Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan

Michael Jeffery Jordan is an American basketball legend who played for the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards for 15 seasons. Jordan was born on February 17, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. In high school he played baseball, football, and basketball. When he first applied to the varsity team as a sophomore, he didn’t make it because of his height, which at the time was 5 ft 10 in. Over the summer, he grew by 4 inches and trained very hard to make it to the team at the next trials. He was selected and proved his worth with an outstanding average over his final two seasons. In his senior year of high school, he was selected to the McDonald’s All-American Team after scoring a triple-double, that is scoring double digit points in 3 out of 5 categories. Several colleges offered him basketball scholarships and he eventually chose to go to North Carolina university, majoring in cultural geography.

At college, he continued to outdo himself and became a valuable member of the basketball squad. He scored the winning basket for his team against Georgetown University, leading them to victory in the NCAA Division I championships in 1982. He won the title of NCAA College Player of the Year in the years 1983 and 1984. Jordan quit college in his junior year when he was drafted by the National Basketball Association (NBA). He joined the Chicago Bulls, helping them to reach the playoffs during his rookie season. He had an average of 28.2 points per game and received the NBA Rookie of the Year Award along with being selected for the All-Stars Game.

Jordan went back to finish his college degree while still playing professional basketball. He was soon recognized for his agility, style and leadership abilities. Despite some injuries early in his career, he soon made his mark by becoming the only player since Wilt Chamberlin to score more than 3,000 points in a season. In 1990, the Chicago Bulls made it to the Eastern Conference Finals and in 1991 they won their first NBA Championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers. The Bulls won the title again in 1993, beating the Portland Trail Blazers to claim their second NBA title. In 1993, Jordan quit basketball after the death of his father at the hands of two teenage burglars. He played baseball for a year with a minor league team called the Birmingham Barons. In 1995, however, he returned to play for the Bulls, leading them to a championship victory against the Seattle Sonics. During this time he also appeared in an animated movie called Space Jam.

The Bulls won the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, after which Jordan left them. During his tenure with the Bulls, Jordan won the regular season Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award five times, that is 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, and 1998. He also received three All-Star MVPs and two Olympic Gold Medals with Team U.S.A in 1984 and 1992. Jordan joined the Washington Wizards as part owner and president in January 2000. He played with them from 2001 to 2003 but retained his ownership even after retirement. In 2006, Jordan bought a share in another team Charlotte Bobcats, and also became the manager of their basketball operations. He is now a majority owner and the chairman of the team. In 2006, Jordan divorced his wife Juanita Vanoy, to whom he had been married for 17 years. The couple had three children, of which the eldest followed in his footsteps to become a professional basketball player. Jordan remarried in 2013, this time to a Cuban-American model named Yvette Prieto, with whom he has one child. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. He owns several restaurants and is also involved in a number of other businesses. He is currently 51 years old and has a reported net worth of at least $1 billion.


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