Jordan Rules

A SUPER TEAM...A SUPERSTAR...A SUPER EGO

The most gifted athlete ever to play the game, Michael Jordan rose to heights no basketball player had ever reached before. What drove Michael Jordan? The pursuit of team success...or of his own personal glory? The pursuit of excellence...or of his next multimillion-dollar endorsement? The flight of the man they call Air Jordan had been rocked by controversy. In The Jordan Rules, which chronicles the Chicago Bulls' first championship season, Sam Smith takes the #1 Bull by the horns to reveal the team behind the man...and the man behind the Madison Avenue smile. Here is the inside game, both on and off the court, including:

• Jordan's power struggles with management, from verbal attacks on the general manager to tantrums against his coach
• Behind-the-scenes feuds, as Jordan punches a teammate in practice and refuses to pass the ball in the crucial minutes of big games
• The players who competed with His Airness for Air Time — Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright — telling their sides of the story
• A penetrating look at coach Phil Jackson, the former flower child who blossomed into one of the NBA's top motivators and who finally found a way to coax "Michael and the Jordanaires" to the their first title

A provocative eyewitness account, The Jordan Rules delivers all the nonstop excitement, tension, and thrills of a championship season — and an intense, fascinating portrait of the incomparable Michael Jordan.

Sam Smith was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune during the Chicago Bulls' 1991 championship season. He is a Brooklyn, New York, native with degrees in accounting from Pace University and in journalism from Ball State University. He has worked for Arthur Young and Co., the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, and States News Service in Washington, D.C. This is his first book.