Michael Jordan: Could His Airness Still Play Effectively in the NBA?

Michael Jordan has taken over the headlines in the past week when a video emerged of him dunking effortlessly, or so it seemed.

Some have said he walked off with a limp, others that he did it with absolutely nobody trying to stop him. Both are valid points. There did seem to be a bit of a limp after he came down and the fact is that he is still 6'6", giving him a distinct edge to dunk at 48 compared to your average 5'10" guy walking down the street.

However, that 27-second clip got the world talking about Michael Jordan again, and whenever the basketball world is talking about something Jordan did on the court it's a good thing.

It seemed like the joy of seeing the G.O.A.T. dunk again would just die out, but then Skip Bayless tweeted something that got me thinking:

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Remember, MJ never had a serious knee injury that would still plague him. See video of how easily he dunked the other day? STILL COULD PLAY.

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My first thought was that it was a complete overreaction.  The NBA today is very off-putting (although entertaining) to the people who grew to love the game in the 80s and 90s. Fans of that era are looking for any remnants of the past to cling to, and really, who could blame them?

Michael Jordan coming back and actually being competitive would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the best basketball player of all time.

Then I got to really thinking about it. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dikembe Mutombo played until they were 42, and Robert Parish played until he was 43.  That's the oldest an NBA player has been and still been competitive.

So really, it comes down to just a few questions: 1) Would he be able to get into shape; 2) Would he be able to be competitive; 3) Would we even want to see him come back; 4) Would it end up disappointing us like his Washington Wizards comeback did?

Getting Into Shape

Watching Jordan dunk in that video, he looks like he's got a bit of a spare tire hanging around his waist.  That, plus the past decade of smoking cigars and not enduring NBA-level activity means that he is a long way off from being in game shape.

However, if you think that MJ can't get into shape then you never knew the real MJ.

If someone told him that he couldn't get into good enough shape to play in The Association then he would take it as a personal challenge.  In fact, I would go as far as to say that Scottie Pippen's comment about LeBron James potentially being the best basketball player ever got under his skin more than we would like to think.

I don't want to say that the man is petty, just that he is the most competitive player the NBA has ever seen, almost to a fault.

Getting into shape would probably be a breeze for Jordan, give him a year and he'll be ready to go next October.

Playing Competitive Basketball

OK, so he's in shape and on a roster (of course he's going to get signed, he's Michael f---ing Jordan), what can he do from here?

With a year of practice, I would be willing to bet that Jordan could easily get his stroke back, so at the very least he is a good shooter.

However, I'm convinced that he could be more than that.  Jordan had some things that don't require physical aspects of basketball to be effective.  He was one of the four smartest basketball players the league has ever seen (Jordan, Tim Duncan, Bill Russell and Larry Bird in no particular order), which means he would still have the nose for the basketball, the ability to see passing lanes and the low-post moves that require more guile than athleticism.

Jordan also had an edge about him that would allow him to get by with his toughness.

If Chuck Hayes can come in and play center for an entire season for the Houston Rockets at 6'6", then Jordan could come in to almost any situation and put in 20 effective minutes a game.

He will have lost a step, obviously, and he will take a few weeks getting back into the flow of the NBA game, but, by December, he should be hitting his stride, putting up 10-15 points a game easily.

Once his team traveled to either New York or Miami then the lid would come off and he would show off on what would obviously be a nationally televised game.

Against the Heat he would likely push himself past the brink and put in a modern-day "Flu Game," and I would say he could put up 25 points at his peak in a season.

Just thinking about it, it seems like I'm giving a 48-year-old guy too much credit, but it is impossible to deny the man's drive for perfection. And really, I think his brain is enough to overcome his body at this point.

Do we want to see it?

Back in 2001, Michael Jordan came back to the NBA with the Washington Wizards, averaging over 20 points for his two seasons with the Wiz.  He played well, but there was something missing.

His initial comeback (which was really his second) was made too close to his dominant career (he had just retired three years earlier), and to be honest, it was a bit depressing to see him toiling away on the Wizards, putting up good but not great numbers.

However, coming back as a 50-year-old man would be completely different.  We would be seeing the greatest basketball player of all-time prove that he could do what no other player in the history of the game could do, play a basketball game and then go to Bob Evans and order off the Senior Citizen's menu.

We would be watching a man give the middle finger to the younger generation, and all those who dare say Kobe Bryant or LeBron James are anything near what Jordan was.

He would be giving us a taste of the past that we desperately need, reminding us of a time when superstars wanted to wallop other superstars to make them look like better players, not the time we live in where superstars are teaming up.

On that note (and a quick aside), I found this season to be the most entertaining basketball season since the last lockout (by a considerable margin), but it was a different type of entertaining.  It was entertaining because I had a rooting interest in so many games, not because of the individuals were continually one-upping each other like it was back in the 90s.

A Jordan comeback would be much more welcomed than it was at the beginning of the millennium. It would be an old man punching the younguns in the gut, not an aging man reaching for final moments of glory.

I would like nothing more than for Michael Jordan to get back into shape, and I legitimately believe that he could make an impact in the NBA if he did.

Enjoy what I scribble about?  Follow me on Twitter @JDorsey33.

Here's some other stuff I've written about recently, check it out if you'd like.

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