The Best Ever: Michael Jordan heads into Hall of Fame after transforming promise into unimagined production

As elections go, this was no cliffhanger.

They didn't need to send out for an extra gallon of Starbucks the night the honors committee got together at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. "Let's see. Who are we going to vote for -- Coach Vladimir Kondrashin, Brazil's Maciel Ubiratan Pereira, Richie Guerin, Red Kerr or Michael Jordan?"

It didn't happen quite like that -- the 2009 winners needed 18 yes votes from 24 members -- but you get the picture. The greatest player in basketball history was automatic, unless someone despised Carolina, the Chicago Bulls, Nike, feverish gambling or an overcooked steak served by a surly waiter at Michael Jordan's restaurant.

As a college freshman, Jordan won the 1982 NCAA title with a late jumper from the left wing against a Georgetown zone tilted toward James Worthy and Sam Perkins. He won six NBA titles in Chicago, and he was the finals MVP every time. He returned from his second retirement at age 38 and averaged more than 20 points during two more seasons for Washington.

He was one of the best offensive players of all time, and he was one of the best defensive players of all time. Jordan matched Wilt Chamberlain's record career-scoring average (30.1) and ranks third in total points, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone.

The numbers hardly tell the story. The mental images of basketball's Superman seem permanently stored in the planet's data bank: the wagging tongue, the long, blink-of-an-eye first step, the soaring jumper over hopelessly extended defensive arms, the dunker-in-flight pose that adorned millions of childhood walls and Nike ads, the weeping son with one arm draped around his look-alike father and the other around another golden NBA trophy.

Coach Dean Smith nudged Jordan out the door after his junior season, certain that No. 23 was fully prepared to take on the world. Houston, picking first, chose hometown star Hakeem Olajuwon, a center who delivered titles. Portland mistakenly saw similar potential in tall Sam Bowie.

The Bulls, drafting third, latched onto the rookie of the year and, down the road, the five-time MVP. They didn't necessarily see all this coming.

During every phase of his career, Jordan transformed promise into unimagined production. At Wilmington's Laney High School, a coach who didn't promote sophomores to the varsity kept the skinny, 5-10 Jordan on the JV team. He played all the time, feeding his competitive appetite and striving to emulate idol David Thompson (the former N.C. State star Jordan chose as his presenter for tonight's Hall of Fame induction ceremony).

Jordan grew, spurting to 6-3 the summer before his junior year and catching the eye of assistant Roy Williams during Smith's camp.

Smith signed North Carolina's AP player of the year, Asheville's Buzz Peterson, and the blossoming Jordan. It took only a few scrimmages for older players to acknowledge Jordan's talent and for Smith to recognize his boundless defensive potential.

In a brief period packed with formidable centers -- Patrick Ewing, Ralph Sampson and the raw Olajuwon among them -- perhaps nobody envisioned that Jordan would become the nation's best player by the second half of his sophomore year.

He started college without a textbook jumper or textbook defensive footwork. With Smith's encouragement, he learned impeccable defensive techniques that combined magically with his quickness, instincts, determination and spring. The mixture pinned Chuck Driesell's layup -- and Maryland's upset hopes -- against the glass from far, far away. With Carolina 0-2 at the start of his sophomore season, Jordan triggered a swarming defensive rally against Tulane that turned obvious defeat into a triple-OT revival.

The stats don't reveal everything -- especially a 17.7-point college scoring average that reflected full commitment to Smith's team concepts -- yet one stat demonstrates how Jordan became the greatest player ever, better than Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Magic Johnson or Larry Bird.

He made 17 percent of his 3-point attempts as a pro rookie in 1985 and 43 percent while converting 111 of them in 1996, his first full season after a nearly two-year retirement. With all those natural advantages, he still worked relentlessly to turn weaknesses into strengths.

Jordan showed up in Chapel Hill as a one-dimensional offensive player, a hard-driving acrobat with a deft touch around the basket. His jumper was flat. Sometimes he drifted while in the air, and sometimes he released the ball off the palm of his right hand rather than the fingertips. By the end of that first season, Smith entrusted him with the shot that won the title.

His original NBA meal ticket was the lightning first step and the drive through remaining traffic. Jordan kept looking for ways to improve, and the search took him back to the gym for jump-shot refinement. By career's end, particularly at the end of playoff games, he was among the greatest jump shooters ever under pressure.

Jordan's life hasn't been all cheers and celebrations. It began in a hospital in Brooklyn because his parents, James and Deloris, lived there for 18 months while his father studied mechanics. James was murdered by roadside robbers in 1993, which Michael cited as an underlying reason for his first retirement.

Skeptics speculated that the break -- during which Jordan played outfield for the White Sox's Class AA farm club in Birmingham, Ala. -- was really a secret suspension ordered by Commissioner David Stern in response to Jordan's gambling activities. That aspect of his personality came to light during the money-laundering trial of convicted cocaine dealer James "Slim" Bouler, who possessed a Jordan check for $57,000 written to cover gambling debts.

Other men won larger amounts off Jordan. "He doesn't have a gambling problem," his father insisted. "He has a competition problem."

Jordan eventually got his gambling escapades off the public record, retired a third time and joined the Washington front office. He now owns a slice of the Charlotte Bobcats, with power over player selection.

After tonight, he will own a prominent space in the Naismith Hall of Fame, a great honor and a mere formality all at once. It's kind of like the tongue wagging the dog -- the biggest dog who ever wore, or sold, sneakers.

■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.