MJ compares mid-90s Bulls to 2010 Bobcats

A partial transcript follows.

Jordan on the great lengths he will go to in order to help the Bobcats be successful: "I'm willing to fight for them in getting them that respect. In the essence of, and I know David (Stern) may not like this, some teams need to earn that respect, and I think we are one of those teams. We're not the Celtics, we're not the Bulls, we're not that historic background. We're a young team trying to find our way in this unbelievable conglomeration of teams. I've got to get that. I've got to support my team and I want the fans to know that I have that passion about winning as they invest and come see the team. The two work hand in hand, and yeah, I'm going to get on the referees. If I can intimidate the referees to look at our team in a different manor, I'm going to do that. The good thing is that owners can't get technicals, because I'm pretty sure I'd have had a technical by now. I try to be fair, honestly, and if I can influence to aid our team, believe me I'm going to do it, and I'm pretty sure that every other owner, if they could, would do the same."

Jordan on the notion that he was an absentee minority owner with the Bobcats: "When Bob (Johnson) brought me in he brought me in as a basketball consultant. And I invested and obviously I allowed him to make the business decisions and he allowed me to make the basketball decisions. And what was asked of me was never to be in the forefront of the organization. Whereas everyone was saying 'We don't see him, we don't know if he's in town.' Well that was never asked of me initially. Now that I'm invested in the team, and now that my reputation or now that my financial commitment is at risk, where else would I be? I've got to be upfront, and I expected to be upfront once I made that commitment. But in essence prior to that everyone was judging me in terms of where I was or where I lived, but it was never asked of me initially to be the face of this organization. I dealt with it in the way that I felt was best for me, but now I'm vested and I'm out front, and I have a reason to be because I want to protect that investment. But at the same time I'm in a unique position as a former player owning his own team, a majority ownership of his own team, and I take great pride in that and I'm enjoying it tremendously."

Jordan comparing this year's Bobcats team to the early Bulls teams he played on: "I kind of correlate our participation this year against Orlando like when we (the Chicago Bulls) played, when Chicago played against Shaq (and the Orlando Magic) back in the day. We knew Shaq was a force, we understood his dominance as a big man and we didn't have that dominant big man, we had three seven footers and we utilized that to our advantage as much as we could to make him work on both ends. So if I'm looking at (Dwight) Howard, and I'm not Larry Brown, I haven't talked to Larry Brown about the strategy, I would look at it in that scenario; we've got four seven footers, in essence we have 24 fouls. Somehow we are going to have to use that to neutralize (Dwight) Howard and not allow these other guys, their perimeter players, to hurt us in the double teams, kind of like Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott back in the day. That would be the strategy, and I feel like if we can execute that strategy we will give ourselves the best chance to win."