Do The Mike Thing

Daniel Bhinda

I can't honestly say that I know first hand how great Michael Jordan was - as a player or as a person. I was born in 1992, during the middle of Jordan's career as a basketball player, and I live in Australia. After reading these two facts alone, you could say that I remain ignorant of his true greatness: yet you could not be more wrong. Although I have never even seen Michael in person, this has not obstructed his prominence in reaching even Perth, Australia, where his greatness translated into almost every aspect of life.

Whenever ANYONE gains an interest in basketball, there are always certain skills that they strive to be able to do - including any move that Jordan had ever done, whether it was dunking like him, dribbling like him, shooting like him or even passing like him. There was always at least ONE Jordan move that everyone copied, and for me it was shooting like him.

I first saw his shot over 10 years ago from one of my older brothers VHS tapes. At that point, it looked like any other players shot to me. That is, until I realised that I needed to improve my own shot and needed a role model in order to do it. Whose shot would I like to have the most? I asked myself. Obviously the shot of the best clutch player of all time! Since then, I've watched and re-watched every Jordan game I could get and countless documentaries: all which have helped develop my shot into what it is today.

In this entry I could sit here and write all about how much I love Jordan, how much he has influenced me in basketball and even in some of the everyday activities I do, but instead I'm going to cut that short and skip to how much EVERYONE loves Jordan. Why? Because Michael Jordan has not just influenced my life and inspired me to improve, he's inspired almost two whole generations - those fortunate enough to have been old enough to watch him in his prime and my own.

Michael Jordan's antics on the basketball court were broadcast all over the world, including Australia. In the early to mid 80s, Bird and Magic were the legends, but basketball was never really a household sport... that is, until Jordan took over and popularised it. In Australia, basketball was really only broadcast during the 90s, during the height of its popularity, and it was all because of MJ. Today, after his retirement, the tv stations of free-to-air tv barely even broadcast NBL games here, let alone the NBA. Jordan's popularity seemed to literally translate into every aspect of life - his way of playing the game, the never say die attitude and his uncanny knack of prevailing and hitting clutch shots all became symbolical to the people, and the evidence of it is not only from his countless awards & championships, but what we see in the Jumpman logo of Nike's today.