nba

#90: How Old Would Michael Jordan Have to be to Beat Him in 1-on-1?

Someone has to ask the important questions here.

Michael Waterloo

02 Feb 2026 — 5 min read

I haven’t spoken to my high school basketball coach since my step-mother died in 2012. He showed up at the funeral, despite me graduating in 2005.

I almost texted him yesterday. It wasn’t about anything important, but trying to remember a specific player that he used as an example for us in high school.

See, I loved my high school coach. Coach Mac (McNabb) was a great player and motivator, including one of the quotes I used a lot that I thought was cool throughout college – what we do today, we are tomorrow.

There was a specific practice, on a Saturday during my junior season, where Mac told us about a trip that he made down to Durham, North Carolina, as a guest to watch a Duke basketball practice under Coach K (I’m not going to Google his name. It’s a lazy Sunday here, all).

He instilled a lot of the knowledge and observations from his weekend away, but there was one example that always stood out to me.

And dammit, I wish that I could remember the player that he used.

But he told us a story (hopefully true) where Coach K went to go on a scouting trip for a player at a high school, and instead of making an offer to the top prospect that he was there to see, he made an offer to a player who wasn’t a starter.

Because of the little things that he did. The hyping his teammates up on the bench. The hustle. The diving after loose balls.

Now, do I believe this story? I always told myself yes.

Is there a chance that he was just trying to motivate the non-starters while we were in the midst of our first undefeated season ever? I also believe this is likely, but both can be true.

And when I was younger, I knew that would be my path if I ever wanted to play basketball at a higher level.

I played in high school and started one game.

OK, so I started on senior night, and I played mainly JV – except when they needed a smaller center to go in against Nate Hartung of Butler, a nearly-400 pounder Division-I football player who they hoped I could tire out.. But during the game, when Mac would yell “LOO,” I knew it wasn’t to get up and check-in at the scorer’s table, but it was to start the “DEFENSE (clap-clap) DEFENSE (clap-clap)” chant going.

I knew when I was in at practice, it was to take charges, call out plays, and run the scout team.

Despite having a high basketball IQ, I was pretty shitty as a player.

But I tried, and I had a blast.

So, why am I bringing all of this up? Am I going to start wearing my letterman jacket again suddenly?

No (maybe).

It’s because of a question that I had this week while I was trying to disassociate from the world.

This will give you an idea of how my brain works on any given day.

Why did I think of this? I don’t know, man. Why did they make the Adam Sandler “Jack and Jill?” We don’t have answers to everything.

But I did get some answers from people.

OK, so 110, 99, and dead. One could argue all three are the same thing but I digress.

Probably the most realistic answer here is from our friend Taco Rover. Thank you, Taco.

Seventy-one.

It seems realistic, until you realize that MJ turns 63 in two weeks. So that’s only eight years away (Covid started six years ago for a comparison).

What do we know about Jordan right now? Well, we know that he “didn’t pick up a basketball for years” before draining a free-throw in Augusta, Georgia after renting someone’s house out for The Master’s.

Silky smooth J. Drained it.

But he’s still 63.

How old would he have to be for me, an out-of-shape 39-year-old terrible basketball player with a high basketball IQ, whose best actual skill is his court vision and making the right pass, to beat him?

Well, I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon. Seventy-one seems like it could be the age, but remember – I have to score on him, not just count on him to be old.

While he won’t have the lateral quickness or the ability to spring off like he used to, there are two qualities that won’t leave him anytime soon: his trash talk and his wet j.

Even at 71, it’s hard to imagine those going away.

In this hypothetical situation, what I’d be hoping for would be for Jordan to need two knee replacements or hip replacements and try to take him on then. But since that’s unpredictable, I’m going to go with 83. By that age, if I stay my same age at 39, I feel comfortable that I’ll be able to get by him and out-hustle him.

Even then, it’s maybe a 22 (not 23) percent chance that I could actually take him down.

False confidence? Maybe.

But at least it’s not the same level of false confidence that the random dude had when he challenged a WNBA player to a game of 1-on-1 and was embarrassed by Sarah Ashlee Barker.