On January 4, 2001, Michael Jordan scored his 30,000th career NBA points. Ironically, he was playing against the Chicago Bulls when he did so.
“MJ,” as he is commonly referred to, was playing for the Washington Wizards at the time and became the fourth player in the history of the NBA to score more than 30,000 points. [1] Currently, Jordan is ranked fifth among the NBA scorers with Kareem Abdul- Jabaar is still the all-time leader with 38,387 total NBA points. [2]
It is tempting to continue to share Michael Jordan basketball stats, as there are several.
However, to me, Michael Jordan’s leadership journey is more interesting than his impressive stats. And over time, Jordan, the phenom basketball player, learned to adjust his game and his leadership so that the team would win championships. (Which was the focus of the 2020 ESPN/ Netflix miniseries “The Last Dance”.)
The turnaround for Jordan’s leadership was December 19, 1990. At that point, Jordan was on the Bulls for seven years and the team had never made it to the NBA playoffs.
A Wall Street Journal article summarized that turnaround moment for Jordan this way:
At the time, nobody thought this ninth-place team [the Bulls] was a contender. . . The night before, he’d [Jordan] dropped 33 points on the Detroit Pistons, but none of his teammates cracked double figures. The Bulls lost by 21.
The following day, however, Chicago stopped playing like a one-man band. Five players, including Jordan, scored in double digits, kicking off a stretch of 12 wins over 13 games. By March, the Bulls had the best record in the NBA. They went on to win their first championship. [3]
The Bulls would go on to win five more NBA championships in the 1990s and Jordan continues to be remembered as being the best player of the game.
Only a select few (like three in the world) can successfully imitate Jordan’s basketball skills. However, there is one important lesson that everyone should imitate from Jordan’s leadership: pass the ball.
Jordan learned too late in his career that if he shared the ball with his teammates that they would often rise to the occasion and would themselves be more driven to win. A winning team did cost Jordan much. If given the ball at every opportunity, Jordan could have likely scored 35 points or more per game. But sharing the ball made each player, and the team together, better. Championships came to the Bulls when the greatest champion on the team surrendered himself for the team win.
There is a vital faith lesson here for followers of Jesus.
Christ, the greatest champion of heaven and earth, came to this earth to ‘pass the ball’ to His disciples. From the very beginning of His ministry, Christ was empowering and equipping the 12 disciples with faith to believe and to be on mission.
Often, the disciples ‘dropped the ball.’’ For example, in Matthew 17:19 when the disciples came to Jesus to inquire why they could not drive out the demon, as they had seen Christ do. But the Lord Jesus was intent on using those moments as teaching moments and He preserved to work together with the disciples to seek the Kingdom coming. In doing so, He was preparing the disciples for when they would lead the early Church.
And ultimately on the cross, we see the greatest sacrifice of Jesus, as He surrendered His very life so all those who believe in Him could be forgiven of their sins, adopted by the Father, and could be ‘passed the ball’ of faith to impact the world with the good news of Christ.
Today, the Lord is still ‘passing the ball’ of faith to His disciples. Let us use every opportunity He is giving us for the advancement of the Kingdom. Let us also be leaders who ‘pass the ball’ to those we lead to see the Kingdom come together as Christ, our great Champion, did.
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