Boxed In: Best Comeback – Michael Jordan vs. Tiger Woods
Two years spent in baseball purgatory. A Thanksgiving-night car crash that instantly destroyed the picture-perfect image of a sport’s savior. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, arguably the two most iconic figures in their respective sports suffered stunning mid-career falls where many doubted if they would ever reach their colossal heights again. On today’s Boxed In, Liz Loza, Jay Busbee & Vincent Goodwill debate the comebacks of Tiger & MJ. Whose return to glory was greater? Watch or listen Boxed In on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on Yahoo Sports, YouTube or your podcast app of choice.
Video Transcript
[BIG BAND MUSIC]
LIZ LOZA: Hello, and welcome to "Boxed In." This is Yahoo Sports' argument show, debate show, fun show, COVID-19 we need hashtag #content show. Welcome. I am Liz Loza. I am one of the co-hosts of the "Yahoo Fantasy Football" podcasts and fantasy football expert. But today I am going to be the judge, jury, and executioner for our two counsel here, I suppose.
We have first up, senior Yahoo Sports writer of all the things, Jay Busby, holding things down in Atlanta. So the topic is best comeback. Tiger Woods, who Jay will be arguing in favor of and Vincent Goodwill, our senior NBA writer, who will be arguing in favor of Michael Jordan.
Though, my friend here, Vince, is from Detroit. So I don't know how solid his argument is gonna be. And I have to say, I grew up in the '90s in Chicago. So good luck, Jay.
JAY BUSBEE: I've got the deck stacked against me here. I'm gonna already put in my preliminary appeal on the judgment that's gonna to be ruled against me at this point.
LIZ LOZA: Well, I wouldn't have worried too much because you got a Laimbeer truther here stomping for Jordan. So I'm not sure how persuasive he's gonna be. But let's get down to it. Jay, I'm gonna let you kick things off just to demonstrate my impartiality. Tell me why Tiger Woods had the best comeback.
JAY BUSBEE: OK. Now, going against Michael Jordan in an argument is like going against Michael Jordan on the court. I mean, I understand the severity and the depth and the mountain that I'm trying to climb here. But let me put a couple of numbers on the board for you.
Tiger has more championships than Jordan did. He's been winning at the highest level, still winning, for 22 years. And he did it without a Scottie Pippen or a Phil Jackson.
However, we're talking about comebacks right now. And Tiger Woods has had not one, but two comebacks from astounding lows. One of them was very much self-inflicted, scandalous.
And then the other one was because of injury, where he was so flat on his back that he literally could not even hold a golf club. And yet he comes back and wins the Masters. I've got all the respect in the world for Jordan. But in terms of comebacks, it's Tiger all the way.
LIZ LOZA: So, Jay keeping it specific to comeback, not overall sports legend who shall be crowned accordingly. Vince, give me your reason as to why MJ's comeback is the best in sports history.
VINCE GOODWILL: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and this is the way I like to phrase things, I will display my impartiality in three parts here. Because Michael Jeffrey Jordan had a better comeback than anybody-- because you can argue that Michael Jordan post-comeback was better than Michael Jordan pre-retirement.
And while Tiger Woods has more Majors than Michael Jordan has championships, Jay has a little bit of a flaw in his argument considering Tiger has four opportunities per year to win a quote, unquote championship, whereas Michael Jordan has one. Nobody else got a chance to win when Michael Jordan was winning championships-- pre-comeback, post-comeback.
Well, pre-comeback, there was a team in Detroit that got some skins on the wall. But we're gonna leave that alone. Post-comeback nobody else was winning when Michael Jordan was playing. We're not gonna count the Wizards. We're only counting 1995 through 1998.
He was arguably a better player. He was arguably playing in a better, more stronger league. And while he had Scottie Pippen and had to drag that dead carcass along, he actually raised Scottie Pippen. So when you're talking about the greatest basketball player of all time retiring after nine years, coming back for another three and enhancing his legacy, I think Michael Jordan is the clear cut answer-- while I respect Tiger Woods being able to come back from these self-inflicted golf club in the Escalade escapade.
LIZ LOZA: Very intriguing, Vince. I like this. Though, there were some who might argue that MJ's necessary comeback was also self-inflicted. But we're gonna get to that a little bit later.
And although you keep bringing up Scottie Pippen, both of y'all, no love for BJ Armstrong. I don't understand it. So let's talk about both of these players at their ceilings, at their highs. I want to hear what you think they're defining moments were when they were riding at their highest. Jay, you begin please.
JAY BUSBEE: I'm gonna give you two, because Tiger Woods had two of the greatest moments in sports history, and they were separated by 11 years. First of all, you had the 2008 US Open. This is a tournament where Tiger won his 14th Major. And he won it on a broken leg.
With all due respect to the flu game, winning on a broken leg is tougher than winning with the flu. So Tiger Woods managed to win in extra holes, takes a full extra day to win a tournament where he was hobbling around on a leg that would sideline him for the rest of the year. Now, we thought at that point that Woods was gonna be just completely dominant for the next half-decade, and he had some other problems, which we'll talk about later.
But it wasn't until 2019, just last year, that he comes back and wins the Masters in a way that nobody could have expected he would win. The only way that I would compare it is if Jordan had won in the Wizards uniform, if he had won a championship. It was astounding.
It was the kind of thing that is unbelievable until you actually see it in sports. It was these two peaks here, 2008 US Open and 2019 Masters, that are two of the greatest wins in sports history. And they both belong to the same guy.
LIZ LOZA: Do you think, Jay, that the reason that Tiger doesn't get as much recognition as MJ is perhaps, and I'm helping you here, because golf is just an inherently boring sport?
JAY BUSBEE: That's helping me? Tiger made it cool. Tiger is the-- you take Tiger out of the equation--
LIZ LOZA: Fair, yes.
JAY BUSBEE: --that proves my argument. You take Tiger out of the equation and golf is the most unbelievably boring sport in existence. And I love golf. But if you take Tiger out, it ratchets down several levels.
Every time a tournament is on, what's the first question that you ask? How's Tiger doing? If Tiger's in the mix, you want to watch. If Tiger's not even playing, boom, you're on to something else. That's as good an example as I can give for Tiger's supremacy.
LIZ LOZA: That is a good argument. Though, I think you're underselling the Chi-Chi Rodriguez duel, fencing duel, with the golf club. Vince doesn't even know who Chi-Chi Rodriguez is. Look at this.
Let's kick it up to you, Vince. Remind me, take me back to my childhood and remind me about Michael Jordan at his high. And again, the defining-- maybe one or two of his most defining moments that typified his ceiling.
VINCE GOODWILL: Well, first off, you're not gonna win me on a cool factor between Tiger Woods and Michael freaking Jordan. Like, no, that's not gonna happen.
JAY BUSBEE: I would actually--
VINCE GOODWILL: That's not gonna happen their, Jay.
JAY BUSBEE: Vince, if I may, I would actually defer that to you completely because Tiger Woods-- Tiger Woods is such on a different plain from Michael Jordan. I'm gonna tell a quick story here. When Tiger Woods was a young golfer, was just starting to get famous, he was trying to find out how to get the attention of women.
And he asked Michael Jordan how do I do that? How do I get women to pay attention to me? And Jordan just looked at him and said, tell 'em you're Tiger Woods. And that was it. That was it. So yes, I defer the cool points over to Jordan. I happily give that over to you.
LIZ LOZA: Definitely took that advice too.
VINCE GOODWILL: Yeah and took it to Waffle Houses all across the country.
JAY BUSBEE: Took it to Perkins.
VINCE GOODWILL: Yes.
JAY BUSBEE: Took it everywhere.
VINCE GOODWILL: Yes, I'm sorry. I had to-- you just laid it up for me. I had to take it. No, but if we're talking about peak Michael Jordan, I present to you 1993. Magic Johnson, Larry Bird-- neither of them could go back to back-- go beyond back to back championships. Even Isaiah Thomas won back to back championships but couldn't win three in a row.
Michael Jordan carried his team beyond an 0-2 deficit in the conference finals. And then in the NBA Finals, without homecourt advantage, posted a 40-point scoring average in the '93 finals against the Phoenix Suns for a three-peat. Now granted, he duplicated that feat again post-retirement in 1998 with the Bulls, as far as a three-peat. But that's pre-retirement Jordan.
How about post-retirement Jordan? I present to you 1997, the second title of the three-peat. In game 1 he hit the game-winner. In game 2 he had a triple-double. In game 5, that was the flu game. In game 6 he had the winning assist to Steve Kerr.
Not has there ever been one player who put his individual tattoo on every single win his team had in the NBA Finals the way that Michael Jordan did in 1997. And you can't even call that his best series. But that was the most defining series. That's why with all these different questions, there's completely different answers because there's so many different examples of Jordan's individual excellence, despite the presence of Scottie Pippen.
LIZ LOZA: I hear that. Very good. Also, fun fact, do you all know that even though MJ and the Bulls won in their three-peat against the Knicks, Pat Riley had-- I believe, TM'd-- he had trademarked the phrase three-peat. So we ended up making all that damn money anyway.
VINCE GOODWILL: Even when Pat Riley loses, he wins.
JAY BUSBEE: Yes.
LIZ LOZA: Now, let's talk about those lows. We've hinted at them a little bit. And you know what, I'm gonna switch things up here. Vince, I want you to start with the lows, 'cause I want to see which ones and how-- which ones you're gonna pick and how you're going to present them. Since we sort of know-- or I'm gonna assume we know where Jay is gonna go.
VINCE GOODWILL: Well, if we're talking about pre-retirement Michael Jordan, the lows would clearly be-- and let's just take losing his father and everything else out of it. You know, the tragic 1993 murder of his father that precipitated the retirement.
If we're talking about from an athletic standpoint, clearly we know exactly where Michael Jordan's best losses were-- to a team in Detroit with a 6' 1" guard who just happened to beat him year after year after year-- not just on the floor, but physically too. Those Detroit Pistons bad boys teams were the toughest, roughest and gave Jordan the most rudest treatment possible.
So I would say, pre-retirement, that was probably the worst Jordan had ever been treated. There's never been a team to beat Michael Jordan three times in the playoffs. Let alone, three straight years in the playoffs.
Let alone, be a team that denied him the opportunity to go to the NBA Finals. Let alone, be a team in his own division. Let alone, be a player who's from Chicago that probably made it just as more delicious for Isaiah Thomas to beat Michael Jordan.
But if we're talking about post-retirement, losing in 1995 to the Orlando Magic upon his comeback, that ranks up there too. But I would say, for my money, losing to that pesky team in Detroit, Liz. I'm sorry to hurt your feelings. It was so delicious.
LIZ LOZA: I hear you. I do think that there are-- I do want to talk though. As much as I'm giving you this moment, and you can roll around in it. Listen, COVID-19 has got us all a little bit down, right? So take your joy where you can find it.
But the comeback for which Michael is famous is not necessarily that one. Any chance of arguing in favor of another one? Because if you're talking about his bounceback, he didn't really have to bounce that high.
VINCE GOODWILL: Well, the Orlando loss was huge because everybody just assumed that Michael Jordan coming back, wearing the 45 and everything else, the Bulls were just gonna elevate themselves back to championship competition. And then losing in the second round of the playoffs, not getting to the NBA Finals, not getting to the conference finals.
And losing to a young team-- not losing to the New York Knicks, not losing to a veteran Indiana Pacers team. Losing to the young Turks-- Penny Hardaway, Shaquille O'Neal-- a team that was supposed to be running the Eastern Conference for years to come. That put a lot of doubt in people's minds whether Michael Jordan and the Bulls could actually get back before the 72-win season and everything else.
So it was a pretty big bounceback when you consider the narrative at the time that-- with Shaq and Penny being so young, and them scheduled to be the new Kareem and Magic. There was no guarantee that the Bulls were going to get back that next season. Now, granted, they did.
And everything in the history has shown that we were all foolish for thinking otherwise. But let's be real honest here. That Orlando team was stacked and they were young and they were coming.
LIZ LOZA: Yep. Michael wasn't washed, but he looked it for a minute. Give it to me, Jay. Tell me tell me where we're gonna go here.
JAY BUSBEE: Well, Tiger missed a couple of putts on one tournament in 2004 that I really think were his lowest point. No, no. I want you to cast your mind back to Thanksgiving, 2009. Young Barack Obama is in office. The only Marvel movie out, I think, is "Iron Man." And Tiger Woods is a happy family man, or so we thought.
It was in that Thanksgiving weekend of 2009 that Tiger Woods' entire mystique, entire image, entire public persona was blasted to bits with the revelation that he was having affairs with not one, not two, not three and probably not even 12 different women. He was touring all over the world, all over the country. Perkins restaurants parking lots-- whatever you want to name, he was there.
He absolutely had a complete secret life that upended everything that we knew about the guy. If you remember, we thought of Tiger Woods as the perfect family man, the iconic model for an athlete in America. And that, in one incident in which his wife found out about what he'd been doing, was blown all to pieces.
And it took him years to recover from that, years. And many would argue that his image has never recovered from that. I don't think he's ever gonna persuade anybody that he's a great husband ever again. But beyond that, he also had a litany of injuries that came from all kinds of different sources, all kinds of different regions. He had surgery on his back, on his neck, on his knees, everything.
To the point that in 2017, just a couple of years ago, he confided to Gary Player that he was done playing golf. He was finished. He wanted to just be able to walk and play with his kids and be able to do that without pain. And then two years later, he's putting on another green jacket. He's hugging his children at the 18th green at Augusta.
It's an astounding comeback. We're not here to defend Tiger Woods as a man. We're here to present his comeback, and that is the most remarkable comeback in all of sports to me. All due respect to Michael Jordan and the pistons.
LIZ LOZA: You have both given me a lot to think about and ruminate over. Now, before I throw down my decision, I would like to add that our Twitter handle, @YahooSports, went ahead and polled our followers. Who had the better career comeback? 47.2% of people who replied said Tiger Woods. And Michael Jordan won by a narrow margin of 52.8%.
So the people believe that MJ is the winner. I will disagree. I actually think the biggest comeback is from Tiger Woods. And, Vince, I am surprised that you didn't go the gambling angle with MJ.
And because that to me is a real big part of his comeback. You didn't present that as your evidence. You kept things very technical and to the book. I liked that Jay went--
VINCE GOODWILL: But that was before the retirement. That was before the retirement. The gambling was--
LIZ LOZA: But coming back with the 45 is part of a comeback. As Jay said of Tiger, he had more than one comeback. MJ had a couple too. And I frankly think the fact that Tiger is still out there doing it-- although, let's be honest, golf is obviously not as intense of a contact sport as basketball is.
I still think that while MJ is the biggest GOAT of all sports, Tiger's comeback in particular-- he mounted much more. I'm gonna give it to Jay and Tiger on this one.
LIZ LOZA: Thank you, Judge Loza. We respect your decision.
VINCE GOODWILL: I do not respect your decision. I think that this is a Detroit bias. I am going to appeal for a more impartial judge.
LIZ LOZA: You sound just like Bob Costas in the '90s. All right, anyway, that is "Boxed In." Please continue to follow us on Twitter @YahooSports. I am @LizLoza_FF. Vince, Jay give the people your social media handles so they can check out all of the different things that you're doing.
VINCE GOODWILL: @VinceGoodwill.
JAY BUSBEE: And I am @JayBusbee.
LIZ LOZA: Thanks so much, everyone. Stay safe, stay healthy. And we'll be back with another episode of "Boxed In," sometime.
