Customer Reviews

When Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan's Last Comeback

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a groundbreaking book in many respects. I am an ardent NBA fan but have found it nearly impossible to find 'real' biographies on the real goings-on in NBA locker rooms. I believe most sportswriters are either afraid to anger their sources (many examples of that in this book) or lack the journalistic know how to do in-depth reporting.

I thouroughly enjoyed the book. It paints a detailed picture of an NBA locker room and the dysfunctionalities that go on. I came away with a very clear picture of Jordan as a sad figure in a sense who is self-absorbed, immature and really has little understanding of life beyond the small and plastic world he inhabits. I actually felt somewhat sorry for him by the end of the book. The portrait came as no suprise given the surreal environment and idolic treatment these athletes (who in the big picture put a ball through a hoop for a living though God bless em for it) receive at a very early age. You can't really blame Jordan as he is a product of his stilted environment. On the other hand, it makes those ads and "Be Like Mike' endorsements ring hollow and ironic.

The book is also an interesting study on how fans need athletes to validate themselves. From the Wizards minority owner who basically buys Jordan's aquantance for a piece of his stake in the franchise to the reporters who feel privilaged to ask Jordan a 'staged' question even if they aren't doing any real reporting. To the Wizards (Collins)coach who is so enamored of Jordan that he is afraid to make a move without his approval to the detriment of the team.

This is a book for true NBA or Jordan followers or those interested in the distorted relationship between pro athletes and their fans. I have a lot of respect for this author for daring to accurately report a man-God. It should be noted that the author did not get into any 'sleazy' details of Jordan's life but striclty used his behavior/interactions in the locker room environment to define his subject. The book did make me appreciate the rare elite athlete who still manages to have strong values and character despite the temptations and obstacles in his way.

I am glad to see this book has already generated a good deal of buzz and reviews. I lived in the DC area during the "Jordan Era" both his management of and play for, the Wizards, and I must say (and perhaps I am biased) that this book is a mostly accurate reflection of what many of us suspected about MJ when he came to town. To wit: (1) He had little/no respect for owner Abe Pollin; (2) He installed flunkies in senior management positions, ostensibly to do the scouting, negotiating, etc he apparently was uninterested in doing; (3) His "return" was one part attempt to restore "buzz" around his name and brand and a second part an attempt to whitewash/hide his shortcomings as an executive by pulling the team to near .500; (4) As soon as he retired, Pollin shivved him and showed him the door.

In short, there are no "winners" or "good guys" in this story, indeed, everyone comes out looking badly. Jordan is portrayed as a distant, arrogant, demeaning teammate who put his own self interest ahead of his team, even as he was holding the Coach's puppet strings and using the media to communicate not-so-thinly veiled threats at the very people he signed/drafted. Pollin comes across as a money-hungry owner who used Jordan to sell tickets and then tossed him overboard roughly 3.5 seconds after his final game. Ultimately, the relationship was one where both parties were USING the other, there was no trust, no sense of team, no sense of "we're all in this together", so why should be be surprised it blew up so quickly.

Leahy has received some heat in other reviews for injecting bias and/or reflecting his own opinion, but hey, THAT'S HIS JOB. He's providing an angle, an opinion, it's his book. MJ or his defenders are free to give their "side" of the story (the jabs at Wilbon are interesting, though not surprising).

The truth is, as an executive, MJ was mediocare at best (an opinion I think supported by the fact that he's received exactly ZERO GM/Pres. of Player Personnel offers since leaving DC) as an executive, made a lot of poor decisions (not trading the #1 for Elton Brand and a pick ... idiotic, any fantasy geek would have made that deal in a heartbeat, dealing for Stack and giving up a good young player in Rip Hamilton, useless signings like Oakley, Laettner, etc .. the list goes on and on). He did not move to DC, rarely was in town (sightings became media events they were so rare), seemed to have an entitlement and perogative about how he did things that hey, if I was an owner, I would be peeved about too. As Leahy points out, MJ had poor/little appreciation for Pollin and the importance he placed on loyalty. Did Pollin use MJ, clearly, and his motives were far from pure, but it's also his team, no one made MJ come to DC.

Before you start crying for MJ and his departure, consider that he got Coach Collins a $10 million severance, payouts for the rest of his personally hand picked lower management and still had his hundreds of millions intact. Indeed, the buzz generated by his return to basketball enriched him, I would think, far more in the long run, than Pollin. Finally, look at what has happened to the Wizards SINCE MJ left. They put in a guy, Ernie Grunfeld, who is actually a qualified/knowledgable GM, he has traded for Jamison, signed Arenas, and helped develop other guys and the team is now on the cusp of a playoff spot. MJ poisoned the well here, and it took people who actually studied and worked hard at putting teams together to fix it.

The perfect coda to MJ's stay in DC was the photo of him leaving MCI after Pollin showed him the door, it's a shot of MJ in his convertible, top down, from behind, you see the Illinois license plate. Very apt summry of his brief stay in Washington.

This is the finest book I've ever read on Michael Jordan. It is one of the best sports books written in many years, I think. What Michael Leahy has done so magnificently is wipe away the stardust from our eyes and enable to see what the Jordan comeback meant to the star, a city and a struggling team. It is sympathetic in parts, and tough in parts. It is unflinchingly honest and brilliantly written. The way he writes about basketball games was reason alone for me to devour the book. The writing is so vivid and powerful. And I thought I was seeing Jordan for the first time. I finished the book thinking I finally understood the measure of his psyche, and the pressures bearing on him, and the stresses felt by his teammates and others who seemed to chafe under his incessant demands that they either win or satisfy his other demands. Leahy does an outstanding job of putting the media under the microscope too, which was pretty eye-opening, with his point clearly being that the media in many cases gave Jordan flattering publicity in exchange for the hope that they might receive special access to him. The portrait here of everything in the two seasons is gripping. One of my favorite parts was reading of the day-to-day interaction of Jordan with his teammates and coaches, the preparing for games, the pressures building, the teammates deferring, the coach's anxiety wrenching and impossible to conceal. Some of his young teammates seem like terrific guys, caught up in a difficult situation that had them reeling. The story is so compelling and wonderfully told that I found myself feeling sympathy for all of them. They seem so boxed in, especially Jordan. The book was a great exploration of the effect of long-term celebrity on a sports idol, how stars get caught in a bubble and are often the last to see the major problems about to pull them down. I hope for the best for Jordan, but I think there is an overarching lesson in the book about the dangers of being too focused on a game to the exclusion of many other things, which is a lesson for all athletes. The game was everything to Jordan, and maybe that was not all for the good always. I hope Leahy has in mind another book on athletes and the sports culture. This book here is one powerful and sensational piece of work.

The Michael Jordan story always seems to be told in extremes. Either he is heralded as an icon so mindlessly that the storytelling appears uninteresting or he is vilified, as previous writers knew the value of tearing down an icon.

When Nothing Else Matters is a portrait of a man that feels honest, Jordan is neither vilified nor overly praised; instead Micheal Leahy has given us a view of a man experiencing his only real failure in his career as a professional basketball player. A failure that is proven by the simple fact the Washington Wizards, with Jordan in a powerful position off, then on the court, never ascended the heights of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Eastern Conference. It is a fascinating look at the world's most famous basketball player, during a time period where he seemed unable to transition his on the court reputation and success, to a career in management.

Jordan, the man, had grown comfortable being an icon and as his skills faded and his team missed the playoffs, Leahy reveals someone whose disconnect from the world around him made him unable to finesse his way to off the court success. Therefore his last games for the Wizards are revealed to have been one last chance to court the spotlight as a prime-time player, as the chances to move forward off the court didn't exist, Leahy lays out these realities, and Jordan's apparent blindness to them, that shows Jordan as a very accomplished yet out-of-the-loop figure who couldn't overcome his last challenge in the N.B.A. It also makes clear what Micheal Jordan was to the Washington Wizards management, a cash infusion.

Leahy's even handed treatment may prevent When Nothing Else Matters from being extreme in its presentation, but it doesn't prevent it from being an extreme success as it stands as a historical document for basketball fans to turn to when looking at a honest portrait of life in the N.B.A.

Published in 2004, author Michael Leahy shares his experiences during Michael Jordan's last comeback to the National Basketball Association.

Leahy's potrayal of Jordan showed a different side of the basketball legend which is not normally seen in the eyes of the public. Jordan, the "the most marketed player in the history of the NBA," was finally..."mortal" and did go through the same trials and tribulations (from a heightened perspective) that we all go through at some point in our lives. Leahy accounts the days wherein Jordan was at his best and would score 35 points over the span of several games to the days wherein he wasn't unstoppable and hit his career lows of 8 and 2 points respectively.

What stood out for me was Jordan's lambasting of players who didn't play up to his standards. Leahy quotes Jordan on numerous occasions wherein he would lambast teammates. Coach Fred "Tex" Winter, an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers and former assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls summed it up best, "you either work hard or Michael has no use for you."

But the one paragraph in Leahy's entire book which rocked my very foundation of emulating Michael Jordan was the following:

"His people had held him up as a man to be emulated, making Jordan more than a half-billion in endorsement dollars in the process...he had raised the bar on his behavior during 17 years of unremitting self-promotion, in campaigns approved by the Jordan camp and coordinated by Nike and other corporate sponsors that elevated him from great athlete to hero and, finally, to moral symbol.

...when you present yourself as virtuous in years of ad campaigns and TV commercials, you will be fairly held in time to that standard. Fairly held because uou have sold your basketball shoes to people plunking down in excess of $100 not merely for a chance at better Ups but for a way to rub up against your aura, to feel a tiny sense of you in that admittedly silly way people feel when they wish to emulate anybody, to be inspired by your class and elegance, your morality and grace, as they've heard it told. And if some of that was artifice, then so, too, was everything you sold with your likeness on it."

Disturbing but quite true, personally, I have seen myself on many occasions wanting to "be like Mike." I've bought the shoes, worn the clothes, gotten the cards, read the books...and it is only now I realized. What about me? Leahy's book showed me that. In the years that I have been collecting "Jordan" in order to be inspired, all I needed to do in the end was look in the mirror in order to be inspired.

This is a great book that puts any not only Michael Jordan's life in perspective but also that of your own, especially if you are a Jordan fan who has collected his paraphernalia over the years.

Leahy was very honest in his book on MJ's last 2 seasons. It was a sad read for me, being an ardent MJ fan. The book showed me that MJ is human like the rest of us, and his success had gotten to his head.

Leahy's book is not biast and it is at times VERY amusing. It was an extremely good read. I rate it as one of the top 50 books I've read over the last 27 years.

It has often been the case that we tend to etch our hopes and dreams in the coattails of superstar athletes who exceed our expectations time and again. Each time, the bar is raised until the star is brought down to earth by these same expectations that made them stars in the first place.

Such is the tale provided by Michael Leahy in this definitive work on Michael Jordan's comeback with the Wizards. The account provides details from Jordan's start as an executive to his comeback and to his eventual firing (not unexpected as it first seemed).

Interesting details abound in this book in contrast to the droning sound bites found in newspapers who seem quite reluctant to call out the naked emperor. Examples include the true extent of Jordan's tendinitis, the effect of Jordan's injury to his right index finger plus Phil Jackson's thoughts on the comeback. Also, Leahy provides quite a convincing critique not only on Jordan the player but on Jordan the playing executive as well.

My only problem with this book is that it tends to get repetitive at times - Pollin's firing of Jordan and the Karla Knafel story is retold more than once. However, it stands on its own in chronicling Jordan's days as a Wizard which luckily for Jordan will always remain a footnote to an otherwise marvelous career.

Most of us would have considered that jump shot at Salt Lake City the highlight of our lives, but then again Mike still has more than half of his life to live.

Compared to "Jordan Rules" I think this book is easier to read. Not that it is simple and easy in a negative way, but less detail oriented. MJ comes out as a real person, with all the good and bad in that. Things said and done can be interpreted in different ways, but Leahy at least gives the impression that he paints an objective picture of the people involved. I can truly relate to the person "fighting against the dying of the light" and therefore am enjoying the book very much.

I've read every bio on Jordan and it almost appears Leahy is discovering him for the very first time. Where was he when "The Jordan Rules" came out?
The positives in this book mainly are the detailed accounts of the inside info provided by Leahy's access to Jordan. Leahy does a pretty good job of giving some top secret info about the daily grind of an NBA legend, warts and all. But, it's nothing new to people who read about this stuff.
But, the taste I got in my mouth while reading the book was that Leahy seemed to be propping his own ego by throwing literary jabs at Jordan from the safe distance of a typewriter. He also tries to over-psychoanalyze Jordan in a somewhat amateurish way. The effect is moderately successful and only partially complete. And, through his comments, it appears he has a rather limited knowledge about basketball. For example, he tries to smear Jordan by accusing him of being selfish and ignoring his own decline in skills by quoting, "the defense focused on me so Rip had to step up". The fact is, it IS true that the defense is always focusing on Jordan, old and injured or not, because he is the ultimate threat on the team. Examples of these over-interpretations on Jordan's image are scattered throughout the book, even though they are largely just factual basketball quotes.
I credit Leahy for not succumbing to idolization. We've seen that enough. But, he also seems to revel in his position in not doing so and it makes for a somewhat biased book. When the ego of the writer starts to show, it becomes an annoying read. And, when it also shows that his level of understanding of Jordan, the man, is new, it isn't a learning experience for Jordan's diehard fans.
We all know Jordan has a huge ego and is aggressive and that can be seen as selfish. We know that he can be nasty and vicious to every around him who cannot live up to his standards. While these may be personality 'faults', they also explain why he is the greatest in a world of alpha males. Leahy fails to recognize that Jordan was using this model to shape the Wizards because it was previously successful in making a competitive team.
Leahy gives Jordan and Collins the bulk of the responsibility for the Wizards' failures but in essence, the immature teammates were equally deserving of censure. Jordan is no psychologist and Collins is a nit-picking coach who runs kids on a short leash. Yes, they made it a miserable environment for inexperienced players. Yes, they tried the hard way to teach the players. Yes, they thought kids could pick up habits and advanced plays quickly. It wasn't the best method.
But, what you had on the Wizards were youngsters who had no idea how to win. They initially were in awe of Jordan and his position as the 'boss'. And when they realized it was no fun to play with him unless you busted your ass, they pouted and lost joy and confidence. A group of veterans would have accepted Jordan's brutal ways as part of winning. The young Wizards had no idea what that meant because they were coddled and blinded by their salaries. We can blame the league for that.
Also to blame is Jordan's ignorance of the generation gap. Jordan knows respect comes through hard work and time but he didn't realize these kids never learned that. The kids wanted to play with the legend while enhancing their own. What they didn't know is how much of their games they would have to sacrifice to play with Jordan. As Steve Kerr said, you had to learn how to play with Jordan or else he had no use for you. Yeah, Rip and Jerry are good players. But as Jordan said, they hadn't done anything in basketball so they'd better sit and learn the hard way. With Jordan, you had to step aside and these players didn't know their roles.
And, that brings us to Jordan, the player. He should have realized that his own legend was an impediment. He should have realized that the brittle psychology between him as a 'teammate' and 'boss' was something kids who play video games could not handle. What worked for the Bulls who all caved into his awesome skills would not necessarily work with kids who thought they could run and dunk all the time instead of playing hard defense. What they saw was not a fun legend, but a scolding mentor who they were afraid to play with.
But, what the book ultimately achieves is the viciousness of Jordan's self-respect and work ethic. It proves how even with three years off and extreme knee pain, Jordan had so much pride that he would put his reputation and legacy on the line to play to his standard and try to win. His pain was such that most players would sit to safeguard their stats. With Jordan, he was playing for supremacy. The whole book goes through how excruciating the two years with the Wizards were because of the chronic knee pain. More than anyone else, Jordan wanted to be healthy so he could dominate and it was killing him that he had to resort to his 'B' game (which was still good enough for 40-50 points here and there). And, that only proves that even at the age of 40, with three years off and one knee, Jordan can still be Jordan because it was always his head, heart and basketball improvisation that enabled him to dominate for a decade and a half.
(Some other good books on Jordan are "Rebound", "Hang Time", "Michael Jordan and the World he made", and "Jordan, the man, his words, his life". Phil Jackson's Bulls books are good as well.)

This book provides an inside look into Jordan's time with the wizards. Leahy on honest look at this faltering group, and maybe takes a little too long at times. This book has a lot of appeal for non-basketball fans as well as diehards.