- published: 21 Nov 2011
- views: 403685
Clyde Austin "The Glide" Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is a former American professional basketball shooting guard and small forward. A ten-time All-Star and member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, the NBA named him one of basketball's fifty greatest players as of 1996. Drexler won an Olympic gold medal in 1992 and an NBA championship in 1995 with the Houston Rockets. He is the color commentator for Rockets home games.
Drexler lived in the South Park area in Houston. Drexler attended Ross Sterling High School in Houston, Texas, where he was a classmate of tennis player Zina Garrison. As a sophomore, he made the varsity baseball team as a first baseman, but soon quit in order to focus on basketball. He didn't try out for the basketball team until his junior year, and was promptly cut during tryouts due to lack of conditioning. Drexler played as a 6'6" center as a senior, and started receiving attention from college coaches following a 34-point, 27-rebound performance against Sharpstown High School during a 1979 Christmas tournament.
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is a retired American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. His biography on the National Basketball Association (NBA) website states, "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time." Jordan was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was considered instrumental in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s.
After a three-season career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of the Tar Heels' national championship team in 1982, Jordan joined the NBA's Chicago Bulls in 1984. He quickly emerged as a league star, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring. His leaping ability, illustrated by performing slam dunks from the free throw line in slam dunk contests, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness". He also gained a reputation for being one of the best defensive players in basketball. In 1991, he won his first NBA championship with the Bulls, and followed that achievement with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a "three-peat". Although Jordan abruptly retired from basketball at the beginning of the 1993–94 NBA season to pursue a career in baseball, he rejoined the Bulls in 1995 and led them to three additional championships (1996, 1997, and 1998) as well as an NBA-record 72 regular-season wins in the 1995–96 NBA season. Jordan retired for a second time in 1999, but returned for two more NBA seasons from 2001 to 2003 as a member of the Washington Wizards.