John N. Mitchell of the Washington Times reports that Michael Jordan will return this season and play for the Wizards. He could make the announcement this weekend.

After a knee injury cut short his comeback last season, it has been unknown as to whether he would retire or return for the start of training camp next week to prepare for his 15th NBA season. Jordan commented on his comeback in a recent interview, "I'll play as long as I love the game of basketball. I don't believe it myself sometimes that I'm still playing. I never thought I'd play again. But I still love the game."

Jordan's comments were the strongest indication yet that he would play this season, and sources confirmed to The Washington Times yesterday that he would return. Jordan declined to comment yesterday.

Even with the knee injury, Jordan led the Wizards in scoring and assists and helped them improve from a franchise-worst record of 19-63 to last season's more respectable 37-45.

The Wizards have stated that they do not know what Jordan?s intentions are, but sources claim that Jordan is in great shape and will be back. Last season?s knee problems may have been the result of a summer of extreme workouts geared toward losing weight. Since he hasn?t gained weight this summer, he won?t have to work as hard before the start of the season.

The Wizards have approached this offseason with the assumption that Jordan would not return and have done well to add quality players at the shooting guard and small forward positions. Jarred Jeffries, Juan Dixon, Jerry Stackhouse, Larry Hughes and Bryon Russell will all add depth and allow Jordan to limit his minutes.

"The one thing we tried to do was to do everything in our power to better the team with the idea that [Jordan] was not going to be playing," coach Doug  Collins said. "If he does play, I think we have the guys on this team who are going to make his job a lot easier. Last year it wore on him with the minutes. Our goal was to get better with better talent so that if he did play it would make his life easier."