Charlotte, N.C. ? If I owned an NBA team, and wanted to make money, which is what owners tend to do, Michael Jordan is the first man I’d approach.

Here you go, Michael, buy a piece of my team. So now it’s our team, and we need somebody to run it. Interested?

Think of the possibilities. Executives from the local major-league team usually speak to local civic organizations. Today’s speaker at the Wednesday afternoon meeting of the Charlotte chapter of the Lions Club: Michael Jordan. No matter what the buffet line featured, all 12 tables would be filled.

No matter whom the team drafted or which free agents it hired, Jordan would be the star. Fans would buy tickets because Michael was in the building. Corporations would buy luxury suites because Michael was in the owner’s box. Fans would rent binoculars because Michael might show up in the lenses.

When the newness of the team wears off that first season and the oldness of the Charlotte Coliseum sets in, there will be a reason to get excited. The greatest player in NBA history runs this franchise. Jordan might make the new team so much money that Bob Johnson calls it the Charlotte Bob&Michaelcats.

But if Johnson’s priority is developing a team that moves quietly from terrible to decent to playoffs to contender, is Jordan the guy?

If Jordan is simply an owner, welcome aboard. But if his charge is to assemble the team, he won’t be able to do it from Chicago. This is hands-on. This is construction. This is heavy lifting. Absentee landlords need not apply.

Would Michael live in Charlotte? Although he is The Greatest Player of All Time no matter where he goes, he can lose himself more easily in a cosmopolitan city than he can here.

Charlotte has two celebrities: Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ric Flair. No offense, Ric, but Jordan is even bigger. Jordan grew up in Wilmington and played at North Carolina with Matt Doherty. In large cities, attention is diffused because there are other sources of interest. Here, there’s Dale Jr., the Nature Boy and Michael.

There’s also this: Is he any good at this job? Some legendary players have been able to take to the bench or front office the qualities that made them magic. Magic Johnson is not one of them. Jordan was not — not with Washington, the team that cut him out Wednesday after three seasons.

Jordan’s player-personnel work in Washington, a team that failed to make the playoffs in his tenure despite playing in the Eastern Conference, is between poor and mediocre.

Yet, if he comes to Charlotte, factions of this city will fete him with the small-town hero worship it once conferred upon Kurt Rambis, Rex Chapman, Kelly Tripucka and the early Charlotte Hornets.

As dynamic as Michael will be at the Lions Club, however, these folks are the minority. For most of us, celebrity no longer is enough.

What we want is patience and progress and a general manager with a telephone number that starts with 704.