In the story of Jordan's last tumultuous season with the Bulls and the dynasty he helped build, the audience is grappling with conflicting emotions. Although his talent is impressive, his strength of personality fascinating, some of the methods used to achieve excellence on hardwood - reprimanding his teammates, even hitting one in the face - can multiply, raising an internal monologue of questions during which is a sensational sports film.
But few who watch what would be the most requested documentary in the world can relate to Jordan, with the possible exception of Carlsen, himself master of his craft, a unique talent in a generation that is tirelessly excellent in his sport.
"There have been people saying in Norway" you don't have to be a *** hole to win; "Whenever they say from now on, I will say" Go look at Jordan "and I will use it as an excuse for questionable behavior," said Carlsen, an ironic smile engulfing his face as he spoke. from his home in Oslo.
"I am certainly someone who is very present in this school. There is no excuse. You always have to be the best, nothing else is acceptable."
Carlsen has been the world chess champion since 2013. At two years old, he was solving puzzles of 50 pieces. At the age of five, he built magnificent Lego creations. At 13, he beat former world champion Anatoli Karpov, drew with the great Russian Garry Kasparov and became a great chess master.
Six years later, he was the youngest chess player in history to rise to the top of the world rankings. His rise has been dazzling and, over the past decade, the prodigy has become one of the best that has ever existed: four world titles and the highest-rated player in history.
So, ruthlessness, this need to win, whatever happens, is it an essential trait in a great story? "I think you need it," replies Carlsen, after a moment of reflection.
Like Jordan, it is a loathing to lose that fuels Carlsen's ruthless conduct. The rarity of defeats does not soften the blow. In last month's Magnus Carlsen Invitational, an online tournament with a record $ 250,000 prize, he lost to 16-year-old rising star Alireza Firouzja. "It pissed me off a lot," admits Carlsen.
And on his way to beat Ding Liren, he turned blue as his frustrations bubbled. He is, he says, "more human than most".
"When I made a mistake in a game, there was a lot of expletives coming from my mouth; I think it's a good thing," said Carlsen, saying that a player's freedom of expression makes them fast-paced online chess, games that are normally completed in less than an hour, more appealing than the classic format.
"It's real. People have these instant reactions, which you can't actually have when you're on the board," he says. "There must be room to be yourself and I'm a super competitive person, and when I'm wrong in a way that I shouldn't, it bites me and there's really nothing wrong with to express that. It's just part of who I am.
"You can like it, or you don't like it. It is authentic and it is the most important thing.
"People said it was good and bad for me. My emotions are usually outside of my body. It's not what you usually connect to a chess player in general, but it's is the way I am. "
In 2010 Kasparov - the 1985-2000 world chess champion who used to be Carlsen's coach - told Time magazine: "Before he finishes, Carlsen will have changed our old game a lot."
Still in their twenties, Carlsen's impact on the game was considerable, leading to modeling missions with G-star, an agreement with Porsche and its own application. They all contributed millions of dollars to his fortune.
For half his life, the Norwegian is used to traveling the world for about 200 days a year, so the last few months in Oslo have been the longest he has spent at home since childhood.
And while Carlsen's daily life during the global pandemic has not changed significantly - "I play chess for a living," he said with a frown - it gave him the opportunity to take a break, and the consequence of this can indeed lead to a jolt of the old game.
The pandemic gave Carlsen the opportunity to put his vision into practice to make chess more interesting for the masses, at a time when sport has stalled and most of the world is facing devastation and destruction. unpredictability.
Earlier this month, he launched the Carlsen Tour, a million dollar online tournament series in which he will participate, providing hours of entertainment for chess fans until August.
The first event was the Carlsen Invitational, a final that would have been watched by an estimated online audience of more than 115,000 people, and the second was the Lindores Abbey Challenge, which is currently taking place.
His goal, says Carlsen, is to "make it possible for chess players to make a living," while giving chess fans "something to look forward to."
He would be surprised, he said, if he played overboard chess this year. "I suspect that next year there will be some kind of return to normalcy, but who knows, I'm not counting on that," said Carlsen.
It may not be surprising to hear him call his eponymous 16-day online tournament, which involved eight top players, as an "instant hit," but he was not the only one to do so. praise of the format. Earlier this month, the British newspaper The Guardian wrote that the tournament "had been a revelation", amplifying the mistakes and increasing the pressure.
It is also significant that the Norwegian describes his victory over Hikaru Nakamara, the best blitz player in the world, in the final as his most satisfactory victory in a while.
"It was really difficult," he explains. "The last two games were both very close and I felt that I was challenged in a way that I was not too quick and quick chess too.
"We can take [the Invitational] two things, both this quick time control and the match format, that it's this one-on-one fight, [and] both worked fairly well.
"The first few days took a while to get used to, but after that I was completely focused and there were no worries and also most of the time I had my opponent's miniature in the corner of the screen so I could see my opponent and see their facial expressions, which made it more real.
"You can actually see what they are thinking and it is also something that people enjoy watching."
Ending two days before the start of the online Nations Cup, a competition organized by the FIDE governing body in which Carlsen did not participate, the calendar of the Invitational raised some eyebrows. In interviews last month, Carlsen said there was no problem between him and FIDE.
After his 2018 world title victory over Fabio Caruana, Carlsen told media gathered in London that he had lost, he would probably never play a world championship match again. If he had retired, the impact on the chess world would have been similar to that of Jordan's brutal retirement from basketball when he was at his peak nearly three decades ago.
But now Carlsen is not talking about leaving any format in the sport prematurely. As long as his computerized brain allows him to flatten his opponents, he will continue to set the standard.
"I love the game so much," he says. "[I] love to win every time, hate losing every time it happens. I can't wait to continue.
"There are times when I think" I've done this before, why am I doing it again ", but they are rare and it doesn't happen at all.
"I feel like my highest level is always the best in the world. The fact that I am vulnerable on my bad days shows how good others have become.
"I am just motivated and I love to play the game. As long as I feel that I am still at the top of my game and that I continue to win, I see no reason to stop."
