Basketball, Listed

A dedication to basketball history, catalogued and presented in convenient list form.

Air Apparent: Seven players who were once labeled as the next Michael Jordan

The shadow of Michael Jordan loomed large over the NBA for years, and young stars with similar styles were often compared to the legend, either fairly or unfairly.

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1) Penny Hardaway 

Michael Jordan cast such a cult of personality that the search for his successor was already underway before he even retired for the first time in 1993. Though Hardaway wasn’t the first player to be saddled with the “Next Jordan” title, he did have the misfortune of being the one who entered the league right as Jordan started his baseball sabbatical. Hardaway became an immediate celebrity as a rookie. With a catchy nickname, a dynamic offensive game (Hardaway could play three positions well), and a string of commercials featuring a Chris Rock-voiced puppet doppelganger named Lil’ Penny, Hardaway was a kid tested, league office approved star for the times.. Jordan himself publicly praised Hardaway’s game and tenacity after the Magic defeated the Bulls in the 1995 playoffs, seemingly bestowing something on him. Then Jordan and Bulls went out and won the next three NBA titles, including a sweep of Orlando in the 1996 Conference Finals. Hardaway, meanwhile, suffered a debilitating knee injury early in the ’97-’98 season from which he never recovered. Though he never came close to Jordan’s accomplishments or reputation, Hardaway can always take solace in another legend, LeBron James, calling him a big influence on his own game.

2) Grant Hill

A teammate of Penny Hardaway on the 1992 U.S. Olympic Select Team, Hill, then about to enter his junior year at Duke, was part of the infamous upset over the Dream Team during a scrimmage. Hill and Hardaway were both part of the Olympic senior team four years later, and by then were arguably the two most popular stars in the league. After Hill joined the Pistons in 1994, the media was quick to label him as the league’s savior for obvious reasons. He was clean-cut, intelligent, and good looking, a seemingly perfect image for a league still struggling with a “thuggish” reputation. Hill was an All-Star each of his first four seasons and a regular on All-NBA teams, though he could never push the Pistons past the first round of the playoffs. With a jack-of-all-trades style that actually was more reminiscent of Scottie Pippen, it was generally agreed upon that Hill would thrive with better teammates. He was prepared to get his chance with Orlando in ’00-’01 but injuries robbed him of the next several seasons and really the rest of his prime. Hill did compile a career impressive enough to join Jordan in Hall of Fame as a 2018 inductee. One thing Hill did have in common with Jordan was his innovative decision to sign an endorsement deal with an unlikely shoe company in Fila.

3) Tracy McGrady

When Grant Hill joined the Magic in 2000, his most prominent teammate was a fellow star branded with the Scarlet “J.” Playing alongside another potential “next Jordan” was business as usual for McGrady. He started his career with the Raptors, whose biggest star at the time was his cousin Vince Carter. McGrady nonetheless stood out immediately for his impossible athleticism and boundless potential and it was blatantly obvious that Toronto couldn’t afford to keep both young stars. They let McGrady walk out the door in 2000, bound for Orlando. With the Magic, McGrady was forced to take on a full scoring load while Hill was hobbled with various injuries. He wound up winning back-to-back scoring titles in ’02-’03 and ’03-’04, becoming just the fourth player to accomplish that post-merger, after Allen Iverson, Jordan, and George Gervin. But even with his scoring prowess and aspersions to Jordan, McGrady got lost in the shuffle. Carter was the more dynamic dunker, Iverson the better pure scorer, and fellow prep-to-pro star Kobe Bryant was busy winning multiple titles in Los Angeles. T-Mac was also notoriously lax on defense, a major reason no team he starred on ever advanced past the postseason first round. He did eventually make an NBA Finals appearance as a role player for the Spurs in 2013.

4) Harold Miner

The Slam Dunk Contest peaked as a competition in the late ’80s but as became most prevalent as a commercial commodity in the early ’90s. Dunk champs were quickly built up as prefab superstars by fans, the league, and shoe companies. It was a perfect platform at the perfect time for Miner. He actually gained the nickname “Baby Jordan” while playing at USC, thanks to his bald head, #23 jersey, and propensity for high-flying heroics. Drafted in the lottery by the Heat, Miner immediately signed a lucrative Nike endorsement deal but his exploits on the court never matched his reputation off it, averaging just 9.6 points per game in his first three seasons. He did match Jordan in one respect, as an All-Star Dunk Contest champion. In his rookie season Miner shined at the All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, bringing home the crown over defending champion Cedric Ceballos. He repeated the feat in much less spectacular fashion in 1995 in Phoenix, and by then fans were running out of patience waiting for his overall game to catch up. Miner struggled through the ’94-’95 season with a knee injury, and an attempt to revive his career in Cleveland in ’95-’96 fell short. He was washed up and out of the league by age 26, one of the most disappointing non-success stories of the ’90s.

“Maybe it’s our own narcissism, trying to project our desires to experience greatness onto players who can’t live up to impossible standards.”

5) Vince Carter

Comparisons to Michael Jordan were incoming for Carter even before he reached the NBA. The high-flying superstar played three seasons at Jordan’s alma mater North Carolina, under the same legendary coach Dean Smith. Carter hit the ground running in the NBA in 1999, winning Rookie of the Year and earning the Jordan-esque nickname “Half Man, Half Amazing.” His performance in the 2000 Dunk Contest was a revelation, throwing down a myriad of thundering slams in maybe the best individual showing in All-Star Weekend history. That would turn out to be the peak of his fame, as the remainder of Carter’s career was mixed results. He carried the Raptors to the Conference Semifinals in 2001 but courted controversy by attending his UNC graduation on the same day Toronto was eliminated in game seven. Carter would never return to the playoffs with Toronto, and within three years his relationship with the franchise and its fans had completely deteriorated. It seemed clear at that point that Carter was resigned to an overhyped career, and subsequent stops in New Jersey, Orlando, Dallas, Memphis, and Sacramento provided diminishing returns. By playing into his 40s, Carter hung around long enough for his reputation to come around full circle, and is now mostly remembered as a beloved legend of the ’00s.

6) Kobe Bryant

Something that Bryant can claim above anyone else on this list is that one of his comparisons to Michael Jordan came from the man who coached both of them. In his 2014 book Eleven Rings, Phil Jackson waded into the Jordan vs. Kobe debate with a side-by-side comparison. Jordan ultimately came out on top offensively (“more naturally inclined to let the game come to him… whereas Kobe tends to force the action”), defensively (“no question… tougher, more intimidating”), and in overall leadership (“masterful of controlling the overall climate of his team”). It was no surprise he felt this way but it’s a testament to our obsession with finding a Jordan replacement that it still became headline news. Maybe it’s our own narcissism, trying to project our desires to experience greatness onto players who can’t live up to impossible standards. Whatever it is, it’s claimed several victims, but out of all of them, Bryant endured the most impressively to actually become one of the 10 greatest players in history. While Bryant’s five championships came up just short of Jordan’s six, the Lakers legend can take solace in surpassing him in several major categories, including on the all-time points leaderboard.

7) Dwyane Wade

We’ve all seemed to finally reach a place as basketball fans where we understand it’s a fruitless and, in many ways, harmful endeavor to find “The Next Michael Jordan.” Maybe it’s because he plays a different position with a different style, but LeBron James managed to avoid Jordan comparisons until late in his career, and those are realistic debates over whether he’s surpassed Jordan as the greatest of all time. The likely last player to ever draw undue Jordan comparisons early in his career is Wade. Not that he didn’t earn that adulation. By his third season Wade was already a Finals MVP, one of the league’s leading scorers, and a perennial MVP candidate. Playing shooting guard and possessing a preternatural skill on both ends of the floor, Wade also seemed to be a natural leader and winner, so comparisons to Jordan were inevitable. They faded a bit as Wade entered the second stage of his career, where his scoring and defensive intensity just weren’t enough to lift a mediocre Heat roster into contention. The juxtapositions then died completely when Wade became a second banana to James as the Heat racked up four consecutive NBA Finals appearances. Though he ultimately didn’t live up to the “Next Jordan” hype, Wade can certainly take solace in retiring in 2019 as the consensus third greatest pure shooting guard in NBA history, behind Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

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