What If Michael Jordan Had Stayed Retired in 1995?
In March 1995, Michael Jordan returned to the NBA with a simple two-word fax: “I’m back.” But what if he had stayed retired?
MICHAEL JORDAN SHOCKED THE WORLD WITH HIS ABRUPT RETIREMENT IN 1993, but what if he had never returned to the game of basketball? What if there was no second threepeat, no 72–10 season, no late 90s return to glory for the Chicago Bulls? What if Jordan had actually left the NBA for good?
The 90s are littered with the corpses of other basketball greats who never reached the NBA mountaintop thanks to MJ. How many other greats would have broken through for that elusive ring, like Hakeem Olajuwon did in Jordan’s mid-90s hiatus? What would have happened to Scottie Pippen, and how would we think of Michael Jordan all these years later?
We already considered how things would have played out if Jordan had never retired in the first place. This week, we’re going in the opposite direction. What if MJ really did retire — and what if he never came back??
