SLAM and Gatorade Honor Michael Jordan

by Ben Osborne

We all thought Michael Jordan was gonna be in the Hall of Fame years ago. After hitting his memorable shot against the Jazz in the ’98 Finals, he walked away with his legacy as the greatest and his place in Springfield cemented. Until he came back as a Washington Wizard. MJ gave us some a few more memories during his DC days, but the Hall—and the chance to look back properly at what we deemed two months ago the best career in NBA history—had to wait.

Well, the wait is finally over. As the basketball world prepares for MJ’s enshrinement on September 11, Gatorade has been busy honoring his Airness. For their latest MJ-related promotion, the folks at Gatorade are giving one lucky fan (well, two, since the winner can bring a friend) the chance to be at the induction ceremony—and SLAM’s fortunate enough to be a part of it. All you’ve gotta do to enter is check out the promotions part of Gatorade’s Facebook page and vote for your favorite Jordan moment. This is where we come in: there’s 10 to choose from, as submitted by a handful of journalists, myself included (remember that frozen moment I mentioned up top? It might look familiar in this pic, too).mj last shot.jpg

The PR person running the media side of this promotion for Gatorade called me a few weeks ago and asked if I’d participate. When he got to me (on my cell late on a Friday afternoon, too late to even run this by my co-workers), a few moments were already taken, but this classic shot, which I remember so vividly (can’t believe it was 11+ years ago!), had not been chosen, and to me seemed like the no-brainer most memorable moment. I asked that SLAM get the “Last Shot,” did my little write up, sent them a headshot, and waited for the contest to go live. Based on the results so far, seems like a lot of fans agree with this choice.

But let’s not get cocky. Assuming you have a FaceBook account (there’s a nice irony to this qualification, by the way), hit up that vote page and cast your vote…ideally for this shot. If it wins, this amazing moment will get memorialized on another one of the special Gatorade bottles they’re making, and as the chooser of said moment, SLAM will get some to giveaway. You can vote once a day until the end of August, so be sure to keep at it and give yourself and SLAM the best shot at winning.

Lastly, I hope people are enjoying the MJ buzz, cause trust me: there’s a lot more coming.