Michael Jordan never goes out of style.

Think about it for a second. During yesterday’s press conference when Mike met the media for the first time since officially announcing his (new) comeback, it was obvious that he was going to be THE story in the NBA for as long as he wants—and that his new Wizards jersey would be the year’s hot-selling item.

There hadn’t been that large a press conference for professional basketball since Jordan announced he was going to buy the Washington Wizards last year.

Whether or not you like the idea of His Airness returning to the NBA in a Wizards’ jersey for the next two years (this writer does), you have to admit that nothing is as compelling in the game of basketball as watching Jordan.

His staying power is incredible. MJ has been a star since 1983. Consider how long ago that was—most of us at Harvard were in diapers, and the Oscar for Best Picture went to Terms of Endearment.

Yeah, I’d say times have changed. But the coolness of “being like Mike” hasn’t.

Once Jordan got some other stars around him and made the Chicago Bulls a championship contender in the late 1980s, the league was his. There hasn’t been a player since—not Hakeem Olajuwon, not Shaquille O’Neal, not Allen Iverson—who has even been close to pushing Jordan off the front page.

During the “first retirement” from 1993-95 when Jordan left after three straight championships and his father’s murder, there was a slight chance his time was over. Suddenly, you no longer saw him hawking Hanes or Gatorade, the Bulls retired his number and there was even a statue built of him outside the United Center.

Usually, statues are built for the dead or dying.

But the “under-the-radar” act didn’t last for long—the fans and the media couldn’t let it. When Jordan decided to take a shot at minor-league baseball, it seemed his every at-bat was more closely scrutinized than the NBA finals between the Houston Rockets and New York Knicks.

Upon making his return to the Bulls in the first “un-retirement”, MJ found himself back in the familiar role of the league’s best player and most well-liked personality. He didn’t even have to work at getting that reputation back since no other player had stepped up in the interim.

For the next three seasons, Michael Jordan was in style as if he had never left. Who will soon forget the many memorable moments—his insistence on wearing No. 23 even after being fined, dropping 55 points on the Knicks, and of course, fighting off the flu to lead the Bulls to yet another championship?

“The Shot” over Bryon Russell is still the defining moment of Jordan’s storied career.

So when he retired again in 1998, claiming he was “99.9 percent” gone, we believed it to be true and started to give other players a chance to keep us interested. Please, we all begged, make us want to keep watching the NBA.

A few decent guys tried and failed. Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, and O’Neal, for example. A few bad apples also tried—Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Iverson—but it didn’t stick.