Jordan, Michael Jeffrey (1963- )

US basketball player. Named by the US magazine Sports Illustrated as the ‘Best Basketball Player of the 20th Century’ (1999), he played for the Chicago Bulls from 1984, and led them to National Basketball Association (NBA) championship wins in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998. During the 1986-87 season he scored 3,000 points, only the second player in NBA history to do so. He retired from professional basketball in October 1993 to pursue a professional baseball career, but returned to the game in March 1995. He announced his retirement in 1999, citing mental exhaustion as the reason why he was leaving the sport, but again returned to the game in October 2001 playing for the Washington Wizards until his final retirement in April 2003.

Jordan led the league in scoring for a record ten times. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, and Wilt Chamberlain have scored more than Jordan's 32,292 career points in the NBA. In a total of 179 play-off games he scored a record 5,987 points at an average of 33.4.

Career highlights

NBA

Olympic Games

Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, Jordan attended the University of North Carolina where he was a key player for his team when they won the 1982 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship. He also played on the victorious 1984 and 1992 US Olympic basketball teams. ‘Air Jordan’ sneakers were popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1992 he became the world's highest paid sportsperson, earning three times more in advertising endorsements than for playing basketball.

In January 1998 Jordan broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's NBA record of scoring 10 points or more in 787 consecutive games, and extended the streak to 842 games.