knew, going to Phoenix, that they were going to win. It wasn’t a question with him, and I think that’s what the team had. They just had this arrogance. They weren’t mean about it. They just felt like they were going to win.”
That moxie seemed to drive Chicago through the first three quarters of Game 6 as the Bulls’ phalanx of guards—Jordan, Armstrong, Paxson, and seldom-used reserve Trent Tucker—fired in 9 three-pointers over the first three periods to stake Chicago to an 87–79 lead.
There, once again on the brink of the title, the Bulls turned cold. They missed 9 shots and had 2 turnovers their first 11 possessions of the fourth quarter. The Suns closed within a point, then surged to take a 98–94 lead with ninety seconds left. After a miss, Jordan pulled down a defensive rebound and wound his way through traffic to the other end for a short bank shot. It was 98–96 with 38 seconds to go. The shooting by Suns wing Dan Majerle had helped Phoenix back into the series, but on their next-to-last possession he delivered an air ball, which brought the Bulls one more chance, with 14.1 seconds to go. After a time-out, Jordan inbounded the ball to Armstrong, then got it back and passed ahead to Pippen. The play was drawn up to go back to Chicago’s sure thing. But Pippen saw that Jordan was covered, so he motored into the lane, where he was greeted by Suns center Mark West. Alone on the near baseline was Grant, who had scored a single point in the game, and who had had a stick-back opportunity moments earlier and had almost thrown the ball over the backboard. Pippen whipped him the ball. With the game on the line, Grant passed up the shot to send the ball out to Paxson, all alone in three-point land to the left of the key.
“I knew it was in as soon as Pax shot it,” Jordan said.
The three-pointer, along with Grant’s block of Kevin Johnson’s last shot, ended the suspense and brought the Bulls their third championship.
During the Finals, Jordan had averaged 41 points per game, breaking the championship series record of 40.8 points per game set by Rick Barry in 1967.
The party was restrained back in his suite after the game. Jordan was shirtless, in gym shorts. George Koehler was there, opening bottles of very expensive champagne. Quinn Buckner, too. But the quiet celebration was more about family. Sis and her mother sat with Michael on one couch. James sat facing them on another with Roz. They relaxed and smiled, and Michael even pounced on his younger sister for a brief wrestling bout. It would be the last time they were all together.
As his personal misery had mounted, there was little question among Jordan’s close associates that he had grown weary of the grind and the lack of privacy. In his public comments, he had made oblique references to retirement. He might have done it earlier if he hadn’t feared losing his product endorsement fees and Nike sales, writer Sam Smith had noted in The Jordan Rules. His off-court troubles had only increased the public perception that he might leave the game after this third title.
Reporters converged upon him afterward in the media sessions to ask if indeed he planned to retire. “No,” he assured them. “My love for this game is strong.”
PART IX
FAR AND AWAY
Chapter 29
THE LEXUS
HE HAD MADE winning seem too easy. Only Phil Jackson and the Bulls’ tight inner circle understood what a grind the three straight championships had been—that Jordan had been able to succeed with huge doses of will, mental strength, and even fear.
That tightly wound ball of purpose drifted in limbo that summer of 1993 as he neared a vortex of trouble and pain. Leading him there was James Jordan, whose world was likewise collapsing around him. He faced a paternity suit by a Chicago woman. The businesses he had started with Larry after the Flight 23 fiasco were now failing, as authorities moved in to collect unpaid taxes and suppliers began removing items from store shelves over unpaid bills. He was engaged in a furious battle with Deloris; joint bank accounts were closed, thus destroying the final shred of credit for his business. Payroll was unmade, and each phone call from his secretary seemed to bring yet more troubles. According to his older daughter, her father wearily complained to his children that his wife was trying to ruin him in the eyes of his children.
On July 22, 1993, James and Deloris Jordan each left their home in a Charlotte suburb and headed off in different directions. Mrs. Jordan caught a flight to Chicago to visit her son, and Mr. Jordan got into his cranberry-colored Lexus and headed across the state to Pender County to bury an old friend. The Lexus, a gift from his son, was an item of pride for James Jordan. The vanity license plate read UNC0023. The next day he was scheduled to fly to Chicago to enjoy a celebrity baseball game his son was hosting. Afterward his wife and son were scheduled to take an extended vacation in California.
Mr. Jordan’s fifty-seventh birthday had come and gone by the time his older daughter took a phone call from his secretary on August 2. She told Sis that she was alarmed. While James Jordan usually checked in every day, the secretary had not heard from him in almost two weeks. It was then that the daughter learned of the dire circumstances of her father’s business. Payroll checks had bounced, causing employees to walk off the job. The secretary also told the daughter that Mr. Jordan had missed his flight to Chicago on July 23.
For years, James Jordan had traveled for days at a time, trying to keep pace with his son’s busy schedule. “He would go off alone a lot,” his son explained later, “sometimes if he and my mother had a disagreement, or just to be on his own. He enjoyed retirement so much and doing whatever he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it. So it wasn’t peculiar.”
Sis then phoned her mother, who had just returned home after nearly two weeks on the road, and relayed the secretary’s concerns. Deloris Jordan noted that th
e house appeared just as she had left it, and that it appeared no one had slept in the beds. But she sought to allay her daughter’s concerns, saying that wherever James Jordan was, she was sure that was where he wanted to be.
Growing Concern
On August 4, Sis again phoned her father’s business and discovered that he still had not checked in. Two days later, she learned that her mother and Larry had visited the business and that Deloris Jordan had paid the outstanding bills. To the daughter, the payment seemed a sign that perhaps her parents were beginning to get past their conflicts. That weekend Sis phoned her mother, who said she suspected that Mr. Jordan was in Hilton Head, where he was thinking of moving.
Several days later, a neighbor phoned and told Sis to turn on the television. James Jordan’s Lexus had been found stripped and vandalized. It was upon hearing this same news that Michael realized something was dreadfully wrong.
“He treasured that car,” Jordan said later.
Police had found the Lexus on August 5 near a wooded area off a main road in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The back window was smashed out, and the car had been stripped of its stereo speakers, tires, and vanity plates. Authorities had tracked the vehicle through a Lexus dealership and then contacted the Jordan family. Authorities searched the area around the vehicle but found nothing. They were able to determine that Mr. Jordan had attended the funeral July 22, then visited with a female friend that evening before leaving to make the three-and-a-half-hour drive home to Charlotte.
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