As Michael Jordan enters the NBA, we discuss  the public perceptions at the time that the NBA of the 80s was “too black and too full of drugs”. We discuss the role that changing NBA leadership and media technology had on the rise of Michael Jordan’s star power and argue that he was a lucky son of a bitch to have been good at basketball at the exact moment when he was. We also discuss the “traveling cocaine circus” story MJ tells on “The Last Dance”.