All eyes were on Michael Jordan when he made his comeback from his first retirement. However, a lot of things went wrong for “His Airness” that evening, including a fashion mishap that caught the attention of a lot of folks.
It seemed Jordan wore his Chicago Bulls shorts backward, as the NBA logo could be seen on the rear side. Told about it repeatedly after the game, he joked that it was probably why he had a forgettable night.
“Must be why I played so bad,” MJ said.
A rusty return
It took the NBA world 21 months before it saw Jordan on the hardwood floor again. As fate would have it, he faced off against the Indiana Pacers, one of his strongest rivals in the 1990s and a top-three seed in the East at the time.
The Pacers didn’t give Mike any breathing room, as they limited him to 19 points and 7-for-28 shooting for 25.0%. Scottie Pippen’s game-high 31 points weren’t enough to lift Chicago to victory. And Indiana won in overtime 103-96, with Reggie Miller leading the way for his squad by logging 28 points.
Of course, Jordan’s wardrobe malfunction played no role in the Bulls’ loss that night. Besides, he was, in fact, wearing the uniform the right way. The NBA patch was just sewn on the incorrect spot. Moreover, MJ was certain he tied the shorts at the front, not the back.
Sign of things to come
The five-time MVP had several other problems that season and a backward-looking trunk was arguably the least of them.
Shooting-wise, he had never been more inefficient in a campaign until his second comeback in 2001. In the 17 contests he played in the remainder of the 1994-95 season, Jordan averaged 26.9 points per game but made just 41.1% of his field-goal attempts. Except in the 2001-02 campaign when he shot 41.6%, he had never had a field-goal percentage of 44.5%
Even so, MJ had shown then that he was still capable of putting up big numbers, such as when he lit up the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden for 55 points in his fifth appearance in 1995.
His return also inspired the Bulls, as the team went 13-4 with the 14-time All-Star on the roster. From sitting in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, Chicago rose one spot to nab the No. 5 seed and avert a first-round matchup with the Pacers in the playoffs.
After making quick work of the Charlotte Hornets, the squad unfortunately bid the postseason goodbye, as the Orlando Magic eliminated it in six games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
As it turned out, the stinging loss only gave the Bulls extra incentive the following year.
