“The only one who could stop Michael Jordan – Mike on Gatorade”: When the sports beverage brand came up with one of the most innovative commercials of all-time

Michael Jordan at age 23, just two years into the league, was one of the best basketball players in the NBA

Although the 1987-88 season should be declared his best individual overall season where Jordan would win his second scoring title, his first MVP, as well as his one and only DPOY award, the season before that, has still not been touched by any of the prolific scorers who came in next 35 years.

After suffering his first and only major injury setback, just 18 games into his second season in the league in 1985, MJ would make a comeback the following season that would announce his arrival in the grandest Basketball stages of all.

There were just 5 better seasons offensively in the NBA – four by Wilt Chamberlain and one by Elgin Baylor, then comes Jordan’s 37.1 PPG in the 1996-97 season. And nobody has come close to crossing that mark since, apart from James Harden, who scored at 36.1 in 2018-19.

Also read: “I give Kareem Abdul-Jabbar full credit for breaking my all-time scoring record!”: When Wilt Chamberlain emphasized on Lakers legend’s long-time excellence

 

At 32, Michael Jordan had already become a Legend of the game

Nine years later, in 1996, Jordan (32) was a 10x All-Star, 4x NBA champ, 4x Finals MVP, 4x MVP, 8x scoring champ and 8x NBA All-Defensive First Team selection. Between all that the Bulls legend also became a pro-NBL player while he took off from the NBA for two years at 30 years of age, after his and the Bulls’ first 3-peat of Championships in 1993.

Well, that’s some unreal brilliance that proved that man was unstoppable and could do anything he wanted at any time he wanted. And so Gatorade took the opportunity to make an innovative commercial to show who could stop that man.

None among Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon teamed up with Charles Barkley, Knicks’ Patrick Ewing or a young and hungry Shaquille O’Neal would be able to stop the 32-year-old Jordan to win 2 more rings and some more individual accolades in the next two seasons. Reggie Miller came close but couldn’t do like the rest.

Maybe just maybe, in some kind of multiverse where time travel would be a thing, the Jordan of 1988 could have stopped the Jordan of 1996 and 97 from performing The Last Dance.

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