OK, OK. No resistance this time. This time, agreed, it might not be so boring. It's a new season, and it's a continuation more than a comeback, so the reaction has to be tweaked some, even among us contrarians.

This time, you admit a modicum of interest in the sight of Michael Jordan wearing white, blue and bronze. That's because this time, the whole exercise might actually be more about basketball than hoopla.

Jordan's Washington Wizards enjoyed a pretty fair summer before Thursday, when they made the thoroughly unsurprising announcement that Nick Van Exel will have some competition for 2003's Sixth Man Award. Rewind to that solid summer and you have your intrigue quotient.

Confirmation that Jordan would play out the second season on his two-year Wizards contract has been anticipated for months, or at least weeks, in spite of last season's knee troubles and his forthcoming 40th birthday in February. The hook is that, at least by Leastern Conference standards, he'll be playing on a team worth watching for more than just the tired MJ spectacle.

	The hook is that, at least by Leastern Conference standards, he'll be playing on a team worth watching for more than just the tired MJ spectacle.

This doesn't figure to be the same overwhelmed, inexperienced Wiz that started 3-10 and never -- in spite of a game recovery in the standings -- fully coped with the all-consuming focus on His Airness. Jerry Stackhouse, Larry Hughes and Bryon Russell have arrived to give Jordan some veteran help. No real size and muscle, but maybe even enough help to convince Jordan himself to spare his knees and scale back.

At the least, with those guys, the games will be more meaningful and the decisions bigger for coach Doug Collins. The storylines aren't bad, either. You want to see how MJ co-exists with Stackhouse, one of the many Next Jordans to chafe from the comparison. How MJ looks in the same uniform as Russell, who Jordan pushed off for the game-winner in the '98 NBA Finals. And how MJ fares on a second unit -- assuming Collins can really convince him to keep coming off the bench -- alongside the kid Jordan drafted No. 1 overall, Kwame Brown.

By all accounts, Jordan was playing well and slimming down (to about 210 pounds) and doing no damage to his surgically repaired right knee (or the left) during summer workouts in Chicago.

He missed 22 games because of knee trouble last season, and wound up missing the playoffs for the first time, but Jordan duly landed in D.C. on Thursday after a brief golfing detour to the Bahamas. Probably because, in the East, Washington's optimism isn't unfounded.

Russell and Hughes were added at reasonable prices and Stackhouse is eager to pad the kudos he received last season in Detroit for his team play. If Collins has an early worry, more than the dynamics of a Stack-MJ partnership, it's massaging all the minutes … and the idea of Stack and Christian Laettner sharing locker-room space again.

Which shouldn't be boring, either.

Marc Stein is the NBA senior writer for ESPN.com. E-mail him at marc.stein@espn3.com.