Michael Jordan entered the NBA in 1984, and 14 years later, was universally acknowledged as the greatest to ever play the game. Jordan was a phenomenon, who helped bring the league to worldwide popularity with his incredible play and law-defying numbers.
Jordan was not expected to physically succeed in the NBA. At 6’6, he was considered a smaller player, and smaller players were not finding a lot of success in the NBA at the time. While MJ had a solid stint in college, where he won a national championship, the NBA was quite literally considered a very different ball game.
Jordan made his debut on October 26th in 1984. After being selected third overall by the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Draft, Jordan went on to find success with Team USA at the Olympics. In fact, MJ missed his draft night because he was in Bloomington, Indiana for Team USA’s Olympic team trials.
Upon his return, his stock had risen greatly, and there was much anticipation for his debut.
The day of his debut also marked the day he signed his very first shoe deal with Nike, putting ink to a deal worth $500,000 spread across 5 years. He then went on to make his debut against the Washington Bullets, where he went on to have a solid debut, putting up 19 points, 7 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 2 steals.
37 YEARS AGO TODAY 🐐
MICHAEL JORDAN signed with Nike ($500K/year for 5 years) & made his NBA debut: 16 PTS, 7 AST, 6 REB, 4 BLK, 2 STL
SEASON HIGHLIGHTS
All-Star
All-NBA 2nd team
Rookie of the Year
28.2 PTS, 6.5 REB, 5.9 AST, 2.4 STL, 52% FGpic.twitter.com/F9DV7JwG3B
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) October 26, 2021
Later on, when Jordan was asked about the difficulty in transitioning from the collegiate game to the NBA, he gave a hilariously coy response. Jordan noted that the transition was actually quite easy, and he hadn’t struggled too much to make the transition.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVfzrh0rLNe
“It’s been pretty easy.”
Jordan went on to have an incredible rookie season, where he won the Rookie Of The Year award, became an All-Star, and was named to the All-NBA second team. Most recently, the shoes he wore on his debut with the Chicago Bulls sold at an auction for a whopping $1.5 million.
Jordan’s rookie year can’t be matched by many players. In fact, the only player whose rookie year can be compared with Jordan is the one who people feel is the closest to him; LeBron James. James wants to surpass Jordan to become the greatest of all time, even mentioning that he is trying to catch up to his 6 NBA championships.
Whether LeBron will be able to surpass Jordan or not remains to be seen. But there is no denying that there will never be any player who will come close to matching the combination of dominance and confidence of Michael Jordan.
