In fact, it appears he may have already read the first few pages.
Lemieux, the only other living former North American superstar to serve as principal owner and governor of a major league franchise with his beloved Pittsburgh Penguins, was one of the people Jordan consulted with before closing his recent $275 million US acquisition of the Charlotte Bobcats.
The deal not only made Jordan the first former player to hold a controlling interest in an NBA franchise, it made him fourth on the all-time list of former athletes to serve as a majority owner in North American sport. The other two are Papa Bear George Halas, Sr., who played, coached and owned the NFL's Chicago Bears over a period spanning seven decades last century and former Baltimore Colts player Jerry Richardson, who ironically is the founding owner of Charlotte's other big league team, the Carolina Panthers of the NFL.
The Lemieux ownership manual is a must read for Jordan because the former #66 is the only person to win the Stanley Cup as both player and owner. After winning two Cups in the early 1990s, Lemieux became co-majority owner of the Penguins in 1999, buying the franchise out of bankruptcy with Ron Burkle. Jordan would like nothing more than to become basketball's Lemieux and add a title with the Bobcats to the six he won as the most famous Chicago Bull in the 1990s.
The Super Mario playbook will show how you go from bankruptcy to supremacy in 10 years...from being precariously close to relocation to drafting next-generation superstars such as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to making back-to-back Stanley Cup appearances, culminating in a championship in 2009.
The playbook also outlines the approach behind selling out more than 100 consecutive home games (and counting) and gaining the kind of community and corporate support that allows you to build a new, $321 million US arena, the Consol Energy Center, which opens this fall and will help the Penguins make the most of the Crosby era.
Lemieux used his personna and profile to get that support in Pittsburgh. He used his experience playing under both the late Bob Johnson and Scotty Bowman to understand how important it was for him to surround himself with hockey operations talent, including respected general managers such as Craig Patrick and Dan Shero. He used his credibility as a former player selectively, stepping up on occasion to inspire the Pens' lockerroom with a few choice words of wisdom.
They're wired differently and are different people, but Jordan has many of the same qualities. The same profile. The same championship pedigree. The same credibility as a former MVP and winner.
Even though he has less of a hill to climb than Lemieux did in 1999 and despite already overseeing basketball operations since 2006, that doesn't mean Jordan cannot benefit from using the Lemieux playbook to make the Bobcats successful, both on and off the court.
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