Colin Cowherd criticizes Michael Jordan amid Hornets selloff

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On Thursday, reports dropped about "serious talks" Michael Jordan was engaged in about selling his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets, the NBA team he's had a stake in since 2006. 

MORE: Michael Jordan in talks to sell majority stake of Charlotte Hornets

As Jordan's tenure as an owner seemingly comes to an end, it's hard not to look back on the lack of success the Hornets have seen on the floor.

Over the course of his ownership, the Hornets have posted a winning record just four times in the last 17 seasons under Jordan's ownership. During the same span, the Hornets have made the playoffs just three times, losing in the first round of every series. 

Colin Cowherd, a national sports personality, calls Jordan's ownership a failure, while grouping in other expenditures Jordan didn't see success in either. 

"He tried baseball. He failed. He tried ownership. He was awful. He tried the Wizards. It bombed," Cowherd said on The Volume. "Everybody understands, take out Scottie Pippen & Phil Jackson, this whole Michael Jordan mythology is sort of just that." 

Without context, it's easy to look at Jordan's venture in baseball, and coming back to basketball the second time, as failures. Looking at each experience in a vacuum, however, shows success. 

For example, Jordan's adventure with baseball. No, he didn't make it past Double-A ball in the White Sox' farm system. In a year, however, he became a respectable ball player for not having trained in the sport. 

He slashed .202/.290/.266 in 127 games in the minors. He notched 88 hits, three home runs and 51 RBIs. His expectations are seemingly higher because, well, he's Michael Jordan. I'm not sure how many athletes can see success as Jordan did in baseball with little time on the field. 

Take his other criticized venture with the Washington Wizards in context. After rejoining the NBA after three years in retirement, at age 38, he punched in two All-Star nods while averaging 22.9 and 20 points per game in each season. 

No, he didn't win a championship in Washington. They didn't even make the playoffs. But at 38 and 39 years old, he maintained the status quo as one of the better players in the league. Comparing Jordan's baseball and Wizards' stints to his championship runs with the Bulls wouldn't be a fair exercise. 

Even Jordan's ownership tenure with the Hornets wasn't a colossal failure. Sure, the team never amounted to anything but a few playoff berths. But owners buy to teams to make money. And Jordan did that. 

Jordan bought the team for approximately $275 million. The Hornets are worth around $1.7 billion today. Is that considered a defeat?

Cowherd not only chalked up the experiences as tallies in the loss column, but he also found a way to compare the instances, arbitrarily, to LeBron James, Jordan's closest rival on the basketball court. 

"He doesn't have the ability or the interest to be more of a LeBron, to help others beyond his circle," Cowherd said. "It's not really what Michael is. He only recently started some noteworthy giving. Some public giving to either a political process or a charity."

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