It sounded like something the acerbic Jordan might have said, he never denied it, and he did steer clear of Gantt and other divisive issues despite calls for him to embrace the leverage he possessed as the nation’s most iconic athlete across the 1990s.

Even so, he is still a barrier crasher, a role model, a change agent. Jordan’s extraordinary journey has taken him from a modest upbringing to an ownership fraternity that includes the prodigiously wealthy Steve Ballmer, Mark Cuban and Mikhail Prokhorov.

And Jordan is significant in another way, too. Starting with him, the stakes and opportunities became very different for contemporary athletes from what they were for Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and others so admired for being outspokenly audacious in turbulent times. They didn’t have lifestyles more akin to owners or the deep pockets with which to underwrite effective foundations or a charter school.

That has all changed — African-Americans now buy N.B.A. franchises, too. The very best players, the true revenue generators and league standard-bearers, can aspire to more than drawing up X’s and O’s, or shouting praise for the next generation from a broadcast seat.

Don’t think fronting an ownership group at some future date hasn’t occurred to LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul, all in the news recently for following Carmelo Anthony’s lead in calling for athletes to speak out against gun violence after the latest police shootings of black males and the retaliatory targeting of police officers in Dallas.