Monday night at the MCI Center in Washington, Michael Jordan (still, for the time being, the greatest basketball player of all time) played his final home game as a Wizard.

It was a loss, and a bad one at that, to the fellow go-nowhere Knicks. Jordan got pulled with about 1:56 to play, and the thunderous ovation from the fans sustained while the clock drained out. The fans, totally oblivious to the remaining 10 men in shorts running around in front of them, full throated their appreciation for at least two seasons of hope in a 26-year sea of misery.

Jordan didn't bring glory to Washington. This is the stunning reality that many pundits still can't seem to get their keyboards around. They are writing that Jordan's return was successful at the box office, gave hope where none existed, created a degree of organizational "momentum" that will continue once he is gone.

They are wrong. Jordan has failed, and failed big here in DC. I write that without a trace of Jordan-hating venom in my body. But it is true. You can't fashion a moral victory from back-to-back sub-40 win seasons in the shallow end of the NBA talent pool.

That Michael Jordan is capable of failing in some areas of life, should not be the unthinkable blasphemy that many people think it is.

Michael Jordan's successes are numerous, and his feats well documented and properly worshipped. Double three-peats. A record 72-10 season. All time leader in points per game. The list goes on and on. But all of that is basketball. Not life. He is after all, like the rest of us, human.

So in the end, he couldn't hit a curveball, couldn't pick a player with the #1 overall pick in the NBA draft, and didn't do much in business outside of selling Gatorade, Nikes, and underwear. His restaurant even went belly-up in Chicago. How can you screw up a steakhouse with pictures of you dunking on the wall? Jordan tried launching a string golf learning centers with his name and brand attached. They were no more special than any other range with plastic mats and worn out stripers by the bucket. Remember MVP.com? Jordan, Elway and Gretzky. Part of the dot-com rubble.

Jordan's marriage didn't exactly fail, although it did have a near-death experience about a year ago. At the point things looked like they were about to get really messy with the details of MJ's mistress and her child came to light, Juanita suddenly pulled up on the joystick and saved him further embarrassment. I imagine that act of calling off the legal dogs was well compensated somehow.

When Jordan came to the Wizards as part-owner and Director of Basketball Operations, there the buzz was enormous. But the first incarnation of "Desk" Jordan didn't exactly do much for the franchise either. Just a few weeks into his tenure he flushed the overmatched Gar Heard. Nobody complained, partly because Heard was not the second coming of KC Jones on the bench, and also because everyone said "Michael has to make his own impression on the team" with a new hire.

So Jordan goes out gets overmatched Leonard Hamilton out of Miami. Hamilton lasted exactly one season, and about 2 dangling hours after the last home game before Jordan fired "his guy." Oops. Never mind.

Jordan then decided to return to the court, for no other burning reason than that he "had an itch he had to scratch." Those were his exact words. They didn't do much to inspire those around him. For two years, the Wizards were not much more than MJ's weekly intramural team. He signed the team up, and controlled who started and how many minutes everyone got. When he could play, he played. When he was hurt (like last year) he stayed home.

Last season, when Jordan's knee finally gave way after a Midwest road swing, the Wizards arrived in Milwaukee and didn't know MJ was a scratch until literally before game time.

Was Mike in street clothes, ready to root on the fellas, and show his commitment? Hardly. He jumped a private jet back to DC, and was on a local country club the next day to teeing it up. How's that for leading by example?

It was just part of the overblown, media-driven, non-reality of Jordan's tenure here gets conveniently swept under the rug.

One of the biggest myths regarding Jordan was that he would "command players respect" because they would see him up in the owners box and want to play hard. Unlike the media (who fawns over MJ) today's crop of 23 year old NBA millionaires care more about getting the latest X-Box game than winning the approval of a guy who began his career when they were in pre-school.

Complicating that rosy scenario, was the fact that Jordan split time at his home in Chicago, but re-assured everybody that he had a satellite dish and the NBA Ticket so that he could "keep up with the league" no matter where he was. Jordan railed at questions which pecked at the issue of why he didn't post at home games more often in a suit and tie. Jordan scoffed that he wasn't here to be a "show pony" on the stadium concourse.

If this myth needed any further refuting, we present the case of Tyrone Nesby, "Desk" Jordan's very first free agent signing. Nesby had the distinction of being thrown out of a home game by his own coach! Only Nesby refused to leave the bench, and Hamilton had to call arena security on his own player!! Not often you see that kind of respect for a coach and GM, huh?

The second big myth was that Jordan would attract big time free agents to come to DC. Wrong again. True free agent movement has been effectively cut off at the knees by the last collective bargaining agreement, and the Wizards had little if anything enticing to dangle in a sign and trade. Even still, the fact of the matter is that free agents go where the money is first, and use weather as a tiebreaker. Jordan's imperial presence isn't even on the list.

The final myth, and the one that dies the hardest, is that Jordan at least "taught these young players how to win" and showed them what "being professional is all about." Anybody who has been watching the last two seasons, knows the Wizards routinely threw away easily winnable games against suspect opponents late in the season. Jordan didn't teach them anything about that. He was like a piano teacher, sitting on the bench next to the student, banging out a quick melody and then saying: "there, do it like that."

That's not teaching.

When the young Wizards struggled, "Mentor" Jordan went to the one tool in his bag: bitching to the media. With the playoffs still in reach, Jordan flogged his teammates in the media after a loss by saying "I could be playing golf" if they didn't want to play as hard as he was. These of course, the same players that "Desk" Jordan put around "Mentor" and "Itch-Scratching" Jordan.

Co-enabler Doug Collins kept going to the whip until the horse ended up right where it did last year. Ninth place, and out of the playoffs.

Go ahead, say Jordan is right. Rail against the unaccomplished, overpaid, players on his team. Encourage Collins to keep the collar on tight and don't let out any slack. It sure feels good to say that, and in a perfect world it might make some sense.

But at the end of the day, results are all that matter. And Jordan and Collins have nothing to show for two hard years of huffing, puffing, trading and drafting. Not making the playoffs in the east? Are you kidding? The conference is at such an historically low-ebb, there are dead horseshoe crabs washing up on standings page in the paper.

Here's the question you have to honestly answer when assessing whether Jordan's not-so-excellent DC adventure was a failure or not. If three years ago, I told you that Jordan would return to the court, and average 21 points and six rebounds per game for two seasons. If I said that the Wizards would get the #1 pick in the NBA draft, and add another lottery pick and mid-first rounder the following year. If I said that the Wizards would somehow unload the dead-weight deals of Strickland, Richmond and Howard. If I said they would get a legitimate front-line NBA coach like Collins. If I said all that to you three years ago, and then dropped the bomb by predicting they would STILL not make the playoffs as a mere 8th seed in that span, what exactly would you have called me then?

An idiot, that's what.

But here we are, golfing in April, for 13th time in the last 14 springtimes.

Hey, Jordan came, he tried (he really did), and he failed. This doesn't make him a bad man, it just confirms that he is human. Personally, I don't begrudge the experiment. At times, even I was convinced it might work.

But let's also be honest with each other now. It's over. Time to go back to "Plan B."