Jordan was born December 24, 1990, to Michael Jordan and Juanita Vanoy. He has an older brother, Jeffrey, a younger sister Jasmine and younger paternal twin half-sisters Ysabel and Victoria. Marcus grew up in Highland Park, Illinois.[2]
In 2010, while a college sophomore and underage, Jordan tweeted about spending approximately $50,000 at nightclubs in Las Vegas, prompting an investigation by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.[3] In 2012, Jordan was arrested after a drunken argument with two women outside a hotel in Omaha. He was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstructing justice, then released.[4] Jordan later pled no contest to disturbing the peace and paid a fine of $250 plus court costs.[5]
Jordan opened a high-end sneaker store named the "Trophy Room" in May of 2016. Located in the Disney Springs retail area of Disney World in Orlando, Florida,[6] the store closed and the business transitioned to online-only sales three years later.[
Marcus Jordan originally played high school basketball with his older brother Jeffrey Jordan at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois. In Marcus's sophomore year, the pair led the school to the conference championships and the best season in school history.
Jordan transferred to Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago for his junior and senior seasons. He led the Whitney Young Dolphins to the Illinois 4A Championship in 2009, scoring a game-high 19 points in a 69–66 victory over Waukegan.[8] He also was named the state tournament's most valuable player. Upon his 2009 graduation, Jordan was rated by ESPNU as the 60th-best high school senior shooting guard in the country, averaging 10.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game.[1]
College[edit]Marcus Jordan played college basketball at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.[9] During his freshman year, UCF was in the final year of a five-year contract with Adidas, but Jordan insisted on wearing Nike Air Jordan shoes out of loyalty to his father. This eventually prompted Adidas to terminate its sponsorship deal with UCF.[10]
Jordan scored 8.0 points per game in his true freshman year in 2009–10 and scored 1152 points in his college career.[11] On November 12, 2010, the opening game of the 2010–11 season, Jordan led UCF to victory against University of West Florida scoring a career high 28 points on 8–11 field-goal shooting and 5–7 from the 3-point line.[12] He also had a team-high 18 points in upsetting number-16 ranked Florida on December 1, 2010.[13]
In August 2012, Jordan left the UCF basketball team, following in the footsteps of his brother, Jeffrey, who departed the team in January of the same year, but he continued to take classes at the school.[14] He graduated in 2013 with a degree in hospitality management.
Michael Jordan and his son Marcus don’t seem to be on the same page about Larsa Pippen.
Just days after the NBA legend said he does not approve of Marcus’ relationship with Larsa — the ex-wife of Jordan’s former Bulls teammate, Scottie Pippen — Marcus claimed the couple did receive Jordan’s stamp of approval.
In a joint interview with Entertainment Tonight published on Wednesday, Marcus explained that his and Larsa’s families are “OK” with their relationship, and that spending time with them over the holidays made things much “easier” for the couple.
However, that wasn’t Marcus responding to Jordan’s comment on Sunday, when the Basketball Hall of Famer said “no” after a paparazzi asked if he approves of the relationship.
ET conducted the interview on Sunday before Jordan was spotted leaving a restaurant in Paris, France, where he was seen laughing and shaking his head when asked about his 32-year-old son and the “Real Housewives of Miami” star, 48.
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ,[9] is an American former professional basketball player and businessman. The official National Basketball Association (NBA) website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time."[10] He played fifteen seasons in the NBA, winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. Jordan is the principal owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA and of 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. He was integral in popularizing the sport of basketball and the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s,[11] becoming a global cultural icon.[12]
Jordan played college basketball for three seasons under coach Dean Smith with the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a freshman, he was a member of the Tar Heels' national championship team in 1982.[5] Jordan joined the Bulls in 1984 as the third overall draft pick[5][13] and quickly emerged as a league star, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring while gaining a reputation as one of the game's best defensive players.[14] His leaping ability, demonstrated by performing slam dunks from the free-throw line in Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness".[5][13] Jordan won his first NBA title with the Bulls in 1991 and followed that achievement with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a three-peat. Jordan abruptly retired from basketball before the 1993–94 NBA season to play Minor League Baseball but returned to the Bulls in March 1995 and led them to three more championships in 1996, 1997, and 1998, as well as a then-record 72 regular season wins in the 1995–96 NBA season.[5] He retired for the second time in January 1999 but returned for two more NBA seasons from 2001 to 2003 as a member of the Washington Wizards.[5][13] During the course of his professional career, he was also selected to play for the United States national team, winning four gold medals—at the 1983 Pan American Games, 1984 Summer Olympics, 1992 Tournament of the Americas and 1992 Summer Olympics—while also being undefeated.[15]
Jordan's individual accolades and accomplishments include six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards, ten NBA scoring titles (both all-time records), five NBA MVP awards, ten All-NBA First Team designations, nine All-Defensive First Team honors, fourteen NBA All-Star Game selections, three NBA All-Star Game MVP awards, three NBA steals titles, and the 1988 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award.[13] He holds the NBA records for career regular season scoring average (30.1 points per game) and career playoff scoring average (33.4 points per game).[16] In 1999, he was named the 20th century's greatest North American athlete by ESPN and was second to Babe Ruth on the Associated Press' list of athletes of the century.[5] Jordan was twice inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, once in 2009 for his individual career,[17] and again in 2010 as part of the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team ("The Dream Team").[18] He became a member of the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 2009,[19] a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2010,[20] and an individual member of the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2015 and a "Dream Team" member in 2017.[21][22] In 2021, he was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.[23]
One of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation, Jordan is known for his product endorsements.[11][24] He fueled the success of Nike's Air Jordan sneakers, which were introduced in 1984 and remain popular today.[25] He starred as himself in the live-action/animation hybrid film Space Jam (1996) and was the central focus of the Emmy-winning documentary series The Last Dance (2020). He became part-owner and head of basketball operations for the Charlotte Bobcats (now named the Hornets) in 2006 and bought a controlling interest in 2010. In 2016, he became the first billionaire player in NBA history.[26] That year, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[27] As of 2023, his net worth is estimated at $2 billion.[28]
Early lifeMichael Jeffrey Jordan was born at Cumberland Hospital in the Fort Greene neighborhood of New York City's Brooklyn borough on February 17, 1963,[29] to bank employee Deloris (née Peoples) and equipment supervisor James R. Jordan Sr.[29][30] He has two older brothers, James R. Jordan Jr. and fellow basketball player Larry Jordan, as well as an older sister named Deloris and a younger sister named Roslyn.[31][32] James Jr. became command sergeant major of the 35th Signal Brigade of the U.S. Army's XVIII Airborne Corps and retired in 2006.[33] In 1968, Jordan moved with his family to Wilmington, North Carolina.[34] He attended Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, where he highlighted his athletic career by playing basketball, baseball, and football. He tried out for the basketball varsity team during his sophomore year, but at a height of 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m), he was deemed too short to play at that level. His taller friend Harvest Leroy Smith was the only sophomore to make the team.[35][36]
Motivated to prove his worth, Jordan became the star of Laney's junior varsity team and tallied some 40-point games.[35] The following summer, he grew four inches (10 cm) and trained rigorously.[36] Upon earning a spot on the varsity roster, he averaged more than 25 points per game (ppg) over his final two seasons of high school play.[37] As a senior, he was selected to play in the 1981 McDonald's All-American Game and scored 30 points,[38][39] after averaging 27 ppg,[37] 12 rebounds (rpg),[40][41] and six assists per game (apg) for the season.[41][42][43] He was recruited by numerous college basketball programs, including Duke, North Carolina, South Carolina, Syracuse, and Virginia.[44] In 1981, he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in cultural geography.[45]
Scotty Maurice Pippen Sr.[3][4] (born September 25, 1965), usually spelled Scottie Pippen, is an American former professional basketball player. He played 17 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. Considered one of the greatest small forwards of all time, Pippen, along with Michael Jordan, played an important role in transforming the Bulls into a championship team and popularizing the NBA around the world during the 1990s.[5]
Pippen was named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team eight consecutive times and the All-NBA First Team three times. He was a seven-time NBA All-Star and was the NBA All-Star Game MVP in 1994. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History during the 1996–97 season, and is one of four players to have his jersey retired by the Chicago Bulls (the others being Jerry Sloan, Bob Love, and Jordan). He played a main role on both the 1992 Chicago Bulls Championship team and the 1996 Chicago Bulls Championship team, which were selected as two of the Top 10 Teams in NBA History. His biography on the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame's website states that "the multidimensional Pippen ran the court like a point guard, attacked the boards like a power forward, and swished the nets like a shooting guard."[6] During his 17-year career, he played 12 seasons with the Bulls, one with the Houston Rockets and four with the Portland Trail Blazers, making the postseason 16 consecutive times. In October 2021, Pippen was again honored as one of the league’s greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.[7]
Pippen is the only NBA player to have won an NBA title and Olympic gold medal in the same year twice, having done so in both 1992 and 1996.[8] He was a part of the 1992 U.S. Olympic "Dream Team" which beat its opponents by an average of 44 points.[9] He was also a key figure in the 1996 Olympic team, alongside former "Dream Team" members Karl Malone, John Stockton, Charles Barkley, and David Robinson, as well as newer faces such as Shaquille O'Neal, Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway and Grant Hill. He wore the number 8 during both years.
Pippen is a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, once for his individual career and once as a member of the "Dream Team", having been simultaneously inducted for both on August 13, 2010.[10] The Bulls retired his number 33 on December 8, 2005. The University of Central Arkansas retired his number 33 on January 21, 2010.[11]
He was formerly married to television personality Larsa Pippen, and is the father of basketball player Scotty Pippen Jr.