NBA Inside Stuff Review - Michael Jordan, Respect Due

Volume Seven, Issue Four - Lots of MJ, blue-collar all-stars, and NBA Pop-Tarts!

Welcome to the latest issue of Basketball Shorts! If you’re new here, welcome! I’m happy to you’re here!

It’s July 1998. And in the print media world of the ‘90s, things moved a little slower. The Bulls had won their 6th NBA Title, but print deadlines prohibited this most recent issue from celebrating that success. Instead, in the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers, the magazine postulates whether this will be MJ’s final season and celebrates his greatness at the end of the 1997-98 regular season.

It’s an MJ appreciation issue! To the inside stuff!

News & Notes 

• Just a great photo of MJ. Nothing else to add.

• I can’t be positive, but I’d bet that Pippen, Kerr, Armstrong, and the like would not appreciate being called ‘The Jordanaires.” Maybe I’m wrong.

• This MJ resume is awesome. Thinking I might use some of this to pad my LinkedIn page. Think anyone will notice?

• Ahmad Rashad names his ‘Blue-Collar All-Stars!’ 

• Inside Stuff did an awesome job with this Jordan piece, showing his stat line for every game of his career to date and the accolades he collected each year.

• NBA players on MJ. The best one? Chris Gatling talking about how Jordan practiced with the Warriors after his first retirement and had a #23 Warriors jersey. I’d love to see that!

• Rewind time! This is a wonderful breakdown of one of Jordan’s most famous buckets.

• Test your knowledge!

Say whaaaaat? 

Letters! You never know what you’re going to get from issue to issue. This edition is mostly positive, although a couple of writers have words for Shaq: Dine from Virginia thinks Shaq won’t get any respect until he wins a title (Buckle up, Dine. The next few years are going to be WILD!) and Jamison from PA argues that Shaq is NOT the biggest, strongest, and fastest basketball player all in one; Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson are faster, stronger, and just as big. Discuss. 

In this issue’s poll, 29% of respondents think that MJ should retire to make way for younger players to lead the NBA. That might be the worst take of all time. I’m not a total MJ stan, but if your opinion is that the best player on the planet WHO JUST COMPLETED THE SECOND THREE-PEAT OF HIS CAREER should retire so that other players can have a chance? Ehhhh…

Posterized!

Best Ads

• Great ad for Adidas Superstars. I had a pair of these back in the day.

• Who here remembers Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex? I don’t know why (probably because we had the Dinsey channel growing up), but I remember hearing about this place a LOT.

• Love the Bobby Jackson Converse ad here.

• Sick Logo Athletic gear.

• Cards have returned! Well, only kinda sorta. These are an ad for milk, but it’s still nice to see them back in the magazine.

• Reebok and Mead teaming up to combat the market share that the Trapper Keeper was dominating back in the day.

• I drank so much Fruitopia during my middle school and early high school years.

• Who had a GameBoy camera??

• Loungin, Chilling, Hooping, Dreamin. I love any ad that offers something for free by sending them a self-addressed stamped envelope. 

• What is this Sprite ad?

• Counting these two ads as one since they’re on the same page. Denzel is the man, always. And I’m already eyeing a few MJ VHS collections on eBay. I’m running out of money.

• Oh my god bring back NBA Pop-Tarts now. (If I ever create merch for this newsletter, this will be on a t-shirt along with “Bring back hand-checking” and “Move the three-point line back.”) Accepting pre-orders now.

The Feed

The WNBA makes its FEED debut! New York’s Vickie Johnson with the sweet dish here.

The JAM

Nothing like finishing off an issue of Inside Stuff than with a vintage MJ dunk!

In the next newsletter

Starbury, Chuck daly vs Chuck D, and we find out if the Bulls won their 6th title!