John Kim 
Michael Jordan is remembered for many of his achievements. NBA Championships, team ownership, and scoring titles are the “sexy” categories of what he’s managed to pull off, but for tonight’s Sneaker News: Was It The Shoes?, we’ll focus on one the true unsung hero of Michael’s unparalleled game – Defense. The phrase “defense wins championships” is a resounding truth across all professional sports (even you, SlamBall), and the lack thereof is unquestionably the primary criticism of the NBA stars of the current generation. Let’s take a look back at Jordan’s Defensive legacy!
The landscape of NBA Defense has undergone some significant changes. The most notable, of course, was the implementation of Zone Defense which was primarily aimed at containing Shaquille O’neal during an era when serviceable and sizable NBA Centers were few and far in-between. Zone Defense eventually led to an overall lax approach to man-to-man defense, so while guys like Vince Carter, Carmelo Anthony, Tracy McGrady, Allen Iverson, and even LeBron James were creating legends of themselves with their offensive output, they were mediocre-at-best on the opposite end of the floor. So while the Pistons won an improbable Championship in 2004 with team D, man-to-man defense was a lost art, and quite frankly, that explains why the aforementioned Carter/Anthony/McGrady/Iverson cluster has zero championships. Some NBA analysts will postulate that LeBron didn’t get his first Championship until his defense stepped up.
So what about Michael? Where does Defense fit in with his 6 NBA Titles? The flat out truth is that Michael Jordan was one of the best defensive players in the game. He was an intimidator on both ends of the floor, and his tenacity and relentless pursuit of the basketball led him to be one of the most prolific thieves in NBA history. Not to say his efforts on D went unrecognized – he was named to nine consecutive NBA All-Defensive First Teams from 1988 to 1998 (a three-year hiatus due to retirement and that shortened ’95 season).
While we can quantify Michael Jordan’s defense by pointing out that he led the NBA in steals a grand total of three times, most of ‘defense’ can’t be measured by numbers. Despite that, he was still recognized as the best defensive player in the league in 1988 when he was just 25 years old. 1988 marked an interesting year for the NBA as well; after Michael, a Guard, was named the DPOY, every award winner from then ’til now has been a Forward or a Center, with the exception of Gary Payton, who earned the award in 1996. Another interesting fact: Michael Jordan is just one of four players in NBA history to win the League MVP and DPOY in the same season.
Some will argue that Michael Jordan’s defense was, for a lack of a better word, “overrated” during the tail-end of his Bulls career. It was still among the best, but with younger and faster players out there with quick first steps, it wasn’t as easy for Michael to keep up. However, his team defense IQ was still top-notch, which is evident in his maintaining a high level of steals-per-game as well as his All-Defensive recognition. Even the ‘Last Shot’ in 1998, which some say is Michael’s greatest bucket in history, was all because of defense; the Utah Jazz had the ball, and Michael crept up on an unaware Karl Malone and stripped the ball from him cleanly. Seconds later, Jordan hoisted up six fingers.
While Jordan’s defense lasted his entire career, we’ll focus on the year that he was the NBA Defensive Player of the Year. That would be 1988, during which Michael sported the Air Jordan III ‘Black/Cement’ for the second half of the season. The Air Jordan III ‘Black/Cement’, as we all know, is considered to be one of the best Air Jordans of all-time, making several returns since its debut.
