O’Donnell: Michael Jordan on NBC will be mild ado about image maintenance

THE NBA IS TIPPING OFF ITS 2025-26 SEASON this week.

On a Chicago watch list, that clocks in somewhere between chasing unique leaf symmetry and monitoring snowblower prices at Costco.

Billy Donovan and his newest batch of horizontal holders host Detroit Wednesday (7 p.m., CHSN, AM-670). Oddsmakers have been adroit enough to install the Pistons as 3½-point favorites.

(Vegas also says the over/under bet total for the hounds of West Madison Street is 32½ wins. If the Bulls don't top that this season, the best news is that must mean the last farewell for basketball ops placeholders Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley.)

NATIONALLY, THE MOST INTRIGUING CHUNK OF MEDIA NEWS is that the NBA's new 11-year, multi-billion TV contract begins.

The three broadcast partners are: incumbent ESPN/ABC, new shooter Prime Video and recast NBC/Peacock, which will be airing league games for the first time since 2002.

All will feature play-by-play people with analysts and studio wraparound shows. To list all involved would mean Daily Herald column bleed-over into the esteemed “Len Ziehm on Golf.”

For those who must know, by network, some intriguing names: Mike Breen, Richard Jefferson, longshot Tim Legler (ESPN/ABC); Ian Eagle, Kevin Harlan, Stan Van Gundy (Prime Video); and, Reggie Miller, Grant Hill, Brad Daugherty (NBC).

NBC WINS THAT BATTLE OF NETWORK TRIFECTAS, and in theory, the web should be further distancing itself from the redundant fray with the addition of Michael Jordan as “a special contributor.”

What Michael will do on the comeback channel where he once ruled way up high has been rather blurred since the agreement was announced last spring.

In more recent days, NBC overseers finally let it be leaked that His Royal Airness will be featured in a recurring segment titled, “MJ: Insights to Excellence.”

Jordan will be interviewed by Mike Tirico, which is like finding out Paul McCartney is sitting for some musical give-and-gab with Al Roker.

“MJ” IS CERTAIN TO STIR with candid takes on his own personal basketball greatness, how he perceives that basketball greatness and some of the personal perspectives and drive that fueled that basketball greatness.

Tirico's one-seam questioning is certain to avoid anything to actually draw Michael into a mature, revealing discussion about the texture and trouble spots that made him the most theatrical and marketable basketball champion in the history of the game.

(The most prolific basketball champion ever remains Bill Russell. There is no further pushback or dialogue on that point. For naysayers, do the history and stride toward the light, including the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics among Russell's 14 major championships in 15 years.)

NEWCOMERS TO THE ENDURING JORDAN PHENOMENON — even after “The Last Dance” (2020) — must understand critical points about his legend:

• At point of entry with the Bulls in 1984, despite his enormous talent, the smart money was that he'd get submarined by the team's surreal party culture. That didn't happen;

• Once he became established as “The Man,” he then had to constantly manage and maintain against the relentless pettiness and intrusiveness of the unfortunate Jerry Krause; and;

• His aerial feats weren't his greatest accomplishment; Jordan's maintenance of his image was, a stature that butted up against periodic travails, some of his own making.

SO, GIVEN HIS FRESH ASSOCIATION WITH NBC, a question for No. 23:

Why now?

If he never utters another public word, the legend of Michael Jordan is secure.

Through his people, he declined Monday to respond to inquiries from the Daily Herald.

But now age 62, his full participation in “The Last Dance” was clearly a prelude to his agreement to be part of NBC's NBA package.

And also a hint of why he's making sure his own eternal flame keeps going.

JORDAN'S ENDING WITH THE BULLS WAS hollow, opened-ended and despicably unfair.

Jerry Reinsdorf owed him the opportunity to have his reign of championships end on-court with the people Jordan wanted alongside him manning all appropriate triangle stations.

That didn't happen. The two-year comeback with Washington (2001-03) was a show of remarkable will and life force but a nonsuccess. His run as principal partner of the Charlotte Hornets was not Jordanian in results.

SO 27 YEARS REMOVED FROM HIS FINAL BASKETBALL TRIUMPH, if Michael has a nonchallenging opportunity to showcase himself and remind all of what he has been, why shouldn't he?

Even if it means risking marshmallow fatigue against the campfire soft-serve of Mike Tirico.

With a home-court advantage of proud Peacock proportion, Jordan's capacity for buoyant image maintenance isn't about to fly away.

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.