We Love You, MJ, But You Are Not Very Good at Your Job

I remember when Michael Jordan came back the second time. With the Wizards. It was a conflicted time in my life. It was sort of sad to see how slow and old he was, but it was also kind of fun to see him adjust his old-man body to compete against more athletic youngsters. Ultimately, I guess I was just happy to experience a little bit of my childhood again. It was nice that way.

This time, I am less conflicted. I can say this without any twinge of betrayal: Michael Jordan is a terrible executive.

His record with the Wizards is well known -- the failed Kwame Brown pick being the most blatant example in a long list of failures -- but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. It happens, right? Sometimes, you learn on the job, and things go awry. It's a steep learning curve in NBA front offices.

Since then, though, Jordan hasn't done anything to change this reputation. As part owner and basketball operations guy for the Charlotte Bobcats, Jordan has had certain undesirable traits whispered about him -- that he doesn't care, that he golfs when he should be working, and so on. That's bad enough. But it doesn't come anywhere close to the latest rumor from Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski, whose name I actually managed to spell correctly the first time I typed it. Michael Jordan wants to trade Gerald Wallace. (Hat tip: Sporting Blog):

As for the Bobcats roster, Larry Brown talked Michael Jordan out of trading forward Gerald Wallace over the summer, but that hasn't stopped him from shopping him in the preseason, sources say. Charlotte was hoping to showcase Adam Morrison enough in the preseason to find a taker for him.

Ah! Michael! What are you doing? It's Gerald Wallace. He's about 1,000 times better, and about 2^10 powers more entertaining than Adam Morrison. The Bobcats should be building around Wallace's underappreciated talent -- not trying to move it. And especially not for Adam Morrison.

What's sad is that this isn't an isolated example of bad judgment. This is par for MJ's horrific front office course. And that's a golf metaphor. I have a feeling he'd appreciate that.

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