King James a.k.a. Baby Jordan a.k.a. Lebron James is lobbying for the NBA to retire Michael Jordan’s #23 for the entire league. Not only is James ready to start a petition, he is also ready to give up his own jersey #23 to #6, the number he wore on the USA Olympic gold medal squad and in practices since the Olympics. It wouldn’t be the first time this a # would be retired to pay homage to a difference maker in a professional sport’s league. It started with the MLB back in 97 when they retired the ¸late-great Jackie Robinson’s number 42, only players wearing the # at that time were allowed to keep it, only 1 player is left wearing that number and that is the recent World Series Champion Mariano Rivera. The NHL followed suit shortly retiring “The Great One” Wayne Gretzky’s #99 in 2000, is it now time to do so for “His Airness”??? Only 9 Current players, including Lebron himself, would be affected with of course anyone else coming in the league. Out of those 13, you have Lebron who would switch his # to 6 and 3 others that are currently sponsored under the Jordan brand… I would be surprised if they didn’t change their numbers out of respect for their “boss”. How do I feel about that you ask… Well, for starters it would make the league a little more money because, at least in James’ case, fans would have to buy new jerseys as they did for Kobe when he changed his # to 24. To be honest, I agree with the whole thing simply because he was the greatest player ever… not to take anything away from all the other pioneers and star players, Jordan was relevant, is relevant and will ALWAYS be relevant to the game because he is the ONLY player to make himself an everlasting brand. Some people would even want to change the NBA logo that has the silhouette of former NBA player Jerry west since 1971 and switch that silhouette with the Jumpman Logo, but that to me would be a little much and I like the NBA logo as it is.
If the MLB and NHL can do it, the NBA can do it also and the only # I could imagine being retired is… 23
The league has left a statement saying that it would be unlikely that they retire the # for the entire league because, to them, that is a team’s choice and not the league’s choice to do. In that case I would lobby for all teams to individually retire the #. Then, they also said that they have a league policy that states players must wear the same # for at least 5 years (on the same team) before they can change it (as Kobe did), use the Jackie Robinson rule… so anything problems they come up with can be solved!
Let me know your thoughts…
Online petitions to retire #23 click HERE…
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