Can Michael Jordan rebound?

Eroding Q Scores and N-Scores seem to have captured Jordan’s attention, however. In his interview with TOC, he declines to answer questions about negative aspects of his image or even his plans for improving the Bobcats. But Jordan talked to the Charlotte Observer in April right after Telander’s column appeared and former Bobcats coach Larry Brown assailed MJ for running an incompetent front office stocked with yes men.

“My success will be judged differently,” Jordan told the Observer. “I’ve come to accept I’ll be scrutinized more than any other owner. I know now that I have to have a tough skin about these things.”

But now comes word, via the September 17 issue of ESPN: The Magazine, that Jordan has “promised his front office staff that he’ll let them do their jobs without his shadow looming over” them. This after he was actually booed by home-court fans on April 26 during the Bobcats’ dismal season-ending game.

And, as if to answer those who bemoaned his lack of involvement in Chicago’s Olympic bid and Telander’s assertion that he “stands for nothing,” Jordan hosted a high-profile dinner in August that raised millions for President Obama’s reelection campaign. MJ’s no longer the same guy who, back in 1990, told Chicago Tribune Bulls beat writer Sam Smith he wouldn’t endorse a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate because “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” Even pushing 50, Jordan’s trying out new moves to burnish his legacy.