Michael Jordan Once Wore Name-Less No. 12 Jersey In Orlando On Valentine’s Day

Michael Jordan will go down as one of the greats of all time to play professional basketball, regardless of what jersey number he wears.

He is famous for his trademark No. 23 jersey although he did don different numbers for a time.

Michael Jordan fans would immediately recall the time when he wore the No. 45, the time when he decided to resume his NBA career in 1995.

Players like Nick Anderson said at the time that Jordan did not look as explosive compared to wearing his usual number.

Jordan would revert to his old No. 23, but the move cost the Chicago Bulls $25,000 for failing to notify the league on time. The legendary player was also fined $5,000 for wearing a different set of shoes than his teammates.

However, that was not the first time that Jordan was forced to wear a different jersey. On Feb. 14, 1990, "His Airness" was forced to wear the No. 12 because his original No. 23 jersey got lost in the Bulls locker room when they visited the Orlando Magic.

Jordan was forced to wear the name-less No. 12 jersey in that game which the Bulls lost, 135-129, as narrated by Filipino NBA journalist Henry Liao on Sports Bytes Philippines.

An investigation was launched and it was later concluded that the jersey was stolen at the visitor’s locker room at the Amway Arena while the Bulls were doing their shootaround.

Chicago arrived at the arena before the game at about 4:30 p.m.

To this day, that stolen jersey remains out there with no one admitting to the theft. But then Magic’s equipment manager and director of team operations, Rodney (Sid) Powell, shared an interesting take on the incident.

“That morning, after their shootaround, their (Bulls) locker room was set up–every player’s jerseys, shorts, warm-ups, everything laid out. The locker room door was dead-bolted, locked, and then we had a separate lock that we put on the door with a hasp. So there was only one person with a key to it," he stated.

"A couple of days later, they found out from security that one of their personnel had set up a plan to get the jersey, had gone through another locker room, climbed over the ceilings, came through a ceiling tile, grabbed the jersey, put it back in the ceiling. Planning for, I guess, a few days later to come back and get it after thinking no one would figure it out,” Powell added.

Despite sporting a different number, Jordan went on to score 49 points that night along with seven rebounds in 47 minutes of action.

"I don't give a damn about the way that I played. We had our opportunities to win and we should have capitalized on them," Jordan said at that time via SI.com.