Our required Jordan tribute

What made Michael Jordan the best basketball player to ever step on a 94'-by-50' piece of hardwood? 

Was it the six NBA titles? The six NBA Finals MVP Awards? The five regular season MVP awards? The 10 scoring titles? The 14 all-star games? The 10 times on the all-NBA first-team? The nine times on the NBA all-defensive first team? The 32,292 points he scored in his NBA career, which ranks third all-time? The 2,514 steals, which ranks second all-time? The two Olympic gold medals? The 56 Sports Illustrated covers he appeared on, by far the most of any athlete? 

The numbers tell much of the story, but they don't come close to telling it all. Numbers don't detail how clutch Jordan was, how he wanted more than anything to have the ball in his hands with the game on the line. The back of his Upper Deck can't describe how MJ took every grudge or insult - actual, perceived or fabricated - and used it as motivation to win. Stats have no way of explaining how #23 lifted a whole team, make that a whole city, on his back for over a decade, taking everyone with him on a journey that no basketball player or team had taken before. 

Michael Jordan is the greatest for all those reasons, and so many more. He is going into the Basketball Hall of Fame today not only because of what he did during two separate three-year spans during the 1990's, where he dominated a team sport like nobody else, but because he stands as a direct marker in the history of sports and entertainment throughout the world. Pro basketball, TV commercials, player endorsements, the list could go on and on, all were impacted directly by the 6' 6" UNC grad. Life before Mike was nothing like life with Mike, and life with Mike was nothing like life after Mike. 

Basketball is a complex game, but Jordan made it seem as simple as tic-tac-toe. He did everything well, from dunking to dribbling to defense. Finding fault in Michael Jordan's game would be like finding fault in a Ferrari; you have to look very hard and what you find won't be much. No player, in any sport it could be argued, has been as replicated and copied as His Ariness. Every current NBA player that grew up watching Jordan has at least a little bit of  #23 in their game. From Kobe pumping his fist following a buzzer-beater to LeBron throwing powder in the air before every game to Dirk holding his follow-through on a clutch jumper, all of that came from the Bulls star. 

Those symbols - the powder, the fist-pump, the follow through - as well as several more - tongue sticking out, fresh sneakers, acrobatic yet powerful dunks, the fadeaway that seemed to rise forever and then drop through the nets like a shot from heaven - all define what type of player Jordan was. So do his never-ending collection of moments and games that are so well known, often times just a few words need to be stated to understand the significance. Putting up 63 in the Boston Garden, the Shot on Ehlo, his spec-tac-u-lar move in the '91 Finals, the shrug in '92, dropping a double-nickel wearing #45, the Flu Game and finally, the rip, cross and jumper against Utah to win one for the thumb. That's just seven memorable moments from a career that produced thousands.

On the East side of the United Center, the arena MJ called home for the final three-and-a-half seasons of his Bulls career, there is a statue bearing his resemblance. Showing him in his classic Jumpman pose, dunking on some helpless defender, the statue reminds Chicagoans every game how dominant Jordan was. On one side of the statue's base, it recites several of Jordan's impressive accomplishments; on another side, it lists the years MJ played for the Bulls. But under the years, an 11-word inscription explains what Michael Jordan was all about. 

The best there ever was. The best there ever will be.