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Michael Jordan.
The shadows of his career
The journalists who follow the 'Dream team' during the Barcelona Olympics 92 maintain that the decision of Michael Jordan retiring from basketball was already planned before his third championship with the Chicago Bulls.
The '23' was tired, exhausted from the pressure of the press, the fans and all that it means to 'be Michael Jordan' in the early 90's. His ultimate goal was to achieve what neither Magic Johnson nor Larry Bird had accomplished. with the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics: win three rings in a row.
Jordan reached his goal at the end of the 92-93 season, so according to his theory, he had nothing more to achieve on the track. Not a bit of motivation. Hence the announcement of his withdrawal that summer.
But there is much more.
At Seventh chapter of 'The Last DanceThe ESPN and Netflix documentary on the career of the legendary Bulls player delves into the circumstances leading up to the announcement of Jordan's first withdrawal, and some things are still surprising to this day.
Although the 'show', in which the basketball player and his environment have had a lot to do, explains some of the causes of that withdrawal, he goes on tiptoe and without much interest in others that still have no response today.
“The urban legend is that I kicked him out of the league for his love of the game. It is absurd, something without a base. Not true, “explains David Stern, who died on January 1 of this year. But for years, conspiracy (and not so conspiracy) theories about an alleged secret suspension from the league to Michael have been ongoing.
Despite everything, and looking at Jordan's reflections on that decision in the summer of 1993, it is easy to understand that the death of his father He was instrumental in his decision to move away from basketball for a time.
James Jordan disappeared on July 23, 1993 , after attending the day before the funeral of a former partner in the town of Wilmington, and the police found his lifeless body, with two gunshot wounds, in a stream in South Carolina. Two men are serving life in prison today for that incident: Larry Martin Demery and Daniel Andre Green, who at that time were 17 and 18 years old. According to the police, the two young men, who made a call from the Lexus, had shot Jordan while he was taking a nap inside his vehicle, at an intersection of Interstate 95, when he was on his way to Charlotte, where he was going to catch a flight to Chicago.
In 1995 Demery was plead guilty to murder in first grade and testified against Green. Now 44, he has sought parole on several occasions, but has been denied it, according to information from 'The New York Times'. Green, meanwhile, maintains to this day its innocence and has tried, unsuccessfully, to hold a new trial.
In his statement, Demery claimed that Green walked to Jordan's father's Lexus with the intention of stealing from him. According to him, while the man slept, Green shot him.
Demery testified that Green walked to the Lexus with the intention of holding Jordan at gunpoint and stealing it. When Jordan takes a nap, Demery said Green shot him while Demery was nearby.
But the Green's statement was totally different. He claimed that the day before Jordan's father was allegedly killed, he was at a party with Demery, and that he was away for a few hours and He came back at night, and I recognized that he had shot a man on the highway. I asked him to help hide the corpse, and Green accepted. He maintains that statement to this day.
Beyond this evidence, there is still many unanswered circumstances. According to the reports of the time and thanks to an extensive special of the 'Chicago Tribune', it is understood that the police couldn't study Jordan's body too much because he was very decomposed, having been in a stream for eleven days. On August 7, a body identified as John Doe, found on day 3, is cremated by a South Carolina coroner. Two days before, on the 5th, they find a stolen Lexus. It wasn't until August 13 that his true identity was identified thanks to dental records. Was James Jordan.
The Fiscal version It is based on Demery's statement, not Green's, and claims that Jordan was shot at heart level while sleeping in the driver's seat of his Lexus. However, as the 'Chicago Tribune', the coroner's report assures that there was no exit wound in Jordan's body, nor traces of blood inside the car. In addition, he assures that in the first studies the bullet hole was not found in the shirt or the remains of gunpowder.
The authorities maintain to this day the version that it was a violent incident but, as the documentary shows, during that time numerous speculations were leaked about the relationship between Jordan's gambling and his father's death. “I was devastated“Michael admits in 'The Last Dance', at a time when he is almost the same age as his father when he was killed.” It was the voice of reason, my support, it inspired me … I tried to see the positive in the negative, which was what he always told me … The people who told those stories and speculations did it to hurt me. “
Two months after that, Jordan retired. “It comforts me to know that my father has seen my last game,” he said at the press conference. “It has made me realize how short life is, how things happen quickly. There are times in life when you have to put the sport aside. I want to spend more time with my family, because I have been very selfish during this time and I have dedicated everything to basketball, “he said that day, although he admitted that his father's death had not been the reason for his goodbye to basketball.
“I have nothing more to prove, I have no more challenges. It has nothing to do with my father's death or media pressure or anything other than that. I've accomplished everything I can in basketball“he stated.
A few weeks later, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the former Bulls player admitted that he did not want to know why Demery and Green had murdered their father. “I don't want to know because it would hurt even more. It better not be that way.”
You've already seen this: Jordan tried baseball and came back a little over a year later to win three more championships with the Bulls.
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