Michael Jordan said he was surprised the Chicago Bulls never offered him a front-office role or an ownership stake after he retired, even though teams around the NBA began presenting him with executive opportunities. Jordan, who formally joined the Washington Wizards as part-owner and president of basketball operations in January 2000, told reporters later that year that offers “started coming to me, starting with Charlotte,” and that the most puzzling thing was that “for the next year, people were bringing me deals … and still, Chicago never called. Not that I would have taken it, but it was never on the table.”
Jordan’s expectation of overtures from the Bulls came against a backdrop of a bitter split with the franchise. He left Chicago after the 1998 title, and his long-running public disputes with then-general manager Jerry Krause and owner Jerry Reinsdorf were well documented. The animosity was aired widely in retrospect — including Jordan’s own criticisms in the documentary The Last Dance — and the two sides had clashed publicly over roster spending and the direction of the team, most notably when Reinsdorf refused in 1997 to guarantee the payroll the franchise wanted to keep its championship core intact.
That history has been used to explain why the Bulls never approached Jordan with a role, even as other teams dangled ownership and executive positions. The Basketball Network, which first reported on Jordan’s comments and whose piece was republished by Yahoo Sports this week, argued that it would have been hard for Reinsdorf or Krause to welcome a figure who had been so openly critical into the management ranks. The report quotes Jordan acknowledging the oddness of the silence, even while conceding he might not have accepted a Chicago offer.
Jordan’s subsequent record as an NBA executive has been mixed at best, and critics use that to argue the Bulls may have dodged a risk. During his time with Washington — and later with Charlotte, where he served as majority owner of the Bobcats/Hornets — the franchises did not enjoy sustained success. Washington failed to reach the playoffs during Jordan’s tenure as part-owner and player, and Charlotte reached the postseason only three times under his ownership, never advancing past the first round. The Bobcats also endured a historically poor season, posting a .106 winning percentage in 2011-12, one of the lowest in modern NBA history.
Observers and the Basketball Network piece attribute those results to a series of questionable front-office decisions during Jordan’s tenure: coaching hires that did not pan out, draft picks that became busts, and free-agent signings that did not deliver expected returns. Those failures stand in stark contrast to Jordan’s on-court legacy, the report notes, underscoring the difference between being one of the game’s greatest players and building a consistently successful franchise from the owner’s box.
Had the Bulls reopened talks with Jordan around 2000, the article suggests, the franchise’s trajectory might have shifted — but not necessarily for the better. By the mid-2000s, Chicago had rebuilt into a perennial playoff contender, and bringing back a contentious former star as an executive might have destabilized that progress. At the very least, Jordan himself has implied the relationship was over: though surprised the Bulls did not call, he acknowledged he might not have accepted an offer even if it had been made.