The legacy and historic career of Michael Jordan has continued to mesmerize NBA fans decades after his retirement from the league. As we all know, Jordan wore the #23 and managed to lead the Chicago Bulls to 6 NBA championships in the form of two three-peats during his prime.
Since Jordan has remained undefeated in the NBA Finals, he has been glorified and put on a pedestal by veteran fans. Although his accomplishments on the court have been incredible, MJ also went through a significant amount of challenges and difficulties in his life outside the NBA.
In fact, those challenges even caused him to change his jersey number to #45. However, not many fans will even be able to recall a time when Jordan wore #45. This begs the question as to why he decided to change his number and for how long he wore it. Let us take a closer look and find out.
Michael Jordan changed from #23 after his father’s death
It turns out that an unfortunate tragedy in the Chicago Bulls legend’s life prompted him to change his jersey number from #23 to #45. To those who do not know, Michael’s father was killed by two men who wanted to steal his car and the valuable possessions in it. James Jordan’s death was also the reason that Michael decided to retire from the NBA for the first time after having won 3 championships with the Bulls.
Since his career in baseball never really took off, Jordan decided to return to the NBA but felt the need to change his jersey number due to the fact that his father’s absence weighed down on him. During an interview for his docuseries called “The Last Dance”, Jordan revealed why he changed his number to 45.
“I didn’t want to wear 23 because I knew my father wasn’t there to watch me, and I felt it was a new beginning and 45 was my first number when I was playing in high school…”
Jordan wore #45 for 22 games in the NBA. However, he soon reverted back to his original number which was #23. Here is what he had to say on changing his mind once more, “I just felt like 45 wasn’t natural. I wanted to go back with the feeling I had with 23.”
Some have even opined that taunts from his opponents along the lines of “45 isn’t 23” led to Michael backtracking on his jersey number change. Since he only played with #45 for 22 games, fans might not even remember that Jordan changed his jersey in the midst of his prime.