Michael Jordan has five MVP awards to his name and probably could have secured more if more votes had gone his way in some seasons. While he probably treats each award equally, the Chicago Bulls icon once admitted in 1996 that the one he won that year was “more meaningful.”
“His Airness” secured his last MVP in 1998, although there was a reason behind why he highly valued the NBA’s top individual prize he won in his first full season back from the first time he retired from the Association.
“I think this is more meaningful because I was away from the game for a couple of years, came back, and learned a lesson that no matter how long you’re away from the game or how great you were before you left the game, you can’t just come back and think you can turn it right back on and take up where you left off,” Jordan said. “From an individual standpoint, this caps it off.”
Picking up where he left off
As MJ said, he chose the 1996 MVP as his answer at the time because of the circumstances surrounding it. He wasn’t even supposed to return in the middle of the 1994-95 campaign. His agent, David Falk, even once shared that the baseball strike is part of what urged the hoops symbol to go back to his first love.
And when Jordan decided to go through with his homecoming, it didn’t go exactly as planned initially. While the Bulls went 13-4 in the remainder of the 1994-95 regular season, they failed to overcome the Orlando Magic in the Eastern Conference semifinals. For a time after the early playoff elimination, some people had started writing Mike and Chicago off for the 1995-96 season.
As it turned out, some motivation from the previous season’s lack of success, a few roster tweaks, and a complete offseason together were apparently what Jordan needed to mount another MVP campaign. He averaged 30.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 4.3 assists per contest to lead the Bulls to a 72-10 record. Who else could’ve taken home the award?
Interestingly, MJ wasn’t selected as a unanimous winner. Penny Hardaway, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Karl Malone received first-place votes, even though David Robinson went second in the overall voting.
Almost a three-peat
While Jordan earned six rings via two three-peats, he narrowly missed being the fourth player to collect three consecutive MVPs after Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Larry Bird.
Sandwiched between his winning runs in the 1995-96 and 1997-98 seasons was a second-place finish behind Karl Malone. The mythical shooting guard lost to his rival by 11 first-place votes and may or may not have been bitter about it.
At least he got some measure of revenge by preventing Malone from becoming an NBA champion.