`Night and day': a teammates view of the effect Michael Jordan's comeback is having on the Wizards

Sporting News, The, Nov 12, 2001 by Sean Deveney

Chris Whitney is standing in front of his locker at the MCI Center in Washington, buttoning his dress shirt after a win over Philadelphia. He looks down at his chest. He's in good shape, but not so good that he wants to appear shiftless on TV. So the television cameras--there are four--wait as he buttons.

"I am going to get with Tim Grover next summer," he says. "I got to get built up so I can look good for these interviews."

It's understandable that Whitney, the Wizards' starting point guard, is not used to such attention. Interviews have been rare for Whitney in his NBA career, but now that his locker is next to that of his new teammate, Michael Jordan ...

Whoa, whoa. Whitney wants this story stopped. Let's get this straight. "My locker is not next to his," Whitney says. "His locker is next to mine. Make sure you write that."

Fair enough. It's an important distinction because no player has suffered more with the Wizards than Whitney. He signed with Washington in March 1996--he was a Bullet back then--and has managed to avoid the organizational purges the Wizards endure annually. Only four current Wizards were with the team at the start of last season. So don't expect Whitney to be intimidated by some newcomer.

"This is my team," Whitney says with a smirk and a pause. "But don't write that one."

Sorry, Chris.

This has been the feeling that has emerged out of Wizardville in the infancy of this NBA season, Michael Jordan's first after a three-year hiatus. The Wizards can be relaxed. They can joke, even at Jordan's expense (as long as he is out of earshot, at least). Because although the team might be imbued with a sense of lightheartedness it has not known in years, that breezy attitude is based on the prospect of winning that Jordan's return suddenly has given the Wizards. When it comes to winning, Jordan is very serious.

"It is a completely changed attitude," Whitney says. "It was always good for me to come to work because I just like playing basketball. But the atmosphere was not always great here. Now, we have media following us, we are on TNT and NBC, and all that. That makes it fun. I didn't know it was going to be this much fun. And what's best is we think we can win."

As an executive, Jordan was subpar and kept his distance. Before last season, he said the Wizards would finish at least .500 and would make the playoffs, but that delusion unraveled quickly. Instead, they finished 19-63, the second-worst mark in team history. He was not around the team much but said he was watching them daily, getting so frustrated with their play he "threw (stuff) at the TV." But his criticism lost meaning with some players because Jordan was so seldom seen. That, obviously, has changed.

Unable to have an impact on the team from a management seat, Jordan is, as Wizards forward Popeye Jones says, "in the foxhole with us now, which makes a big difference."

It makes a big difference because the Wizards have shown very little will power in recent years. Will is one thing Jordan is not lacking. "They have never seen passion like this," he says. "It's us against the world. We've got to lay it on the line every minute. We're all in this together."

It is midway through the second quarter of the win over Philadelphia in the Wizards' home opener, but victory already seems an unlikely outcome.

Jordan has been sitting at the end of the bench for a couple of minutes. The Wizards have fallen behind, 29-22, and have gone on a two-minute scoring drought. After a turnover and two bad shots, Jordan has had enough. He pops off the bench and begins taking off his warmup jersey. Coach Doug Collins looks surprised to see him, but Jordan wants back in the game, and Collins is not going to stop him, as he did two nights before in Atlanta. That night, Jordan wanted to forgo his scheduled rest at the end of the third quarter, but Collins talked him out of it by telling him, "Trust your teammates. If I don't rest you, we can't finish this game." That time, Jordan sat. But now, it's the second quarter, and Jordan is checking himself back in.

"He knows what this team needs," Collins says. "His will is what drives this team."

"He does what needs to be done," Whitney says. "I'm not going to argue with him. He is Michael Jordan. We are still getting used to playing with him, playing with someone who dominates the ball like that. I have never played with someone who dominates the ball that way, none of us has. He gets very determined."

Two nights earlier, in a win over Atlanta, Jordan had shown a more vocal kind of determination. The Wizards trailed the Hawks, 53-49, at the half, and when the players got to the locker room, they got a sharp tongue lashing from Jordan. He wanted better execution. He wanted better effort. He yelled. He used foul language. But he was careful not to turn the halftime meeting into a self-serving speech. He never brings up his past with his current team.

"He keeps the focus on us," Jones says. "He never talks about things like, he did not come back to lose like this, or we are hurting his history or anything. I know you all don't believe it, but he came back to help this team, not to prove anything."