What ELSE Did Make Michael Jordan Retire in 1998?

For those who don't know, the legendary Michael Jordan retired thrice in during his decorated career in the National Basketball Association. The first one was being in 1993 when he announced that he would be playing baseball. There is even a rumor that claimed the retirement was a way of the NBA's protecting Jordan and the league's legacy at the time as His Airness was testifying in a court trial involving James Bauler whom Jordan later admitted he had to send a 57,000 Dollar-check as a payment for his gambling loss. Incidentally, Michael's late father, James Jordan Sr. was gunned down in 1993 in what many initially thought was a robbery case but theorists also believed that the crime was also connected with His Airness' gambling debts. Of course, those remained as theories.

The second retirement was the focal point of the 10-episode documentary "The Last Dance" which aired its fifth and sixth episode yesterday as Jordan's second retirement happened after the Chicago Bulls completed their second three-peat and Jordan's final championship run. That retirement was too, loaded with questions even though Michael Jordan was still healthy enough to go for another season and that, the public wanted #23 to go on. What we know so far was that Michael Jordan retired because then Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause said at the beginning of the 1997-1998 season that regardless of how the Bulls would fare, that season would be Phil Jackson's final season as a Chicago head coach and that, Jordan would not play for any coach other than the Zen Master himself. And of course, Jordan, in 2003, retired for the final time as a member of the Washington Wizards.

But among the three retirements of arguably the greatest player of all-time, the 1998 retirement is the one that seems to be bothering people even today as Jordan was still healthy back then. Sure, there's the friction between Jordan and the late Jerry Krause. There's also the infamous friction between Krause and Scottie Pippen who at one point Krause even considered to trade when Pippen was injured. So the big question is: what else made Michael Jordan retire in 1998?

For starters, Michael Jordan's competitive drive in the game of basketball has been one of the main talking points of "The Last Dance" and that, Jordan was competitive in everything that he does. Ironically, that competitive drive to play the game beyond 1998 was also the apparent reason for his second retirement as His Airness explained that his decision to retire after winning his sixth and final championship as a Bull was because he lost the drive and the desire that he needed for him to keep playing at a high level. He also added that he wanted to spend more time with his family and that he was "99.9%" sure that he wouldn't come back. Of course, we all know what happened in 2001.

Lost drive and desire to compete at a high level and, wanting to spend more time with the family.

Those were the things that Jordan pointed out as reasons for his second retirement. And while many pundits pointed the tension between Krause and Jordan as one of the reasons for Jordan breaking up with the fabled Bulls team, you can easily pinpoint the connection between Jordan's reasons and the frictions that were going on at that time.

If you're playing for an organization and your general manager suddenly said that it won't matter if you go on to have a perfect season, your coach is done with the season's done. From a business standpoint, Jerry Krause wasn't wrong as he needed to make sure that his team would continue as many of the players outside of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were already in the final healthy years of playing and that, the Bulls would need to rebuild after that. Then again, Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan and he could have played for three more years had Krause allowed Phil Jackson to remain after 1998. In the end, that friction with the late Jerry Krause drove the drive and desire OUT of Michael Jordan. 

In the closing moments of the sixth episode of "The Last Dance", Michael Jordan told Ahmad Rashad that "Nobody's gonna carry me off the court. I wanna walk off the court". Those words meant that Michael Jordan wanted to walk out of the court on his own terms and that's exactly what happened as he retired for the second time as an NBA champion.  

Photo is from Sports Illustrated