The Bootlegged Mythology of Michael Jordan in Latin America

The ever-evolving iterations of Jordan’s sneaker legacy, as seen firsthand in Mexico

Forget LeBron James. Kareem Abdul Ja-who? Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Allen Iverson; never heard of them. Even the wondrous Steph Curry — whose dimension-rifting skills have forever warped the dimensions of basketball physics — barely gets a mention south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the year of our lord 2024.

They’re all superseded by one indomitable force of capitalistic infinitude. Of airborne shamanism. Of an eternally transcendent purity of basketball imagination that arose in 1985 from the nascent stages of the NBA’s global popularity, and has continued soaring into the present day as a high-flying, corporeal silhouette.

For Latin Americans, there is no vertex of American sports eminence as elevated, untouchable, and permanent as Michael “His Airness” Jordan.

Besides Jordan’s former teammate, the radically enigmatic Dennis Rodman — who, to this day, himself continues to enrapture nostalgic hoop heads from Tijuana to Rio de Janeiro with his singularly electric being, especially after briefly exporting his rebounding talents to…