Avan thaan manidhan!!!

Hi All,

I welcome all the "privileged eyes" to my blog spot "Sab-Arena".

This blog spot was a long standing wish, inspired by a very good friend of mine - Ganesh. I tried to pen-down something good to start with for almost 6 months now, and here I am with "Avan thaan Manidhan".

I wanted to open up this blog spot with a favorite topic of mine... sports. And who else can I choose to talk about, but for my evergreen icon Michael Jeffrey Jordan.

"Air Jordan" as he is famously called, for his illustriuos performances in the slam dunk competitions, where he leaps from the free-throw line to dunk at the ring, played for Chicago Bulls for a vast majority of his career. During his first season in the NBA, Jordan averaged 28.2 points per game (ppg) on 51.5% shooting (field goal percentage).

He quickly became a fan favorite even in opposing arenas, and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the heading "A Star is Born" just over a month into his pro career. Jordan was also voted in as an All-Star starter by the fans in his rookie season. Jordan lead the Chicago Bulls for 3 NBA championships 1990-1993. On the run to the championships, Jordan scored 35 points in the first half of the game against the Trail Blazers, of which six were 3-pointers. After the sixth three-pointer, he jogged down the court shrugging as he looked back, the commentator stated that it was as if Jordan was saying, "I can't believe I'm doing this". A legend was in the making.

Jordan too had his lows in his career, when he retired from NBA in 1993 and joined a minor league baseball club, after his father's death, who wanted MJ to be a Major League Baseball player. MLB was not a perfect match for MJ as NBA was, and he made a comeback to the NBA the year after.

It was just a matter of time and his return to the big arena, and the raging bull in him lead the Chicago Bull for another hat-trick of NBA Championships between 1995 and 1998. I still have the memories of Jordan scoring a final 3-pointer in the dying seconds of the 6th game against the Utah Jazz to seal the championship. That was an awesome moment.

MJ leaped on to the substitute's desk and signalled SIX, protraying the six titles that he won with the Bulls. To add to his 6 NBA championships, he also won the Most Valuable Player (MVP) title for 5 times in the NBA finals and 2 Olympic gold medals during his stupendous career that spanned for almost 18 years.

He retired after this second hat-trick, but his love for the game never had a retirement. Such was the man's passion towards the game and this sparked a comeback to the big stage (NBA) at the age of 38, with a new team, the Washington Wizards. Though the team's performance was poor, he was at his usual elements top scoring in the team. Jordan would have gone for more NBA championships and MVP titles, but for lack of support from his team, he had to be content with the 6 that he won with the Bulls.

He nows owns part of a Basketball outfit, his first love and also a closed-course motor racing team.

Quotes on MJ:

"There's Michael Jordan and then there is the rest of us."
- Magic Johnson
3 time NBA finals MVP