Michael Jordan's Legacy Etched in Stone

I am a little bit behind in reading my newspapers. However, this morning I opened up the Parade magazine from Sunday's paper and read an article about how to save the NBA. To be honest, I think that the NBA has been slipping downhill since Michael Jordan retired in 1998. I know he made a comeback after that, but he was not the legend that he was before that first retirement. During his career, the league essentially became Michael Jordan and a bunch of other players. Don't get me wrong, there are several other players of his era who were amazing as well such as David Robinson or John Stockton. However, I do not know the figures off the top of my head, but I would bet that the amount of endorsements that Michael Jordan received was several times that of any other player of that time. He was the face of several national brands, most notably Gatorade and Nike, he played on the original Dream Team which also received quite a bit of international media exposure, and he became a legend in college basketball first thereby gaining a fan base that Lebron James could never get because he never went to college. We are always looking for the next Jordan for a reason; his personality, obvious talent, and championship success all became major selling points for the NBA. Even people who didn't know basketball understood that he was the best. I don't really see that happening right now because there are so many different players who might be the best, Lebron, Kobe, Wade, or a few years ago Steve Nash. All of this talent is awesome, and I'm glad that all of these players are stars, but it also takes more of an in depth understanding of the game to know all of these players and realize who is the best. At least in the 90s, there was no question.

So, how would I save the NBA? I think mainly I would need a player who'd come in from college with a national championship, be very flashy on the court but have a good reputation off of it, and he would need to go to a bad franchise and turn them around into a champion. Lebron James came in heralded as the next Jordan, but until he can win that championship, he's not on the same level of stardom.
Photo by Esparta on Flickr