and hurting the Jordan legacy would have also hurt NBA profits & image, so a 'retirement' sorta makes sense - at least from a conspiracy standpoint.

These NBA allegations remind me of Canseco's allegations about steroid use. Seems like nobody believed it at first, since he himself was a know steroid user. Then he came out with his book, named names, then congress, then the Mitchell report - now all of the sudden it seems that everything he said is true. It will be interesting to see if a book comes out that directly names officials and/or execs.