Jordan, stellar class inducted

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass.—Michael Jordan’s thank you list went well beyond friends and family.

There was the coach who cut him. The player who dissed him. The media who doubted him.

Anyone who ever provided Jordan with motivation to become a better player— perhaps the greatest one ever.

Jordan recalled all of it Friday night, when he joined David Robinson and John Stockton, a pair of his 1992 Dream Team teammates, and coaches Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer in a distinguished class enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.

“The game of basketball has been everything to me,” Jordan said.

Jordan insisted during a press conference that the weekend wasn’t just about him, but he was clearly the star before a crowd that included former teammates Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman.

“He makes one big shot and everybody thinks he’s kind of cool,” Stockton joked. “I don’t get it.”

Jordan cried before beginning his acceptance speech, then entertained the crowd with memories of any slights that inspired him to get to the hall:

• The coach who cut him from the varsity as a North Carolina schoolboy.

“I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.”

• Isiah Thomas, who allegedly orchestrated a “freezeout” of Jordan in his first All-Star game.

“I wanted to prove to you, Magic [Johnson], Larry [Bird], George [Gervin], everybody that I deserved [to be there] just as much as anybody else, and I hope over the period of my career I’ve done that without a doubt.”

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