By Jim Litke
Associated Press
DETROIT ó Most people go into the Hall of Fame first.
Then they get the statue.
Not Michael Jordan.
Even as he stood in the ballroom of a downtown Detroit hotel Monday for the announcement of his election to the Hall class of 2009, the same snowstorm that swirled outside blanketed a statue erected almost 15 years ago in front of the United Center in Chicago ó The House That Jordan Built ó a few hundred miles to the south.
The figure cast in bronze atop a granite base soars toward the sky, a basketball at the end of its outstretched arm. The pose captures almost perfectly the illusion of Jordan: that he could fly. But down near the bottom, where the statue is affixed to the earth, is an inscription that represents the reality: “The best there ever was. The best there ever will be.”
Jordan is set for induction in Septemeber with his Dream Team teammates David Robinson and John Stockton. Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan and Rutgers women’s coach C. Vivian Stringer are also part of a class.
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What made Jordan that, and more, was not the string of NBA scoring titles, regular season and finals MVP awards, not even all the championships he won. A few members of the exclusive club he will formally join upon induction into the Hall come September boast accomplishments just as outsized.
No, the real wonder of Jordan is that he always kept score. Every minute of every day.
In his front yard, against an older brother on a makeshift court of caked dirt … at North Carolina, where he swished a last-second jump shot to win an NCAA championship … in Barcelona, where he led the Dream Team to a second Olympic gold medal … on the team bus playing cards, gambling in casinos, even wagering whose suitcase would come down the baggage shoot first at the airport … in corporate boardrooms, where he helped sell more of everything ó hot dogs, hamburgers, Wheaties, sunglasses, calling cards, underwear and the Internet … in Salt Lake City, where another heart-stopping jumper swished through the net, securing his sixth title and sucking every last bit of air out of the state … in Washington, when he came out of retirement the second time, age having diminished everything but his desire.
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He is keeping score still.
“This is not fun for me,” Jordan said during a brief news conference. “I don’t like being up here for the Hall of Fame because at that time, your basketball career is completely over. I was hoping this day was coming in 20 more years, or that I’d actually go in when I’m dead and done.
“Look,” Jordan continued. “It’s a great accomplishment. But for me, I always want to have you thinking that I can always go back and play the game of basketball. As long as you have that thought you never know what can happen. You never know what my abilities can do.”
He recounted how after his younger son’s basketball team won an Illinois state high school championship last month, “My kid comes back to me and says, ‘Dad, I did something that you never did. You never won a state championship.’
“And my reply to him,” Jordan said, ‘Is that everybody that won a state championship didn’t always win after that?’ ”
The room cracked up, but Jordan barely cracked a smile. His eyes were red and focused on something in the distance.
And it was in that moment, after chronicling nearly everything Jordan has done from the day he first turned up at practice 25 years ago in Chicago that I was reminded for better or worse, that whether it was a sublime gift or the cruelest curse, he is still restless in a way the rest of us will never be.