This is being billed as the first definitive biography on Michael Jordan.

Roland Lazenby’s “Michael Jordan: The Life” is due out in early May. It is a whopping 720 pages.

Surely, his incredible feats will be celebrated. However, if you are an avid Jordan fan looking for a valentine, this probably isn’t the book for you.

According to the release, Lazenby gets into all facets of his rather complicated life. They include sexual abuse allegations by his sister, Deloris, toward their father, James. In 2009, she wrote a book accusing James of raping her.

From the release:

“Provides a startling new context for Jordan’s life, especially with regards to the largely unreported inner conflicts of his family (who have offered up inaccurate narratives of being the perfect American family), driven by Jordan’s older sister’s allegations of sex abuse against their father, James Jordan.”

That should create a few headlines.

By now, everyone knows Jordan isn’t perfect. Lazenby, who has written books previously on Phil Jackson and Jerry West, will explore all the angles.

From the release:

“For all his fame and glory on the court, MJ also has a dark side—that of a ruthless competitor and lover of high stakes. There hasn’t been a biography about Michael Jordan that fully encompassed the dual nature of his character and drew such a complete portrait of the superstar until now.”

Certainly more to come here.

Here is the entire release:

*******

Michael Jordan is a six-time NBA champion, five-time MVP, ten-time nominee to the All-NBA First Team, fourteen-time All-Star, an Olympic gold medalist, and one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. From his college ball days in North Carolina through his heyday with the Chicago Bulls in the ’90s and up to today, where he is a recent Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and co-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, every step of his legendary career has been startlingly remarkable. MJ’s superhuman athletic prowess has been the focus of fans and press the world over, and even now, at age fifty, MJ’s career and life—on and off the court—remain the subjects of emphatic interest.

For all his fame and glory on the court, MJ also has a dark side—that of a ruthless competitor and lover of high stakes. There hasn’t been a biography about Michael Jordan that fully encompassed the dual nature of his character and drew such a complete portrait of the superstar until now. MICHAEL JORDAN: The Life by Roland Lazenby (Little, Brown and Company; May 6, 2014) reveals the fullest, most compelling story of the man who is Michael Jordan.

Basketball journalist Roland Lazenby has spent almost thirty years covering MJ’s time in college and the NBA. His intimate access to Jordan’s coaches, friends, teammates, and family members provided him a truly well-rounded perspective of the man, the myth, and the legend. He witnessed Jordan’s growth from a skinny rookie to the instantly recognizable global ambassador for basketball he is today, and in MICHAEL JORDAN: The Life he pulls back the curtain on many lesser-known aspects of Jordan’s life.

In the book, Lazenby:

Explores intimate details about Jordan’s childhood and four generations of North Carolina ancestors before him—moonshiners and hard workers—who Lazenby writes about more deeply than anyone has before

Provides a startling new context for Jordan’s life, especially with regards to the largely unreported inner conflicts of his family (who have offered up inaccurate narratives of being the perfect American family), driven by Jordan’s older sister’s allegations of sex abuse against their father, James Jordan

Draws the most complete portrait of Michael Jordan’s life and career, stretching from his youth—including the infamous story of getting “cut” by his high school team—through his time playing in North Carolina, with intimate details about Jordan’s relationship with Coach Dean Smith

Takes a complete dive into Jordan’s Bulls-era heyday, including his productive but often fraught relationships with his coaches, teammates, and team managers/owners, in all of their fascinating and dramatic intensity

Reveals a fully rounded picture of who Jordan is as a person and how hard, aggressive, and demanding he can be—and how he drove his teammates to perfection often through verbal abuse, just like his father did to him as a boy