I’m not sure I could ever look up there again.

I know, for some reason last night, while Jordan was in Miami talking about the 25th anniversary edition of Air Jordan shoes, the Heat decided to retire No. 23 in honor of Jordan. It has even been suggested that the number should be retired, league-wide, the way baseball retired No. 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson.

It may be the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard of. Especially for teams that Jordan beat or publicly scorned — like Portland. Not only did Jordan hand the Blazers a loss in the NBA Finals, he has on a few occasions talked about how lucky he was never to have played here.

I find the whole idea wrong on so many levels. First off, numbers become iconic within a generation — but not much longer after that. When I was a kid if you wore No. 7, everyone knew you were a Mickey Mantle guy. The No. 24 was Willie Mays. And No. 37? If you were a coach or manager, you wanted Casey Stengel’s number. Was there a more iconic number in sports than Wayne Gretzky’s 99?

Today, those numbers are all but forgotten, except by the gray hairs. I have a feeling Jordan’s number will be the same way. His Jumpman logo is more iconic than his number and it will be around for a long time.

I see no reason to honor him league-wide. Certainly, he’s no Jackie Robinson. He didn’t break the color barrier. Greatest player of all time? Well, for now. But since when did sports want to retire the number of their all-time best player? I’ve never heard of it.

Someone will come along at some point, though, who is better than Jordan. It’s always that way. Not sure somebody playing right now won’t eventually be that.

Switch out Jordan’s Jumpman for Jerry West onto the NBA’s logo if you want. I could live with that. West’s had a great run in that thing for years but just about all leagues do a little refresher on their logo at some point.

Just please, Trail Blazers, PLEASE, spare me from having to look at that No. 23 in the Rose Garden rafters. And don’t automatically dismiss the possibility — Trail Blazer president Larry Miller was once the president of Brand Jordan and has a close relationship with the guy.

But I would hope we could somehow retain the impression that this league belongs to competitors. It belongs to the people whose will to win aspires to be as great as Jordan’s. And to honor those people, don’t ever hang another team’s player’s laundry in the rafters of their house.

UPDATE: Can you imagine how well this would go over in Boston or Detroit?

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Michael Jordan, No. 23, retired numbers, Rose Garden

Don’t know if you had a chance to catch MJ’s Hall of Fame speech, but it was a real doozy. The guy used it as a platform to take cheap shots at people who supposedly slighted him, failed to mention some who helped him, hinted at a possible comeback at age 50 and, in general, made himself look every bit the part of an old fool.

There’s a very good column about it here that sums it all up, but it’s pretty incredible how many people accepted it — because he’s Jordan, of course — and didn’t call him on it. It’s always been incredible to me how little sticks to Jordan. The gambling, the strange retirement from the game to go off and suck at baseball, the abuse of his teammates, his ill-fated comeback, his front-office failures — he’s Jordan, so nobody criticizes him.

Man, that speech was incredibly poor judgment from start to finish, including a mention of his family, finally, and saying to his three children — “I wouldn’t want to be you guys.” Gee, thanks Dad, for such a gift.

For a guy who accomplished so much, he came off as such a bitter and frankly, stupid, old man. You’re going into the Hall of Fame, listening to wonderful speeches from the likes of John Stockton, Jerry Sloan and David Robinson and you’re going to stand up there and take shots at people you feel who doubted you? You’re going to go all the way back and take one last potshot at your high school coach for shipping you to the JVs as an underclassman?

Man, that’s so, well, classless. But what do you expect? For the latter part of his career, the man was pretty difficult to be around, by all accounts. And with so many people sucking up to him, he probably never knew what the real world was like. He’s a huge failure in the NBA front office, so I guess his only choice for further attention is to make yet another comeback.

Please, Michael, come back. I’d love to see you stumbling around. You deserve it. And so many people around the NBA would LOVE to see you fail one last time.

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Tags: Basketball Hall of Fame, Dwight Jaynes, Michael Jordan

All over the place I’m reading stories that Kobe Bryant must, for some reason, validate his place in history by winning a championship without Shaquille O’Neal around to help him. And that’s what this NBA Finals is all about.

And that is so ridiculous.

My goodness, Michael Jordan never had to win one without Scottie Pippen. Bill Russell didn’t have to win one without all those great players he had alongside him in Boston. Magic Johnson didn’t have to grab one without Kareem and Worthy.

I really don’t understand why Kobe suddenly has to win “his own” title to someone cement his legacy. Come on, folks — I don’t think MJ ever won an NBA title with a supporting cast as weak as the one Kobe has right now. I mean, this Laker team isn’t exactly Kareem, Worthy, Byron Scott and Magic, is it?

Basketball is a team game. Ask Wilt Chamberlain (well, he’s dead, but you know what I mean). Oscar Robertson, ask him. You need talented players, plural, to win titles. The NBA does all it can to make it seem as if it’s just one man on these teams. There’s way too much of that “Kobe vs. LeBron” and “Garnett vs. Howard” marketing junk going on as it is. And people actually fall for it. They think if the Lakers lose this series, it falls totally on Kobe’s shoulders.

Don’t get roped into it. It’s the Lakers vs. the Magic. Period. The great players play a big part in it, but they aren’t the whole show. Didn’t we learn anything from LeBron’s conference finals last week?

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, NBA championship, Oscar Robertson, Scottie Pippen, Wilt Chamberlain

Congrats to everyone, especially Jerry Sloan — who goes into the Hall on his first try after never having won Coach of the Year honors. The others are Michael Jordan (who would have thought HE would ever get in?), David Robinson, John Stockton and women’s coach Vivian Stringer. I’d take that team right now — with Sloan playing and Stringer coaching, against any other class in history.

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Tags: Basketball Hall of Fame, David Robinson, Dwight Jaynes, Jerry Sloan, John Stockton, Michael Jordan, Vivian Stringer