Jordan's Return to the Top Highlights Topflight Season

Sometimes in everyday life we tend to lose perspective of the bigpicture and spend too much time focusing on the negative. It'ssimply human nature, because if everything is perfect, things canonly get worse.

But through all the annoying aspects associated with coveringthe Bulls this season - from demanding editors to overzealous fans toridiculously large media contingents at routine practices - I'veforced myself to appreciate and enjoy the moment.

Actually, that's been an easy task because of the tremendousseason Michael Jordan has been able to produce.At the beginning of the season, the doubters greatly outnumberedthe believers. Few thought Jordan, following a 17-month retirementand a playoff performance marred by miscues, could regain the form ofhis previous basketball life when he was universally hailed as thegreatest player ever to play the game.In fact, most felt Jordan wasn't even the best player in the NBA- or even on his own team.But as the Bulls prepare to set a league record for victoriesduring the regular season, Jordan is putting the finishing touches ona truly remarkable season that proves beyond a reasonable doubt hestill is without peer on the basketball court.He is about to win his eighth NBA scoring title - something noother player has done - and also holds the biggest single-gamescoring outburst in the league this season with the 53 points hepumped in against Detroit last month.Jordan's current statistics (30.6 points, .498 field-goalpercentage) compare favorably with his career marks entering thisseason (32.2, .514) and the numbers from the 1991-92 season (30.1,.519), when the Bulls amassed 67 wins.If there's any common sense exhibited by the voters, Jordan willearn his fourth NBA most valuable player award by an overwhelmingmargin.To put Jordan's season in perspective, you have to go back tolast March when rumors first began circulating about him making acomeback.There was all sorts of talk about how he would never be thesame; that he was too old - 32 then - to return after such a longabsence and regain his form; that he could only do harm to his legendand perhaps would embarrass himself.Those comments look rather silly at the moment, but they werelegitimate statements at the time. No one in any sport had been ableto do what Jordan has done this season.Perhaps the closest was Muhammad Ali, who returned from a prisonsentence to win boxing's heavyweight championship. But there aremany who believe in spite of that remarkable accomplishment, Alinever was able to regain his form of the past.Yes, Jordan's game has changed; he shoots more from theperimeter than in the past, and the fadeaway jumper has replaced thedunk as his signature shot.But those changes already were evolving before he retired in1993.The results are the same, and that's all that matters.