Curtis Polk is the most powerful person in the Charlotte Bobcats organization you've never heard of.

Only Michael Jordan, the team owner and arguably the best basketball player ever, outranks Polk in authority.

Though Polk works directly for Jordan, rather than the Bobcats, his power within the organization is clear. Here's how a team executive, who asked to remain anonymous, described Polk's monthly visits to Charlotte:

"Everyone is answerable to Curtis."

Polk has advised Jordan on all things financial for over 20 years. He counts among his greatest accomplishments reworking Jordan's relationship with Nike after Jordan retired from playing. Polk convinced Nike that Jordan's value as an endorser would still thrive after he stopped playing. Jordan Brand has nearly tripled in value since Jordan first retired, continuing as a leader in basketball-shoe sales and jumping into baseball, football and other sports.

Polk, 52, holds the title of vice chairman of the Bobcats, who open their lockout-delayed season Monday at Time Warner Cable Arena versus the Milwaukee Bucks. He's also the franchise's "alternate governor" - NBA jargon for the official with the power to speak and vote for the Bobcats at league meetings in Jordan's absence.

Polk also is the person charged with telling Jordan no. An impatient, hyper-competitive personality, Jordan knows he needs a balance to his sometimes-impulsive style, as the team builds toward what would be the first sustainable success in the franchise's seven NBA seasons.

When Jordan faces a major decision, and Polk says, "Don't!" Jordan will listen, think long and hard, and usually agree.

But they debate, passionately and profanely, sometimes for hours at a time.

"We'll go on and on like that, but we listen to each other,'' Jordan told the Observer. "He's ideal, because I'm definitely the guy who believes the glass is half-full and he's the glass-half-empty guy."

That's why Jordan needs Polk, why he has instilled him with so much quiet power to scrutinize: Over time he's come to emphatically trust Polk's intellect and conviction.

Player-agent David Falk, who brought these two together, says the beauty is Polk has both the confidence to tell Jordan when he's about to make a mistake and the security not to be bruised if Jordan disregards Polk's counsel.

Polk's role is to use his financial background to analyze Jordan's next moves. He's the pessimist searching for the downside to Jordan's optimism.

"(Michael) always thinks he can conquer anything," Polk told the Observer last spring.

Now Polk has a clear charge - help Jordan conquer the NBA.

Accountant, with a future

It's the contrast between these two that actually makes the relationship so strong - Jordan's intuition, balanced by Polk's dispassionate analysis.

Howard White, a longtime Nike executive, has worked with both Jordan and Polk for decades. White describes Polk, a former accountant, as "very calculated. He isn't one to say, 'Let's go hog-wild!' "

And Jordan?

"MJ works from his emotions," said White, a vice president with Jordan Brand who originally recruited Jordan to Nike.

Polk is a numbers guy. He's made tens of millions advising professional athletes how to retain and grow their fortunes.

He went to night school to earn a law degree from George Washington University, then set out to find a job managing money. Eventually that took him to Washington-based ProServ, one of the first athlete-management firms and then concerned mostly with tennis players.

He came by ProServ's offices during his lunch hour for an interview with Falk. But Falk was suddenly called away on business for a client, and the interview never took place.

"He loves telling that story,'' Falk recalled with a laugh 25 years later.

Months later, Polk and the head of ProServ, Donald Dell, had a chance meeting at Washington's pro tennis tournament. Polk asked whatever happened to that financial-services job. Dell said they'd interviewed numerous candidates, and still thought Polk was right for the position.

So Polk - typically brash and direct - asked why they hadn't offered him the job. Within weeks he was ProServ's financial-planning expert. Falk - brash and direct, too - quickly saw Polk's potential and they formed a team within the business.

Jordan was Falk's most important client. Over the years Jordan went from skeptical of Polk's advice - he says at the time the only people he totally trusted were his parents - to all-in on Polk's counsel. Jordan agrees it's the contrast between them that makes the relationship work.

"He'll never do something impulsive," Jordan said. "I see something I want, and I'll just buy it."

Polk is the guy in a business all about attention who habitually deflects attention. Falk was Mr. Outside, recruiting clients. Polk was Mr. Inside, managing their money. Whether it was NBA stars Juwan Howard, Alonzo Mourning or Allen Iverson, they all benefitted. And the fees made Falk and Polk rich.

They pulled away from ProServ and started their own firm, FAME (Falk Associates Management Enterprises). Ten years later, they sold that business for more than $100 million to an entertainment conglomerate called SFX.

Polk might not be impulsive, but he knows how to spend. He owns a home in Potomac, Md., with a tax value of $4.2 million, plus vacation homes in Park City, Utah, and Satellite Beach, Fla., worth a combined $2.7 million. He loves to golf and smoke expensive cigars. He and his wife, Amanda, are regulars at numerous Washington charity fundraisers.

Polk seems equally comfortable in a tuxedo or in Jordan Brand workout clothes, monitoring a pre-draft player workout. If Jordan invests in something, Polk watches over it. Not necessarily managing the business, but practicing quality-control.

"He doesn't try to do my job or Rod's job, but he's very involved," said Bobcats president Fred Whitfield, referring to himself and basketball player-personnel chief Rod Higgins.

Whitfield offers this example: He might consider dropping the price of a block of seats to sell more inventory. He's thinking of reducing the price from $150 per game to $99, and asks Polk for advice. The numbers guy suggests $110, on the reasoning if someone will pay $99, he'll also likely pay $110.

As far as basketball decisions, Whitfield said Polk's experience as a player-agent is invaluable. Agents learn all the exceptions - loopholes in the NBA's salary cap - that allow deals to be done. That makes Polk a great resource for Higgins.

In 2001, Polk went to work exclusively for Jordan, overseeing his endorsements and investments. He still lives in suburban Washington, commuting to Charlotte at least once a month. But he's in daily phone contact with Whitfield and chief marketing officer Pete Guelli.

What does Polk think of Charlotte?

"It's very cosmopolitan, but in a small, homey way," Polk said. "On the basketball side, it's a little bit of a 'show-me' town."

Showing Charlotte and the whole NBA that Jordan can build a winner is the biggest challenge Polk faces.

Betting on Charlotte

Polk says the worst advice he ever gave Jordan was recommending he join the Washington Wizards' front office. Jordan got a small piece of equity in the team and later came out of retirement to give the Wizards his last two seasons as a player. That made the Wizards tens of millions, and when Jordan was done playing, he expected to go back to running the basketball operation.

Instead, Wizards owner Abe Pollin abruptly rebuffed Jordan in a 15-minute meeting. It was a rare public humiliation that set off nasty rhetoric between Polk and his hometown team.

"The injustice is Abe knew this was an issue for him two years ago but avoided the truth in order to not frustrate Michael's playing for the Wizards," Polk said in 2003 in the Washington Post.

Wizards spokesman Matt Williams replied in that same Post article, "The very last person in the entire world who should question anyone's integrity is Curtis Polk."

Seven years later, Polk got a do-over, urging Jordan to buy out Bob Johnson and take control of the Bobcats. Since Jordan took over in the spring of 2010, there's been considerable progress on the business side: Last season they sold an additional 2,500 season-tickets (raising that base to about 7,500) and corporate sponsorships doubled from 50 to about 100.

But it's the product that still needs fixing. Hiring Rich Cho - an analytical sort with a background in engineering and the law - as the No. 2 basketball executive was an uncharacteristic step. Previous to hiring Cho, formerly general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers, nearly every key Bobcats decision-maker had some previous tie to Jordan

Polk aspires to draw from Jordan's legacy and this state's basketball history to show the rest of the league (and hopefully star free agents) that the Bobcats can be a special destination.

Ask him how that happens, and Polk invokes North Carolina and Duke.

"Those programs are institutions. (Recruits) know that if they go there, they're going to play basketball at the highest level; to not only get a great education, but to further their careers," Polk said.

"I think we can make Charlotte that kind of an institution at the NBA level and there's no reason we can't. In the early '90s (when the Hornets led the NBA in attendance) it was.

"The greatest asset we have is Michael Jordan...We can stand for excellence because we have Michael."

Polk looks to the NBA's two finalists last season - Miami and Dallas - and sees player-friendly franchises run by basketball alpha males: Heat president Pat Riley and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Cuban doesn't have the basketball gravitas of Riley, once a Hall of Fame-quality coach. But Cuban was way ahead of other NBA franchises in providing player amenities that distinguished the Mavericks as a potential destination for free agents.

"We have to develop a culture like that,'' Polk said, "(a culture) that is viewed externally - certainly by the rest of the NBA, the players and the other organizations - as lasting and competitive for many, many years."

Polk hasn't yet singled out what will make the Bobcats unique. It could be the best medical care or the best post-game locker room food to impress visiting players or something no executive has yet imagined. But it has the Bobcats' front office engaged.

"Change is happening and for the good. We're going to be a great destination for free agents," Jordan told the Observer. "Curtis is right that we're looking for things that make us that - not to pamper people, but to impact how we can be a success.

"We had that in Chicago (when he played for the Bulls). We didn't have the time to make that happen in Washington.

"We will have that in Charlotte."