I've always wondered why the Guys in Chicago took it so personally. Why Michael Jordan's decision to leave their town -- first in a flirtation with Charlotte, and then Washington -- made them so angry with Bulls' management. Everyone marveled at Jordan's exploits, I thought, but he was (is) just a basketball player, after all. He doesn't build housing projects or police the streets; he doesn't invest in roads or perform in symphonies, or cut hair or throw block parties -- all of the things that help make a city a city. He's just a basketball player.

But then he did it in my town.

I think I'm starting to understand.

Keep in mind, this past Saturday night was just a meaningless exhibition game. Wiz and Nets, two of the league's, um, lesser lights over the last two decades. True, New Jersey has some hope now that Jason Kidd is at the point, and he's just as good as ever, believe me. But his excellence wouldn't have added more than 500, maybe a thousand, butts in seats at the MCI Center.

This Saturday, though, was Jordan's first night in front of the home crowd. He hadn't played in a intrasquad scrimmage earlier in the week. Sore foot. Penciled into the lineup on Saturday, Jordan brought a sellout 20,000 to the building. (The Jordan Effect is not limited to selling seats. The Wizards' Web Site went from 26th most visited in September to second-most in October -- one million hits. It wasn't because Kornel David is on the roster.)

	“	Michael got 33 minutes. I kept looking over at the coaches and saying 'I don't want to do this. I don't want to keep him on the floor.' But he was the only thing that gave us any kind of stability in the whole game. Is it scary? Yes it is. We've got to change. ”
		— Collins on MJ

How odd, to see Jordan in that garish Wizards gear. (I believe, strongly, that the Wizards should re rename themselves the Bullets and go back to their old wonderful unis from the late-'70s. I'd buy 50 retro Jordan jerseys.) When Jordan was introduced there was thunderous, roof-raising applause, and it suddenly dawned on me that my resistance to this whole comeback was wrong. My resistance, which had nothing to do with Jordan's abilities on the floor and everything to do with my memories of his Bulls days -- just like the Guys in Chicago, one suspects -- was misguided.

People love this man.

He makes them happy. He gives them hope. And that's substantial.

Then, he went out and dropped 41 on the Nets' collective bean.

He dunked once. The rest of his 14 field goals were jumpers, from 12 to 26 feet. While he won't be able to abuse others as consistently as he did the Nets' collection of rookie and journeymen small forwards, he was so potent in the halfcourt set. He can still draw fouls and he still shoots better than 80 percent from the line, which is why he'll average 25 points a night this season. He is still capable of raising his level of concentration beyond that of everyone else on the floor and is still capable of taking over a game for minutes at a time.

In the third quarter, with the Nets up 20 or so, Jordan went nuts. He hit a jumper. Then another. Then he drew contact with Nets rookie Richard Jefferson on the baseline, faded away as the foul was called, and wound up in the Wizards' bench as the ball went through the net. Then he went coast to coast, surveyed the defense as he crossed midcourt -- oh, would he be a fabulous point guard! -- and in a second, turboed to the basket, soared and threw one down. Not with the viciousness of years past, but it was a dunk, and that's what people were wondering about.

Then he came down for a heat check. Pulled up from about two feet behind the three point line. Swish. And bedlam. The next time down, he crossed midcourt with the ball again, then glided to his left. I knew before he pulled up that he was going to try again, just to see if he could possibly still be this hot.

"He cannot make this," I said, as he rose up behind the three-point line again.

He made it.

What was I thinking?

	Pippen

	Lue

The problem for the Wizards, though, is that Jordan is 38 now, not 28, and it's hard for him to sustain these bursts. He has to pace himself. So when he came out a couple of minutes later, exhausted, the Nets promptly ran off seven points in about a minute and took control of the game back. It is the same thing that happened so often in Chicago, and if Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman occasionally stood around and watched Jordan perform, what makes you think Courtney Alexander and Tyronn Lue won't do it? He is that mesmerizing.

But he cannot expend energy like this every night. He doesn't have Pippen and Grant and Rodman on this roster.

"We've got to make it easier for him," Doug Collins acknowledged to me afterward. "Right now, guys are playing in awe. They're playing in awe. I told Ty, 'you played in the Finals last year. When Shaq and Kobe kicked you the ball, you hit six of nine three-point shots in the Finals. You can't play like that ball is a hand grenade. Chris Whitney, you've got to play.' And right now, our guys are very, very unsure and they're playing in awe.

"Michael got 33 minutes. I kept looking over at the coaches and saying 'I don't want to do this. I don't want to keep him on the floor.' But he was the only thing that gave us any kind of stability in the whole game. Is it scary? Yes it is. We've got to change."

Jordan knows it, too. He is nothing if not sage about matters of basketball. His hubris comes when he reads about what he can't do, or shouldn't do. When it comes to self analysis on the floor, he is more self-critical than anyone.

"They're gonna have to grow up quick," Jordan said of his young teammates. "Our young kid (first-round pick Kwame Brown) is gonna have to understand how much he's needed. Getting one rebound in 19 minutes isn't going to help much from a 6-11 player. He is versatile and he can rebound the ball. But it's a good learning lesson."

All of us are learning, again, about this Michael Jordan fellow. He has made basketball matter again in Washington, and for those of us who have been in Hoop Wilderness around here for so long, that is a very welcome sight.

My friend Sally, who is much smarter about sports than most people I know, was at the game Saturday. She marveled at her supposedly smart friends who kept saying that Jordan is doing this because he's envious of Tiger Woods, or that he'll be a failure on the floor. She doesn't suffer fools gladly and she doesn't make heroes out of people because they can tote a ball. On this issue, she was succinct.

"You know why he's doing this?," she said. "Because he's Michael Freakin' Jordan."

I ask again. What was I thinking about?