Michael Jordan was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984. Jordan retired twice from the Bulls in 1993 and 1999. The final NBA game appearance by Michael Jordan occurred on Apr 16, 2003, against the Philadelphia 76ers as a member of the Washington Wizards.
23 (of course) years later, His Airness is as relevant, iconic, and standard-bearing to the modern NBA as he was when he was the face of not only the Bulls, but the entire NBA in his playing days.
Whether or not Michael Jordan is your GOAT NBA player is not the point here; instead, it is simply remarkable how much influence Jordan wields in the ecosystem of the 2026 NBA.
Happy B-day to the person I idolized and wanna to be just like as a kid playing the game of basketball Michael Jordan. #TheG.O.A.T.
— LeBron James (@KingJames) February 17, 2012
In the most recent example, Toronto Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic invoked Jordan as a comparison to his own Raptors franchise star, All-Star wing Scottie Barnes.
Rajakovic shared in a Serbian podcast interview that he viewed his coach-player relationship in the same context as the relationship legendary former Bulls head coach Phil Jackson shared with Jordan.
Get yourself a coach who loves you like Darko loves Scottie. 🥰 pic.twitter.com/7t46kvuUj3
— theScore (@theScore) August 23, 2026
Tacked onto Rajakovic’s effusive reverence for luminaries of the Bulls’ 1990s dynasty is news of a projected $100 million price tag on a game-worn Michael Jordan Bulls jersey from game three of the 1998 NBA Finals due to be sold in a September 2026 auction event, according to Angela Barbuti of the New York Post.
Michael Jordan's game-worn 1998 NBA Finals jersey could fetch $100M in record-setting auction: owner https://t.co/6wox6mCGR1 pic.twitter.com/50fMbvoTYD
— New York Post (@nypost) August 23, 2026
Of course, let us also not forget that, effectively, a single Michael Jordan interview was chopped up like a Chicago thin-crust pizza and positioned as the secret sauce to NBC’s triumphant return to NBA broadcast coverage during the 2025-26 NBA season.
Jordan’s Chicago Bulls roster legacy
In 13 NBA seasons, the all-time standard that Michael Jordan set for NBA players was immediate with his very first NBA season.
Jordan’s rookie season still reads like a tall tale: NBA Rookie of the Year, NBA All-Star, All-NBA team selection. Jordan’s 1984-85 NBA rookie season averages totaled 28.2 points per game, 6.5 rebounds per game, 5.9 assists per game, and 2.4 steals per game.
The 1987-88 NBA season is forever iconic in Jordan’s career and Bulls franchise history as he earned his first NBA regular-season MVP award while accomplishing the rare feat of also winning the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.
Jordan’s individual dominance became a meteoric phenomenon in the 1980s while the NBA was still the competitive property of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, featuring a decade-defining rivalry between the Lakers' star point guard Magic Johnson and the Celtics' near-invincible wing Larry Bird.
Unquestioned league-wide dominance was earned by Michael Jordan via the Celtics' decline in the late 1980s, conquering the Detroit Pistons in the 1991 NBA Eastern Conference Finals after three consecutive season-ending playoff series losses to the Pistons, and putting a definitive end to Magic Johnson’s Showtime Lakers dynasty as the Bulls won their first NBA title in the 1991 NBA Finals.
In total, six NBA championships and zero NBA Finals defeats led by Michael Jordan, in the context of a strong team concept, are the reasons why Michael Jordan holds esteemed reverence in today’s NBA conversations.
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