5 books about Michael Jordan to read while waiting for the next episodes of the Last Dance

While waiting for the next installment of The Last Dance to arrive, here are five books you can read to fill your Michael Jordan fix.

The long-awaited premiere of ESPN’s The Last Dance has finally arrived. With the NBA season indefinitely postponed and not likely to return anytime soon, this is the most exciting event for NBA fans since games were called off last month (all due respect to the NBA 2K and Horse tournaments, of course). If The Last Dance has piqued your curiosity and a 10-hour documentary covering Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls is not enough to satiate your desire for Michael Jordan related content, here are five books about Jordan that should help keep you entertained between episodes.

Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made by David Halberstam

Playing for Keeps is David Halberstam’s second and final book about the NBA after the immortal Breaks of the Game and while it does not quite match the standard of that previous work, it comes very close. Halberstam’s book stands apart from other books on Jordan, and other books on sports, in its scope as it is not just a biography or the chronicle of a season, but both of those and more. Playing for Keeps tells the story of Michael Jordan’s life and Halberstam’s reportorial instincts uncover a ton of great anecdotes, but it also places his life in a greater context and helps show how Michael Jordan became a global icon instead of just a great athlete. Of all the books I have read about Michael Jordan, none are as thoughtful or have as ambitious a scope as this one. Also, this book focuses a lot on the 1997-98 season covered in The Last Dance so if the documentary has you wanting to know more about that particular campaign, this, along with Roland Lazenby’s Blood on the Horns — a book entirely focused on that year — are the ones to pick up.

Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby

Roland Lazenby’s biography of Michael Jordan is as close to definitive as we are likely to get for the time being. Though it does not focus on his post-Bulls career as much as some would like, it covers everything up to that point in great detail, somehow offering lots of new information about a man who has been endlessly covered for nearly four decades. Lazenby particularly shines when writing about Jordan’s early life and family history, which he covers dating back to over a century before Jordan’s birth. With this focus, he helps readers understand the social and familial forces that helped shape him into the man he would become in a way I’m not sure any other author has. If you are just looking for one book that covers the entirety of Jordan’s life in detail and aren’t curious about any particular element of that life, this is the perfect book to pick up whether you’ve never read one about him before or have already read several others.

The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith

Now, it’s pretty well known and accepted that Michael Jordan can be a bit of a jerk, a nearly sociopathic competitor who would do anything to win and assert his own greatness. But in the early 1990s, the media and the NBA were happy to engage in no small amount of hagiography in order to ensure that there was no reason for the league’s biggest star to be looked at with anything other than admiring eyes. That changed with Sam Smith’s The Jordan Rules, which when released in 1992 was a bombshell that revealed the maniacal Jordan to the public at large for the first time. While it is not as shocking nearly three decades later, at the time it seemed revelatory — a true behind the scenes look at one of the world’s biggest celebrities. While certain details were disputed by Bulls players, time has revealed that the general picture it paints is quite accurate. The Jordan Rules may not be quite as salacious as its reputation would lead one to believe, but it is still a very good portrait of a young superstar, desperate for his first championship, fighting to prove himself as a winner.

Hang Time: Days and Dreams With Michael Jordan by Bob Greene

Bob Greene’s Hang Time admittedly reads, at times, like a bit of an extended puff piece approved by Jordan to counter the negative stories coming out in the wake of the recent publication of the Jordan Rules. Unsurprisingly, it has the feel of an authorized biography, even featuring a photo of Jordan palling around with the author on the cover. Hang Time chooses to highlight Jordan’s off the court persona, focusing on stories that place him in a more positive light, framing him as a family man or as a gracious person willing to meet with fans and do extensive charity work. It’s not the most revealing book on Jordan, though I still find it fascinating as a portrait of the Michael Jordan that he himself wanted the public to see, of the Jordan that the average basketball fan fell in love with. If you want to understand how Jordan became a global icon, read David Halberstam, but if you want to see why he was so beloved — well, apart from his feats on the hardwood — this is a good place to start.

When Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan’s Last Comeback by Michael Leahy

Many fans like to pretend Michael Jordan’s two desultory (though probably better than you remember) seasons as a member of the Washington Wizards never happened. Rather than being treated as a necessary part of the narrative, they are often spoken of as an addendum. But for people interested in Jordan’s life story, and in what makes him tick, it’s worth wondering what would compel him to undercut and potentially ruin the storybook ending he had written just a few years prior. Michael Leahy’s When Nothing Else Matters is the best book about Jordan’s two years with the Wizards, and also perhaps the most unflattering one ever written about him. Jordan comes off not just as fanatically driven, but as a bully — a man who verbally abuses his teammates, taking out all the frustration he feels about not being able to perform as he had before on everyone around him. Yet, in spite of the book’s unsympathetic portrayal, it’s also strangely humanizing as it’s easy to understand the all too human refusal to let go of one’s deepest passion, of trying to hold on to something slipping away for as long as possible. Unfortunately, for most of us, who are not preternaturally gifted at anything, this may be as close to relatable someone as talented as Jordan is likely ever going to be.