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Other than winning with supreme self-assuredness, Jordan is loved because his image is, above all else, personality-less. There are many kinder ways to put this--he's a gentleman; he's classy; he has old-world values; he's modest; he has a blue-collar work ethic; he's quintessentially American--but the truth is, he's bland. Think about all the interviews you've seen and the stories you've read. (And like it or not, you have. He's been mentioned in, on average, 100 newspaper articles a day.) Can you describe his personality? His politics? His sense of humor? His likes or dislikes? Bitter sitcom writers, accustomed to having edgy material rejected, use this analogy: Bugs Bunny is funnier, smarter and more interesting than Mickey Mouse, who has no known personality except for being vaguely likable and harmless. Mickey is worth a trillion dollars. Be like Mickey.
But while it's easy for a cartoon character to be Mickey Mouse (especially when he hasn't appeared in a full-length film in decades), it's quite an accomplishment for a human being under Truman Show conditions. Jordan's public image is empty by immaculate design. "I'm around him all the time, and what he has to put up with--media attention and people making demands of him and wanting him to be here, there and everywhere--he does a tremendous job. He's done a great thing with his image and really kept it pretty clean," says Bulls backup center Bill Wennington. "And he's so cute." Jordan is a vessel into which America can pour anything it wants. He's noble, charming, righteous and kind, not because he necessarily is but because we want him to be. And, yes, Bill, it helps that he's good looking.
But he does work so hard at his reflexive nonimage. Though thin-skinned (ask any reporter who has criticized him in print), he almost never loses his temper. He never appears so much as shirtless in the locker room and changes from shorts into a fine Italian suit for each short walk from hotel room to team bus, because those few seconds may be the only time those particular fans crowding the lobby see him, and he wants to get it right. He is so polished that his few scrapes with indiscretion--losing tens of thousands of dollars in golf and poker bets to hustlers, getting named in a paternity suit last week, commenting that playing Reggie Miller is like chicken fighting with a woman--bounce off him in ways Ronald Reagan only dreamed about. Apart from instinctive curiosity, few have ever questioned what chicken fighting with a woman means.