Imagine your the greatest of greats at basketball and then in the middle of your prime you retire, Well, that is what happened to Michael Jordan but the thing is what if his retirement was a secret suspension. Michael Jordan had one of the best careers ever and in the middle of his Career, he retired. Rumors started swirling and the one that stuck out the most to everyone was, what if Michael Jordan was forced to retire by David Stern the NBA commissioner at the time because of Michael Jordan’s Terrible gambling habits that at the time everyone knew about. On August 3rd, 1993 Michael Jordan’s Father Michael Jordan Sr. was found dead in a creek[Robbins]. 3 days later the NBA started an Investigation into Michael Jordan’s gambling habits[Dodson]. Most people thought that the timing was crazy and the rumors started flying. The most popular one was that Michael Jordan’s father was killed because Michael Jordan never paid off a gambling debt that he owed[PeteM].
A year before his father was murdered, Michael Jordan had to go to court to testify against James Bouler, a dude who was going to jail for money laundering and he was a drug dealer. James Bouler was in possession of a 57,000 dollar check signed by Michael Jordan himself, at first Michael Jordan said it was a business loan but then he admitted that it was because Bouler won a bet against him[PeteM]. On October 6th, 1993 Michael Jordan officially retired from basketball after winning 3 championships with the Bulls[Dodson]. Michael Jordan said this is why he is retiring, “If you ride a roller coaster for nine years, don’t you want to ride something else? That’s the way I feel right now, I want to ride something else”. On October 6th, 1993 when Michael Jordan for the first time in his career retired from the game of basketball for the first time in his career. Of course, when one of the most well-known men in the world does something like this no one really believes or accepts something like this so the conspiracies started flying. The NBA commissioner at the time David Stern quickly defended the rumors saying that Michael Jordan retired cause he felt it was time and that is all. Something that stuck out to everyone in Michael Jordan’s retirement speech was that he said “If David Stern lets me back into the league I may come back”[Smith].
When Michael Jordan said that everyone’s mouths drop, why would Michael Jordan, someone everyone loved to watch say something like that, it sounded like David Stern would not let him back in the league. Everyone had some thought that his retirement had a little to do with his gambling habits, on one particular night Michael Jordan is said to have lost over 1.2 million dollars playing golf with a gambling buddy[MichaelP]. 3 days after Michael Jordan retired, the NBA ended the investigation into Michael Jordan’s gambling habits and concluded that Michael Jordan was clean, which everyone knew was far from true, mostly everyone in the world knew that Michael Jordan’s gambling habits were far from clean. Richard Equinas was walking around before a Bulls game one day and overheard Michael Jordan on the phone with someone and he overheard Michael Jordan saying “so the betting line for today’s game is -7 right”{Smith} In case you did not know you can not bet on a sports game that your playing in, look at Pete Rose, great player but he got suspended from baseball forever because he bet on baseball.
