Category: Michael jordan
It’s personal: Michael Jordan is more charitable than the media tells you
Michael Jordan gives back far more than he gets credit for.
After six NBA championships and a Hall of Fame career, Jordan is now known most for his Air Jordan brand, memes of him crying, and compilations of him expressing personal grievances that fueled his athletic prowess.
‘Did you get all the stuff?!’
What does not get as much media play is Jordan’s long history of charity toward low-income communities, disaster relief, and sick children.
In fact, even when Jordan was being mocked with the “it became personal” meme following the airing of his 2020 Netflix documentary, “The Last Dance,” he was giving millions to feed the hungry during the Christmas season.
In late November 2020, months after the documentary released, Jordan donated $2 million of profit from the movie to Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief program. He focused on the Carolinas, where he played college basketball, and Chicago, where he won his NBA championships.
This came at a time when the organization had announced that more than 50 million Americans were struggling with food bills due to COVID-19.
What may be even more notable, though, is Jordan’s history with the Make-A-Wish organization.
As the NBA reported in 2019, Jordan has been chief ambassador for Make-A-Wish since 2008, donating more than $5 million to the charity while granting hundreds of wishes over a 30-year span.
His donation totals catapulted in early 2023, when Jordan celebrated his 60th birthday by giving a whopping $10 million donation to Make-A-Wish, the biggest contribution the company had ever received.
But what is seemingly more impactful than his donations is Jordan’s willingness to reach out to young fans of his who are struggling, sick, or even similarly to him, a meme.
The latter is exactly what happened to Jeffrey from Spokane, Washington, in 2016. Jeffrey was spotted wearing Jordan’s Chicago Bulls gear at a local basketball park. Viewers were shocked at how similar he looked to the NBA legend, and the video quickly became a laughing stock online as it appeared an adult man was mimicking a professional athlete.
However, Jordan became aware of the nuanced details of the story, including that Jeffrey was developmentally disabled. He has a seizure disorder, mild retardation, and autism. His mother told reporters that Jeffrey was diagnosed at the age of 4 when he complained of painful headaches.
Just months after the meme took off, Jordan sent Jeffrey a massive haul of Air Jordan goods — and even gave him a phone call.
“Did you get all the stuff?!” Jordan is heard asking Jeffrey. After Jeffrey confirmed, Jordan followed up, “Is it enough?!”
The two laughed. “Enjoy yourself, and I’m going to be watching for you,” Jordan added.
“All right … I love you,” Jeffrey threw out to his hero.
“Love you, man,” Jordan replied.
The greatest basketball player of all time, who famously said, “Republicans buy sneakers too,” has made so many charitable donations that the NBA has an entire page dedicated to his philanthropy.
It notes $2 million of relief funds to victims of Hurricane Florence in 2018, $500,000 to stock libraries and preschools in Charlotte in 2016, and $250,000 to food banks in 2012, among many other donations.
In November 2025, Jordan continued his tradition of helping others during the holiday season, with a $10 million donation to a North Carolina medical center in honor of his mother.
The Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, will name its neuroscience institute after Deloris Jordan, according to ESPN.
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Hot take: Michael Jordan’s new show is HURTING the NBA
While Jason Whitlock respects and celebrates Michael Jordan, he thinks the six-time NBA champion is actually doing more harm than good to the league right now. “Jordan is the black shadow that hovers over the NBA like a dark cloud, and he’s a constant reminder of how things suck right now,” he says.
Jordan, who has mostly stayed out of the public eye since his 2003 retirement, has recently re-entered the NBA as a special contributor. His new show, “MJ: Insights to Excellence” — a prerecorded miniseries of interviews where Jordan shares basketball wisdom and personal reflections with host Mike Tirico — airs weekly during certain NBA games in the 2025-2026 season.
Fans and players have been soaking in Jordan’s wisdom and the tidbits of information he shares about his personal life, but Jason says this focus on the NBA’s “good ol’ days” when Jordan was the face of the league isn’t doing anything positive for the already hurting association. If anything, Jordan’s show is a reminder of how “lazy” today’s NBA players are.
On Tuesday night during the postgame show following the New York Knicks vs. Milwaukee Bucks game, episode two of “MJ: Insights to Excellence” aired. Tirico asked the GOAT his thoughts on “load management” — the strategic practice of resting healthy players during games or limiting their minutes to prevent injuries, manage fatigue, and extend careers.
Jordan, who was notorious for playing through injury and fatigue all 82 games of a season, pulled no punches: “[Load management] shouldn’t be needed … I never wanted to miss a game because it was an opportunity to prove.”
“You have a duty that if [fans] are wanting to see you, and as an entertainer, I want to show,” he added.
While Jordan’s work ethic and commitment to the game will forever be admirable, the fact that it remains unmatched over two decades later only highlights how far the NBA has fallen.
“This is not a criticism of Michael Jordan. It’s really a criticism of Adam Silver and the executives and ownership in the NBA. They can’t come up with a solution for what’s wrong with the NBA, and so they’re allowing Michael Jordan and the media to mostly drive the discussion about what’s wrong with the NBA,” says Jason.
NBC, which recently inked an 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal to broadcast NBA games, is “using the greatest player of all time to basically subtly take a dump on the NBA,” he explains.
“Fearless” contributor and basketball aficionado Jay Skapinac agrees that Michael’s words are true — load management is a reflection of how soft NBA players have become — but the NBA highlighting this is only “undermining the current product.”
If the NBA wants to move into a new era, where grit and passion define the league again, it needs to ditch LeBron James, who he says “is the only player that has left the game worse than the one that he inherited,” and “move forward with these new, bright, rising young stars in the NBA” instead of “focusing on the greatest player that ever existed in the sports history.”
To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.
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