His Washington years get made fun of but he was pretty damn good. Reading the book on those years illuminated the fact that Jordan's knee had severe tendinitis basically his entire first season as a Wizard, due to being older and training heavily out of nowhere (he announced his comeback very late in the offseason prior), and had to be drained multiple times. He was such a maniac about playing that he refused to let it rest until he just couldn't play anymore. Because of this, his stats don't really look very good in comparison to the rest of his career. His second season his percentages are up across the board and, most impressively, he played all 82 games as he was turning 40 years old averaging 37 minutes a game. That's incredible.
The efficiency isn't great, particularly that first year, but the entire league was not very efficient at that time. It was a tough era to watch basketball if you were a fan of offense. Lots of isos, particularly by Jordan.
Another thing: He took the veterans exception to play as a Wizard, which was only like $1 million a year, and he donated his salary for those two years to charity. I want to say it was a 9/11 victims charity but I'm not 100% on that. I'm going by memory on this. The way I remember it is that he announced his comeback pretty soon after 9/11, almost like it was a response to the event
I will counter that Jordan turned on Brown later on. Jordan went from being a supporter to being ruthless to him later on. The perception was Kwame Brown wasn't putting in the work and he's lazy, disengaged, etc. In my opinion I think Jordan still helped ruin him. Jordan went from his best supporter to one of his worst enemies later on. What you quoted here seems to be in between. At the end of the day the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Kwame isn't the first teammate Jordan was ruthless against - he's an alpha male that tests everybody, including Robert Parish.
My source: https://www.amazon.com/When-Nothing-Else-Matters-Comeback/dp/0743254279
I see you've not read <em>When Nothing Else Matters</em>. Some of the stories about MJ in there will make you shutter.
One I remember off the top of my head - back in his pre-PJ days there was a game where Doug Collins drew up a last second play for another player (not MJ) and MJ was not happy.
The team was scheduled to fly out for a road trip at like 10 AM the next day and everyone is there but Michael. Of course they can't leave without MJ so they sit there on the tarmac and wait... and wait... and wait. He shows up a couple hours later, gets on the plane, stops where Doug is sitting, gives him a good hard stare, then goes and takes his seat.
Message sent - don't forget who's team this is.
There’s a whole book written about the MJ Wizards! ‘When Nothing Else Matters’ — https://www.amazon.com/When-Nothing-Else-Matters-Comeback/dp/0743254279.
When Nothing Else Matters by Michael Leahy was quite good. A look into his Wizards days and you get a pretty good insight into his insane competitiveness.