ESPN hopes for Jordan wizardry

Sports net to cover summer league hoops

By JOHN DEMPSEY

Jordan

NEW YORK -- Is Michael Jordan going to be testing his game by participating in some of the Washington Wizards' exhibitions in the NBA's summer league?

ESPN sure hopes so. The network has set aside 8 p.m. EDT on July 17 for the national cablecast of the Wizards' game against the Boston Celtics.

Jordan, who has left the door open for a return to the NBA, has given no definite indication that he'll don a Wizards uniform that night -- at least in part because he's still recovering from bruised ribs suffered during a pickup game last month.

ESPN announced Monday that it would cover eight summer-league games, seven of them relegated to ESPN2, which reaches 10 million fewer subscribers than its ESPN parent. The only game to be carried on the sports cabler's main channel: the July 17 Wizards game.

The seven ESPN2 games consist of a day game on July 17 and three day/night doubleheaders on July 19, 24 and 26. The matchups feature such teams as the Philadelphia 76ers, San Antonio Spurs, Milwaukee Bucks and Utah Jazz.

The teams will fill their summer rosters mostly with rookies and free agents.

If Jordan joins the Wizards for the summer game as the final step of a full-fledged comeback, the joy at ESPN will be mild compared to the euphoria that will permeate NBC and Turner Broadcasting's TNT and TBS, which still have one more year on their contract to deliver national coverage of NBA games on broadcast and cable TV.