I'm conflicted about Michael Jordan, I really am.

I'm conflicted, because I can't really understand why he is making this comeback.

	WE'VE GOT MJ COVERED
	If or when Michael Jordan has something to say -- um, fax -- we're prepared. Here is some other MJ-related content: Return-o-meter Stein: Situation bores me Bucher: Not thrilled Friend: Welcome back

At the same time, I'm sure glad he is.

I'm conflicted because the side of him that craves all this media attention, that demands everybody hang on his every word and action, that creates these long, drawn-out ordeals of will-he or won't-he, that side drives me nuts.

But when he finally resolves to come back, and finally announces it, I will be supremely happy.

I have actually come around on this, which, I'm guessing, many people have not been able or willing to do.

Keep his legacy alive, they thought. Don't let him ruin the otherwordly image he created for himself. Don't let him come back and embarrass himself. But last season I wrote a story about Patrick Ewing, and how Pat wanted to play another two seasons beyond last season and how everybody was appalled at the notion.

Clearly, he was done. Toast. Not only over the hill, but through the woods and sitting next to grandma with a bottle of Geritol and a box of Depends, waiting for Goldilocks to arrive, presumably not from the Goldilocks Club.

But then it dawned on me that that was our selfish shortsightedness that placed Patrick Ewing in a box, created for him what WE wanted him to be, rather than allowing him to be what HE wanted to be.

Patrick Ewing wanted to be a basketball player. And so does Michael Jordan. And I'm glad.

If I learned anything from the events of the past week, it's not that life is short. I already knew that, to some degree. But the deaths of all those innocent people impressed upon me to do something, anything, in the time I do have.

When he played before, Jordan says Phil Jackson taught him to live in the moment, to appreciate things in real time, as opposed to having to appreciate them upon reflection.

If Michael Jordan wants to play basketball again in his life, if he wants to live in the moment some more, let him play. Really, who or what is it going to hurt? His image, his accomplishments? Screw that; those are for other people. And I, for one, am going to enjoy it.

How many times have you sat around arguing with your buddies which player is better and why? How many times have you compared eras, to no avail? I love that scene from the movie, 'Coming to America,' where Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy are sitting around the barbershop arguing about boxing.

"Every time a white man talks about boxing," Eddie Murphy argues, "he brings up Rocky Marciano," and Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy agree.

Well, we get to do that, we get to compare players and eras and settle arguments, and as my father-in-law likes to say, "Don't cost nothin'."

When Jordan left before, Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson and Vince Carter and Kevin Garnett and Michael Finley and Ray Allen were just wee tikes, learning the game and being taught, to a great degree, by Jordan.

Now, we get to see exactly how good those players are against the greatest, we get to see how much they learned, or how much the professor held back. If Jordan can even be 70 or 80 percent of what he was, he should be able to hang with those guys. Level the playing field, as it were.

I'm sure he is going to be taken by those quicker, younger legs at times, made to look the fool.

But he can handle it, and so can we. Plus, he is one of the greatest defenders of all-time, he has some tricks that he probably has never even used to deal with the physical deficiencies he is now facing.

I'm tired of seeing the Los Angeles Lakers on NBC's doubleheader 25 out of 26 weeks, even when they are playing the Norwal Pipefitters Union. It's time for some new blood, and so we go back to the old blood.

I mean, imagine if MJ can somehow reincarnate a 55-point outing at Madison Square Garden, Spike Lee bringing back the term "double-nickel." How fun would that be?

Just think if Jordan and Kobe, or Jordan and Vince, go for dueling 50-point games, and the underlying subplots that exist and pervade our living rooms. I can just imagine NBC's teasers: "Michael and his Wannabe." Or, "Star Heels."

Michael and his merry band of Wizards are not going to win a championship. Hell, they probably are not even going to make the playoffs, not with that awful roster.

But I found it interesting when Jordan recently asked, rhetorically, "What's wrong with just helping kids find their way by teaching them the game?"

I'm a little skeptical of what Jordan says sometimes because he can often be, shall we say, self-serving. (Who isn't?)

But if he meant it, it is an interesting departure from his previous attitude, which came somewhere close to echoing Lombardi.

Can this man, who was so revered and, yes, feared, for his deep passion for winning, for his competitive spirit and drive, actually ratchet it down and focus his game on something else? When the Wizards are being run by 20 points on some Monday evening in late-February, can Jordan successfully remember what his comeback is about?

As much as I want to relive what the greatest player ever created on the court night after night, I am also just as interested to see what the new, older, wiser, executive-side Michael Jordan has to offer.

Maybe we'll all learn something.

I look forward to it.

Frank Hughes covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.