Apparently, total dominance and clear superiority isn’t enough. Apparently, demolishing, decimating, and demoralizing opponents throughout the course of ones life will not suffice. Apparently, a career that is unmatched by any player to ever lace up a pair of sneakers doesn’t satisfy.

Apparently, Michael Jordan has issues.

He is the best to ever play the game. He was a basketball genius. He won 10 scoring titles, five MVP’s, and six championships. Rookie of the Year. Defensive player of the year. 14 time all-star. Two gold medals. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He accomplished everything one could wish as a basketball player.

He brought basketball to the forefront of American sport, and globalized the game on a level nobody thought possible. He became (and continues to be) his own brand. He was must see TV. Everyone, including his peers in the NBA, wanted his game. All young basketball players aspired to emulate him, on and off the court. He was equal parts pop star and basketball icon. We all wanted to “Be Like Mike“.

Not anymore.

I was at the Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony last Friday in Springfield when Jordan was inducted alongside John Stockton, Jerry Sloan, David Robinson and C. Vivian Stringer. Many people are saying it’s the greatest single class in the history of the Hall of Fame.

It should have been a night of celebration. It should have been a night to honor the careers of one of the best point guards to ever play (Stockton) one of the hardest working coaches in the history of basketball (Sloan) and one of the most athletic 7-footers the NBA has ever seen (Robinson). It also should have been a chance for those in attendance, and those watching around the globe, to witness the coronation of the preeminent basketball player, and possibly athlete, of our generation, as Michael took his rightful place among the game’s elite.

Instead, it turned into a sideshow.

In a rambling and unprepared hour-long “acceptance speech”, Jordan revealed a side of himself that those in the NBA’s inner circle know all too well. He was ruthless, he was petty, he was classless and he was juvenile. He was arrogant and insecure, all at the same time. He took shots at just about everyone, as if it wasn’t enough that he had already reached the pinnacle of his profession at the expense of those whom he ridiculed and belittled. From his words that night, it’s obvious that people are nothing more than objects to Jordan, including the 20 year-old female eye candy on his arm, whom he barely even acknowledged all evening long.

I once heard a coach who was an assistant for the Bulls when Michael was there refer to him as “alarmingly insecure”. Jordan’s words on Friday emphatically reaffirmed that remark.

He took a shot at his high school coach, who cut him as a sophomore in favor of an upperclassman named Leroy Smith. (“I wanted to make sure you knew, you made a mistake dude.”)

He took a shot at the legendary Dean Smith, his coach at UNC, who overlooked Jordan (a freshman at the time) when Smith picked 4 starters to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. (“That burned me up… basketball-wise, I deserved to be there.”)

He took a shot at Jerry Krause, the ex-Bulls General Manager best known for breaking up the Bulls following the teams 6th title, but was also the man who surrounded Michael with the supporting cast needed to win championships. (“He said organizations win championships. I didn’t see organizations playing with the flu in Utah.”)

He went on to single out Kevin Loughery his first coach in the NBA, for putting him on the losing team in practice. He singled out Isaiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, and George Gervin for freezing him out of the 1985 all-star game.

In what may have been the most startling comment of the night, the single most protected player in the history of professional sports, the media darling of our generation, even had the nerve to call out “all of the media naysayers” for “fueling the fire and giving me extra motivation.”

Please.

I’m not one to dig into another man’s closet looking for skeletons, so I’ll leave it at this: the only area of Jordan’s life that has ever been under control is when he is on the court with a ball in his hands. But have you ever heard anything concrete implicating Jordan in questionable or unethical behavior? No…because he’s freaking Michael Jordan. Again, the single most protected athlete of our generation.

Jordan also shared a story about the legendary Tex Winters, the architect of the “triangle offense” that Jordan so famously mastered. Following a game when Michael broke from the flow of the offense and single handedly lifted his team to victory, he and Tex shared the following exchange:

“There’s no ‘I’ in team,” Winters would tell him.

“No, Tex, there isn’t,” Jordan would say. “But there’s an ‘I’ in win.”

When Jordan finally did get around to at least acknowledging his own children, they weren’t safe from his venom either, as the father of the year so lovingly told them “I wouldn’t want to be you guys.”

Wow, thanks Dad.

He even had the nerve to take one final shot at poor Bryon Russel, as if Russel hasn’t had enough of Michael after watching replay after replay of Jordan crossing him over and burying the game winner in the 1998 NBA Finals when the Bulls beat the Jazz in six games. Yes Michael, we know Bryon Russel couldn’t guard you. Neither could anyone else. We get it.

He also took a shot at Jeff Van Gundy, calling him “the little guy who became the Knicks head coach”, and recalling the time when Jeff called him a con-artist: “He said I conned the players, I befriended them and then I’d attack them on the basketball court. That gave me the motivation that I so desperately needed.”

Funny thing is, Van Gundy was dead on. Jordan was, and still is, a con artist. He makes people think they are his friends, so long as these people can do something for him, and then when he has the chance, the dagger sinks in. Take Michael Wilbon, the columnist for the Washington Post and a co-host on ESPN’s PTI. In a recent column, Wilbon applauded Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech, offering this surprisingly ignorant opinion: “It wasn’t a speech so much as it was an entertaining rant, something you saw pretty often if you were one of Jordan’s golf partners or card-playing friends or, to be honest, a sportswriter with an off-the-record relationship with him.”

Wilbon actually thinks he’s Jordan’s friend, which is vintage Michael Jordan. Wilbon is a nationally syndicated columnist, and the host of a widely viewed sports program. We now know that Jordan is obsessive about his legacy and his reputation, so naturally he would “befriend” someone like Wilbon. And when Jordan butchers his hall of fame speech while embarrassing himself and his family, people like Wilbon will stand up for him, because they think Jordan cares about them. But he doesn’t, because people are nothing more than objects to Jordan. Remember the man crush Ahmad Rashad had on Michael? You don’t think these things are calculated?

The sad irony here is the very character trait that made Jordan such a dominant athlete has obviously cause a torturous inner battle throughout the course of his life. Jordan isn’t just a competitor, he’s competitive to the point of imbalance. Most, if not all great athletes love to win, and are competitive by nature. But Jordan, now 46 years old, has failed to find the comfort zone between healthy competition and living a peaceful life now that his jersey is hanging from the rafters. Micheal’s legacy in unmatched, yet he is unable to find satisfaction in his accomplishments. Personally, I find that sad.

The man that captivated basketball audiences everywhere for years, now has the look of a lost soul, struggling to transition into the next phase of his life. And on the night when he had the chance to thank the people in his life for helping him along on his journey to the top, he couldn’t help but step on the throats of those who he left in his path of destruction, en route to the greatest career in the history of the game. He couldn’t leave well enough alone. He had to remind us one final time, as if we didn’t already know, that he was the man, and anyone who dared to stand in his way would be crushed. He childishly rubbed his superiority in, and directly called out those who he pounded into submission. It was a sad display, watching an icon the likes of Jordan, struggle to hold on to his fast fading past.

Stockton, Sloan and Robinson all gave heart-felt speeches paying tribute to family, friends, teammates and coaches. They were sincere, humble and appropriate. Following Jerry’s speech, there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience. Even the often-times introverted Stockton became emotional when he spoke about his mother, who recently passed away. But, as usual, it was Michael who stole the show. Only this time, there was no happy ending, as the audience stumbled out of Symphony Hall, shaking their heads in disbelief at the walking contradiction that is Michael Jordan.