The Saturday Stinger
Your Weekly Charlotte Hornets Notebook that’s not afraid to laugh at itself. Not here to convince you with stats, just good prose; I can’t afford Synergy.
The Sermon on the Spectrum (Center)
My big picture, weekly State of the Hive Address:
I’ve seen this prompt floated around a lot in radio and on national shows; fodder, in general. Not upset about that, in the slightest — it’s an incredibly fair question.
Michael Jordan and his 23XI NASCAR success since departing from the Charlotte Hornets as majority owner is what I’m referring to, of course.
You mean to tell me you guys don’t think about random, unifying, overarching sports-storyline themes throughout the week, too????
Shocker.
It seems to me that the big picture idea people want to believe when they think of Jordan’s quick success in racing is that he just cares more. More than he did about the Hornets, at least.
To be honest with you all, and I’ve done my fair share of Jordan ownership shaming, let’s be clear here; that couldn’t be further from the truth, in my eyes.
His whole issue with the Hornets is that he cared too damn much. People have the whole premise of the question they’re asking backwards.
This whole thought experiment about Jordan grew out of my anticipation for the start of F1.
Most people think American football is the premier team sport. It’s not even close – it’s racing. It may have always been racing. F1, NASCAR, or otherwise. To have an entire team of car engineers, a race engineer (crew chief equivalent), a pit crew, and a singular driver in the driver’s cabin all working in unison is a sight to behold.
It also takes a s*** ton of money, and people who know more than you do about engines, racing, strategies, and what makes a good driver.
Clearly, Jordan accepted incredibly quickly that he wasn’t the savant of NASCAR. That acceptance as an owner in the NBA, or a lack thereof, is what drove his Hornets and Bobcats teams to 0 total playoff series victories with MJ in charge.
Jordan thought that his standing as the best player to ever touch a court meant that he knew best about what would become great on a court, too.
I think immediately to 2015, Frank Kaminsky, and the four draft picks MJ and Charlotte turned down for the No. 9 pick from Boston and Danny Ainge, which became the Wisconsin Power Forward instead.
I’ve started to think that Jordan’s partial involvement in NASCAR in the years before selling the majority of the Hornets’ shares is what led him to give up 1/30 of the Governor’s seats. In my fantasy “People realize their own mistakes” world, at least.
It’s completely probable, though. What I said about racing is true. It’s totally dependent on trusting the people you’ve hired, and that’s the last thing MJ did in his tenure with the Hornets. Maybe his jump into racing made him realize all his flaws as an NBA owner.
After all, you could see it in the Last Dance as he reflected on how people viewed him during the 90’s: with tears in his eyes and an understanding on his face that he wasn’t perfect, but knowing he did what he had to do. Contrary to popular belief, the man behind the image feels emotion.
I like to look back and think that, despite my frustration with the Jordan era, all this success and excitement over the future that Charlotte has now?
Leads back to more than a simple decision to sell the team.
I like to think it goes back to MJ seeing a real race team and eventually telling himself, “Yeah, I haven’t been doing this right. Maybe these fans do deserve better, and I need a new challenge.”
That’s most certainly the dreamer in me.
You can read the final three segments of Owen’s weekly Hornets column here.