Spinoff (sort of): the story behind Jordan and 45

The LBJ/Jordan had me thinking about when Jordan came back from his retirement and short baseball career and wore #45 for a bit. Was really big into the Magic and it was the year that they went to the finals for the first time and beat Chicago in the Eastern Semifinals. Was just weird seeing him in that number........and it didn't last long, especially after Nick Anderson's comments after game 1

Maybe this is common knowledge, but I never looked into it and found it interesting.

LINK

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There have been a lot of myths as to why Jordan chose to wear this number when he came back to basketball, but MJ himself explained the significance of 45 in his autobiography For the Love of the Game. 45 was actually Jordan's basketball jersey number throughout high school, until his junior year when he played on the varsity team with his older brother Larry–who also wore the number. Michael ended up choosing a number that was half of 45 (22.5), which is how he ended up with 23.

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Jordan explained in his autobiography that the 45 also played a role in his Olympic number nine. Jersey numbers on Olympic basketball teams only go up to 15, so Jordan came to the number nine by adding four and five together.

During MJ's time in Minor League Baseball, he reverted back to 45 because that was the number he wore playing baseball as a kid. He stuck with it when he came back to the NBA for sentimental reasons related to the murder of his father.

"When I came back, I didn't want to play in the last number that my father had seen me wear," Jordan wrote. "Because he wasn't around, I thought of my return as a new beginning."

The number only lasted Jordan for 22 games. Through fate, Jordan returned to 23 on his 23rd game back in the NBA. What prompted the switch was the ball being stolen from him in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semi-finals by Nick Anderson, which led to the Chicago Bulls losing the game.

“Number 45 is not number 23,” Anderson told the media after that game. “I couldn’t have done that to number 23.”

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