Written By: Charles Leerhsen
The following is excerpted from LIFE’s new special issue Michael Jordan: The Greatest of All Time, available at newsstands and here online.
When it dropped in the mid-’90s, the 30-second spot felt like just another quick and clever Nike ad, though if you go back now and watch “The Hundred-Foot Hoop,” it seems to speak to us on several levels. At the fade-in, we see a basket hanging mercilessly high in a dimly lit warehouse. The storyline, at least initially, is simple: Michael Jordan enters, dribbling, then, looking grim but confident, drives in and up (and up) for the unmakeable but of course inevitable jam. The spoonful of message—that the man inside those supercool shoes can perform superhuman feats—went down without question back then, when Jordan was still in his Chicago Bulls prime and on a nightly basis redefining what was possible in the game of basketball. But the commercial doesn’t stop there.
In a spasm of celebratory ecstasy, our hero, we see, has grabbed onto the rim, as slam-dunkers do, and now finds himself swinging slowly above the hardwood at an unsafe altitude. The moment of triumph has passed. Jordan first looks down, then at us, the audience that he always wanted to impress. He does not speak, but his big brown eyes pose an excellent question: “Where do I go from here?”
Michael Jeffrey Jordan was a skinny middle-class kid from Wilmington, North Carolina, who put aside the doubters—no, who used the doubters who appeared at every stage—to have himself a storybook career. His breakthrough came in the spring of 1982, when, in a game played in the Louisiana Superdome against Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas,
he hit an electrifying jumper with 15 seconds left to give his Carolina Tar Heels the National Championship. “Your life will never be the same after that shot, son,” his father, James, told him soon afterward.
A few years later, Jordan revitalized the Bulls, a motley bunch that played in a dreary, half-empty arena, a team that according to its owner was regarded by Chicagoans as “somewhere between mud wrestling and tractor pulling,” eventually leading them to six NBA championships. Along the way, Jordan took the excitement generated by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson—stars a few years ahead of him—and brought it to a new level, helping shake the NBA out of its 1970s doldrums and usher its players and franchises onto an international stage. In Jordan’s spare time, he revolutionized the sneaker business.
Jordan broke into the league exactly 40 years ago, in the fall of 1984, and he left it for good in the spring of 2003. Over a 15-season playing career, he won 10 scoring titles, five MVP awards, and six Finals MVP awards, and he was named to the All-Defensive first team nine times. He played in 14 NBA All-Star Games and, competing against Bird, Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, and others in the pantheon of basketball gods, won three All-Star MVP trophies. He has the highest regular-season career scoring average and career playoff scoring average of all time (30.1 and 33.4 points per game, respectively). Numb yet? After a point, even such incomparable statistics don’t capture all of the player Jordan was. They say nothing about the way he did what he did, the rampaging love of the game he always demonstrated, or the role he played in the larger popular culture—the very things that made him the man and the brand we know and love.
Here is a selection of images from LIFE’s new special issue Michael Jordan: The Greatest of All Time.
Cover photo by Jerry Wachter/NBAE/Getty
Michael Jordan in his freshman year at North Carolina, January 1982.
Bettmann Archive
Michael Jordan, with Chicago Bulls general manager Rod Thorn, signed his first NBA contract in 1984.
Bettmann Archive
Michael Jordan in 1989 took on the Detroit Pistons, a team that served as an early foil on his way to the top.
Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images
Michael Jordan celebrated winning his first NBA title in 1991.
Richard Mackson/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Michael Jordan led the Dream Team to a gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
Richard Mackson/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Michael Jordan in 1994, when he took time off from the NBA and tried his hand at minor-league baseball with the Birmingham Barons.
Photo by Focus On Sport/Getty Images
Michael Jordan, when he returned to the NBA following his time in minor league baseball, briefly wore No. 45 before returning to his familiar No. 23.
NBAE via Getty Images
Michael Jordan in 2003, his final season.
Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images
Michael Jordan waved farewell after playing his final NBA game in April 2003, when he was a member of the Washington Wizards.
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Michael Jordan, representing his Jordan Brand, visited Paris in 2015 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his signature Air Jordan shoe.
Jordan Brand via Getty Images
