Michael Jordan Through the Years: From the NBA to ‘Space Jam’ and More

The man, the myth, the legend. Michael Jordan rose to stardom for his time with the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards — which was only the beginning of his professional career.

After playing college basketball for three seasons, Jordan became a global icon when he joined the NBA and went on to play 15 seasons in the '80s and '90s. Over the years, the professional athlete developed a reputation for his slam dunks during games — and his appearance in the film Space Jam.

Jordan started to explore prospects as a businessman when he took on a collaboration with Nike in 1984. The company crafted the Air Jordan around the promising basketball player, who would go on to bring Nike plenty of success.

In 2000, fans got a glimpse at Jordan's ups and downs in a documentary titled Michael Jordan to the Max. Jordan's life was front and center again in ESPN's 10-part TV documentary, The Last Dance, which premiered in 2020.

However, the limited series seemed to create tension between Jordan and some of his former teammates. Scottie Pippen. who won six championships alongside the Jordan CEO in the 1990s, revealed that they were no longer close because of how Jordan alleged minimized the role his coworkers played in the Chicago Bulls' success.

“They glorified Michael Jordan while not giving nearly enough praise to me and my proud teammates," Pippen, whose ex-wife Larsa Pippen ultimately started dating Michael's son Marcus Jordan, wrote in his 2021 memoir, Unguarded. "Michael deserved a large portion of the blame. The producers had granted him editorial control of the final product. The doc couldn’t have been released otherwise. He was the leading man and the director."

Michael, for his part, praised his teammates for the support they offered him at the height of their success. “I think it was [a] genuine time, even though we were competing and we were learning about each other and we were pushing each other, those are still genuine times," he told ABC’s Australian Today in August 2021, adding that he felt “sad” when it ended. “And you don’t share those with too many people.”

In 2023, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reunited on screen to bring the story of Nike’s pivotal partnership with Michael to life. Ahead of Air's debut, Affleck discussed Michael's response to the biographical movie.

“I had a chance to sit down with Michael Jordan, because I just wasn’t going to make this movie without asking him, ‘What matters to you?’" the director said in March 2023 at South by Southwest. "Michael Jordan, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the most intimidating, impressive men you’ll ever see in your life. He told me about his father. And then he talked about his mother. It was the first time I saw this look cross his face. It was a look of reverence, of awe, of love, and gratitude, and innocence."

According to Affleck, Michael emphasized that his mother's casting was the most important aspect of the film for him.

"He said, ‘None of this would have ever happened without my mother.’ I said, ‘Who would you like to play your mom?’ He said, ‘Well, it has to be Viola Davis," the Pearl Harbor star continued. “That’s like saying, ‘Can I play basketball on your court?’ ‘Yeah, if you get Michael Jordan.’ Viola Davis is the best actor I’ve ever seen. This is a hard business. It’s hard to know if you’re successful. It’s hard to know if you’ve accomplished something. But honest to God, I always felt that if i was a director one day, and I had Viola Davis in a movie, that would really be something. That would mean the world to me. And it does.”

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