And he did it not in his celebrated No. 23 new jersey, but wearing the No. 12 .
Why ? This is a narrative that has long been shrouded in mystery. An investigation by Chris Johnson of Sports Illustrated on the game ‘s 25-year anniversary found the most plausible result to be that the jersey was snatched from the visitors locker room at Amway Arena some time between morning shootaround and when the Bulls arrived pre-game. There was an arena-wide search for the jersey before lean — including an announcement from the PA organization — and the hook of fans for a bolshevik Jordan Bulls jersey that might fit him, according to Johnson. nothing was found, and Jordan finally had to play the game in a nameless, No. 12 threads. Further details are cloudy .
But the Magic might have just blown the roof off this floor ( no pun intended ) :
You may know about the time No.23 played as No.12, but do you know the 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 history ? # TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/zGPhvKlgki— Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) April 20, 2020
“ That dawn, after their shootaround, their footlocker room was set up — every actor ‘s jersey, shorts, warmups, everything, laid out, ” Rodney “ Sid ” Powell, the Magic ‘s Director of Team Operations, said in the television. “ The cabinet room door was dead-bolted, locked, and then we had separate lock that we put on the door with a hasp. So there was alone one person with a key to it. ”
Sounds airtight enough. But when the Bulls arrived for the game at 4:30 post meridiem, Jordan ‘s No. 23 jersey had vanished.
All of the above, we already knew or could have inferred. But Powell went on to peel another layer binding .
“ A couple days later, they found out from security that one of their personnel had set up a design to get the jersey, had actually gone through another cabinet room, climbed over the ceilings, came through a ceiling tile, grabbed the new jersey, put it back in the ceiling, ” Powell continued. “ Planning for, I guess, a few days late to come second and get it after thinking no matchless would figure it out. ”
high-level farce. Although, it does n’t appear the nameless Magic employee got to keep his man of stolen memorabilia.
The jersey swap did n’t seem to impact Jordan individually besides a lot, but the Magic would go on to get the survive laugh that day, winning the game 135-129 .
Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports ! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Bulls well on your device .