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Eric WoodyardESPN
Shortly after being drafted by the Chicago Bulls with the No. 14 overall pick in 2016, Denzel Valentine‘s father thought he was delivering a dose of reality to his son.
“I’m like, ‘S—, they ain’t gone let you wear 45, bro,'” Carlton Valentine said, referring to his son’s jersey number at Michigan State. “So, he got drafted on a Thursday, that Monday was his press conference. They had a No. 45 waiting for him, and I’m like, ‘Aw s—, OK. This is serious.’ There was no way I thought he was getting 45 because of Jordan.”
Michael Jordan played just 22 games in 1995 in that unfamiliar No. 45 jersey during his return to the NBA after a brief retirement, which will be covered in Episode 8 of “The Last Dance” (Sunday, 10 p.m. ET on ESPN and the ESPN app). He switched back to his famous No. 23 during the playoffs that year, and stuck with it for the remainder of his NBA career with the Bulls and Washington Wizards.
Jordan had donned the No. 45 — first during his brief foray into baseball, then after returning to the Bulls — as a nod to his father James. Jordan had initially vowed to never wear 23 again because it was the last number that his father saw him play in before being shot to death by two teenagers in North Carolina in 1993.
Like Jordan, Valentine wears No. 45 in honor of his father, who played at Michigan State from 1984-88. When Denzel Valentine committed to follow in his father’s footsteps as a Spartan, Carlton was under the impression that he’d wear the same number as Draymond Green — coincidentally, the No. 23 made famous by Jordan. However, Denzel had a surprise plan, one that was spoiled by Green himself shortly after Green was drafted in 2012.
After both completed their morning workouts at Michigan Athletic Club in East Lansing, Michigan, Green sat in the sauna with Carlton.
“Denzel is about to wear your number,” Carlton told Green, who’d connected with the Valentine family through their associations in the Michigan high school and AAU scenes even before Denzel began considering following in his father’s footsteps.
“Naw, Denzel ain’t wearing my number,” Green responded.
“What you talkin’ bout?”
“Denzel is wearing 45.”
Instead of confirming the news with his son immediately, Carlton waited to see it for himself. At Michigan State’s Midnight Madness later that fall, Denzel came onto the court wearing the same No. 45 his father had nearly two decades earlier.
“I was sobbing uncontrollably,” Carlton said. “For him to wear 45 at Michigan State, that’s the highest honor that a son can tell his father that, ‘Hey, I’m going to wear your number.’ I was sitting there crying uncontrollably. I’m not going to lie.”
Carlton Valentine originally chose No. 45 in honor of his late mother’s birth year and because it had been the number worn by his favorite player Adrian Dantley, who also attended DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland.
For Denzel Valentine, the ability to carry on the family tradition even after finishing his four-year career at Michigan State meant a lot, especially after earning All-American and AP Player of the Year honors while wearing it as a senior.
“My dad wore it in college, so I kinda wanted to wear No. 45 just to show appreciation for him in college, and then it just stuck with me after college,” he added. “I had a great career in it, so I was like, ‘I’m not about to change my number’ and it just so happened to be with the Bulls and MJ had No. 45. It just worked out like that, but it was because of my dad.”
While Jordan only wore 45 for 22 games, the number is still associated with him in Chicago, though the team has not given serious consideration to retiring it. Before Valentine began wearing it in 2016, only three Bulls had worn No. 45 since Jordan — Paul Shirley, Luke Schenscher and Rasual Butler — and none for more than a single season. That trio combined to wear the number for 33 games; Valentine surpassed that number as a rookie and has now worn it for all 170 of his games as a Bull.
“I felt like mostly everybody was supportive,” Denzel said about his choice to wear No. 45. “It was probably about 80% of the people supportive and probably 20% that were like, ‘Why did you do that? Why did you take MJ’s number? Blah, blah, blah.’ But I didn’t have a lot of people that were hating on me to be honest.”
Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell, like Jordan, spent time playing baseball, growing up as the son of Donovan Mitchell Sr., who spent seven years in the Astros’ minor league system and now serves as the director of player relations and community affairs for the New York Mets. Mitchell wears No. 45 because of the dual-sport connection with Jordan.
“He’s the greatest basketball player of all time and he always will be,” Mitchell told reporters in Charlotte ahead of the NBA Rising Stars Game in 2019.
It’s that status as the GOAT that has made Jordan’s No. 45 jersey a mainstay in Chicago to this day — which has led to some moments of confusion for Carlton Valentine.
“I’ll see somebody from the front and I’m like, ‘Aw, they’ve got on Denzel’s jersey,’ but then they turn around and I’m like, ‘Nah, that’s a Jordan jersey,'” Carlton said with a laugh. “I mean, it’s only one Michael Jordan, but for them to allow Denzel to wear the number, they must’ve thought pretty highly of him in order to say, ‘Hey, you can wear this number.'”
