ad info




TIME Asia
TIME Asia Home
Current Issue
Magazine Archive
Asia Buzz
Travel Watch
Web Features
  Entertainment
  Photo Essays

Subscribe to TIME
Customer Services
About Us
Write to TIME Asia

TIME.com
TIME Canada
TIME Europe
TIME Pacific
TIME Digital
Asiaweek
Latest CNN News

Young China
Olympics 2000
On The Road

 ASIAWEEK.COM
 CNN.COM
  east asia
  southeast asia
  south asia
  central asia
  australasia
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 SHOWBIZ
 ASIA WEATHER
 ASIA TRAVEL


Other News
From TIME Asia

Culture on Demand: Black is Beautiful
The American Express black card is the ultimate status symbol

Asia Buzz: Should the Net Be Free?
Web heads want it all -- for nothing

JAPAN: Failed Revolution
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori clings to power as dissidents in his party finally decide not to back a no-confidence motion

Cover: Endgame?
After Florida's controversial ballot recount, Bush holds a 537-vote lead in the state, which could give him the election

TIME Digest
FORTUNE.com
FORTUNE China
MONEY.com

TIME Asia Services
Subscribe
Subscribe to TIME! Get up to 3 MONTHS FREE!

Bookmark TIME
TIME Media Kit
Recent awards

TIME Asia Asiaweek Asia Now TIME Asia story
But while it's easy for a cartoon character to be Mickey Mouse (especially when he hasn't appeared in a full-length film in decades), it's quite an accomplishment for a human being under Truman Show conditions. Jordan's public image has been emptied by immaculate design. "I'm around him all the time, and what he has to put up with--media attention and people making demands of him and wanting him to be here, there and everywhere--he does a tremendous job. He's done a great thing with his image and really kept it pretty clean," says Bulls backup center Bill Wennington. "And he's so cute." Jordan is a vessel into which the world can pour anything it wants. He's noble, charming, righteous and kind, not because he necessarily is but because we want him to be. And, yes, Bill, it helps that he's good looking.

But he has worked so hard at his reflexive nonimage. Though thin-skinned (ask any reporter who has criticized him in print), he almost never loses his temper. He never appears so much as shirtless in the locker room and changes from shorts into a fine Italian suit for each short walk from hotel room to team bus, because those few seconds may be the only time those particular fans crowding the lobby see him, and he wants to get it right. He is so polished that his few scrapes with indiscretion--losing tens of thousands of dollars in golf and poker bets to hustlers, getting named in a paternity suit last summer, commenting that playing Reggie Miller is like chicken fighting with a woman--have bounced off him in ways Ronald Reagan only dreamed about. Apart from instinctive curiosity, few have ever questioned what chicken fighting with a woman means.

We let him do this because he is so good at letting us. He is clutch, not in a pained, John Wayne sense, but joyfully, shrugging and grinning as he backpedals away from each accomplishment. He makes us believe, against our own experience, that hard work can reward--that even 0.8 sec. means there is hope. And in doing so, he has defined masculinity despite publicly admitting that his favorite performers are Toni Braxton and Anita Baker; this guy could say his favorite movie was Beaches, and he'd still be the alpha male. He has unwittingly followed the plot of a hero, suffering like Ulysses: his father, to whom he was extremely close, was murdered in a carjacking in 1993. He left the game shortly thereafter, to try his luck at baseball in the minor leagues, getting $16 in food money a day and sleeping in less-than-four-star hotels. With his daily-shaved head hiding a hairline creeping to Burt Reynolds' at low tide, he returned to dominate the league for another three years. In his fifth game back, he scorched the big-talking New York Knicks for 55 points. In his first full season, he led the Bulls (now enlivened by the antics of cross-dressing forward Dennis Rodman) to the best record in NBA history. To defeat Utah--for the second year in a row--seemed almost a cruel afterthought, and the frustrated Jazz knew it. "He's not quitting," insisted bitter point guard John Stockton immediately after the loss. "I'm tired of hearing all that."

PAGE 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5




Daily

January 25, 1999

Who's the Greatest?
The answer might surprise

All-Pro
David Halberstam on what really made Jordan excel--having the most complete game in the game

POLL
Who is the greatest athlete of all time?


This edition's table of contents | TIME Asia home

AsiaNow


   LATEST HEADLINES:

WASHINGTON
U.S. secretary of state says China should be 'tolerant'

MANILA
Philippine government denies Estrada's claim to presidency

ALLAHABAD
Faith, madness, magic mix at sacred Hindu festival

COLOMBO
Land mine explosion kills 11 Sri Lankan soldiers

TOKYO
Japan claims StarLink found in U.S. corn sample

BANGKOK
Thai party announces first coalition partner



TIME:

COVER: President Joseph Estrada gives in to the chanting crowds on the streets of Manila and agrees to make room for his Vice President

THAILAND: Twin teenage warriors turn themselves in to Bangkok officials

CHINA: Despite official vilification, hip Chinese dig Lamaist culture

PHOTO ESSAY: Estrada Calls Snap Election

WEB-ONLY INTERVIEW: Jimmy Lai on feeling lucky -- and why he's committed to the island state



ASIAWEEK:

COVER: The DoCoMo generation - Japan's leading mobile phone company goes global

Bandwidth Boom: Racing to wire - how underseas cable systems may yet fall short

TAIWAN: Party intrigues add to Chen Shui-bian's woes

JAPAN: Japan's ruling party crushes a rebel ì at a cost

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to have more babies. But success breeds selfishness


Launch CNN's Desktop Ticker and get the latest news, delivered right on your desktop!

Today on CNN
 Search

Back to the top   © 2000 Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.