Michael Jordan is making his highly anticipated return to the NBA in a new role. He will be a ‘special contributor’ for NBC’s coverage of the league from the coming season.
John Salley, who is Jordan’s former teammate and a four-time NBA champion, appeared on the Rich Eisen show and made his feelings known on what to expect from MJ in this role. He expects we will see an unfiltered side of Jordan that the media has probably never seen before at this level.
“It’s going to be a lot of, ‘Yo, that boy s**ks! Man, I don’t know how they pay that guy. I wouldn’t have paid him.”
“He’s 62 now, he’s going to tell you what he thinks. I’m sure of that. But his perspective is from a killer. So, it’s going to be really, really good. And you know what? You can tell when somebody’s dogging it. Not as well as Michael. Michael can tell.”
“I think he’s going to give, I think it’s going to be, you know, at points. I don’t think he’s going to be constant every day.”
Salley expects that, due to his age, Jordan will no longer be held back by PR expectations and the politics that go on behind the scenes. Hence, we should expect an unfiltered analysis from Jordan whenever he makes an appearance for NBC next season.
Eisen goes on to reveal the suggestion he gave to NBC on how to do Jordan’s segment, somewhat similar to Shaqtin-A-Fool, a comedy segment that Shaquille O’Neal conducted for NBA on TNT.
He suggested that the show should be his unscripted reactions to things he hasn’t seen, which are shown to him similarly to the iconic iPad scene from ‘The Last Dance’ documentary. Salley felt that might be too much.
“You can’t be giving away your goods, man,” said Salley.
Before the topic of Jordan was brought up, Salley was admitting that he himself wants to make a return to television for basketball analytics, and hence, he pitched his own name to NBC as well. Unfortunately for him, NBC gave the available slots to Brad Daugherty and Tracy McGrady instead.
For Jordan, this return to television surprised almost all of his supporters and other NBA media figures like Charles Barkley, who was “100% shocked” to see Jordan’s return to the NBA.
While Jordan is famous for being ruthless to his opponents and not fearing anyone he faced, this will be the first time he takes up a role like this. He used to trash-talk players on the court but almost always remained private about his life and his disputes with anybody. Now, for the first time, the public will get to see an unfiltered side of Jordan that probably only his teammates and opponents had witnessed before.
