I think he comes across as remarkably down to Earth compared to what he did as a player, and considering he had a life during his playing time that was akin to a circus around him throughout a 110 games a season they play from November to June.
He lived in a closed off world. Most of the time he would play the game, get followed around by dozens of press and then spend his free time in hotel rooms, only thinking about basketball and winning. That will certainly have an impact on his personality, you only have to look at Michael Jackson for an example of that.
He seems more chilled out these days though. He gave a nice speech for Kobe after he died early this year:
He’s still the highest paid sportsman in the world and he retired nearly two decades ago.
$139m dollars just from Nike alone last year. Think he earnt something like $165m in the year. CRonaldo who’s still playing ‘only’ earnt $93m last year.