 Asking 30 of Michael Jordan's teammates their thoughts on the true MJ. This video looks at every single season of MJ's career and two of Jordan's teammates from those years will talk about Jordan in that season. With the name of Michael Jordan you will find some teammates that have positive things to say about him and others who have not so nice things to say about him. But that is the way that Jordan was and that is why he's not only one of the greatest basketball players but one of the greatest athletes to ever grace this earth. This video took me a while to edit and put all together so I'd really appreciate if you guys could help me out by hitting that like button, subscribing if you are new, hit that notification so you're up to date when a new video is released and I don't want to keep you guys waiting so I really hope you enjoy the video. You talked about unfortunately missing out on those championship years but I think even more fascinating for us is understanding what Michael was like coming in as a rookie in those early years with the Bulls. What did you see that you felt like was part of what made Michael Jordan who he is? I'm like fasten your seatbelts, this is going to be a hell of a ride. You just knew it from day one. The other rookie coming out of college is very respectful of elders, coaches, anybody in an authority position, he was just a rookie coming in ready to learn and earn his position in the league. He didn't come in as an attitude or feel that he was better than anybody else. My first five years with Michael there we hadn't won a championship yet so in some ways it was a different environment but I think as a person deep down he was the same person. Did he talk trash to you, Mike? Was he a respectful guy to the big man? Yeah, I had, he never said anything bad towards me, I always got alarmed with him well and he was just very, very, very intense. The thing that you remember about Michael was that every second, whether it was practice or a game, he was all out. They traded him for George Gervin who was the highest paid bull on that team. I started with Dr. J and I finished with Michael. That's pretty good. Oh yeah. Both of them brothers played so hard man, I mean in practice and in the game. The most competitive person and just went, he gave everything every second. Once he crossed that line, he was a maniac, he loved the practice, he came at you in practice, we took him out, I mean we physically beat the hell out of him and he took it. But he did some things in practice that were amazing. He just, he really worked hard in practice so the games for him were pretty much easier than practices were. But we ate a lot of McDonald's back then, MJ ate McDonald's for every morning for breakfast. Word. Every morning he ate McDonald's. It sounded like Ocho Sinko. If it works. Right. And before game, he ate steak before every game. A steak? All steak? Steak before every game. Damn, that's heavy. It probably got more cool because we were somewhere and MJ and a guy got into it. I mean it was like, it was real massive. So it was about a bill. So won't you pick the check up? MJ, you get a check too. Fuck that, you picking up. So they went at it. So it was like a lot of tension. So they almost got in the fight. And I'm like, man, I like, you know, man, y'all need to cut it out. You know what I mean? He get a check. He didn't leave before me. So it was a lot of that. And you know, they got all of them guys out of there and took a two or three years. But then he got to start running the team his way. And you see what happened. In the early years, Michael had a very difficult time. Just an extraordinary talent. They scored an awful lot of points. Well, it was pretty obvious that Michael was turning just a special individual. He demands perfection. Toughest thing about working with Michael is he's a workaholic. He never stops. So from the morning until late at night, he's he's motivated to always be challenged and be the best. And he carries that throughout his whole his whole staff. I mean, I saw the best defenders in the league is shredded. Shredded. This kid here was the greatest. And I'm including Kareem in his heyday. I'm including what I call wilderness tail land. I think he's the greatest, right? I said, can't you tell from these highlights? I said, can't you can't you just see he was shredding people like it was nobody's business, right? One time I can recall me and BJ sitting on the bench and we're sitting on the end our chairs and Michael gets a move baseline. The defender is here. That's out of bounds. MJ is facing him here. And somehow he was able to go around, plan here, get here and go up and dunk the basketball. So for me, some of the stuff that he would do would be almost superhuman from a standpoint that how can you make a pivot when he would turn so sharp you would see his shoe almost come off. Literally where he would turn the corner on the baseline and you would see this happen and the next movement was a powerful thrust enough to dunk on somebody. That's incredible to me. I just don't understand how he did that night after night. And then how intense he was at practice the next day. Was it just Bushler and like Steve Kerr? Was he just beating up the little white boys? Let's be honest. No, he'd be up a big white boy. We'll Purdue. I got Will Purdue here on The Rich Eisen Show. You fought him, right? You had a fight with Jordan in a practice, correct? Yes. I hate to tell the story, but you know, Will and I still good friends. Will, you got beat up by Michael Jordan. What happened? You know, typical field, you know, running this play. So we kept running this one play where I was setting screens on him. Got pretty good shots as they say in the day of laying some wood. And Will set a legal pick on MJ. MJ said, Will, don't do it again. One time I hit him pretty hard. He bounced up off the floor and he said, listen, you do that again. I'm going to punch you. He was a little more colorful language. So as soon as that happened, Johnny Bach, who was the assistant coach that set up our defensive schemes, immediately yelled, run it again. MJ said, all right. He feels it. Run it again. So naturally ran it two more times. Legal pick. I'm going to tell myself, hey, man, if I'm going to get punched by this guy, which I still didn't think he was going to do it, I'm going to make sure I get my money's worth. So I made sure it was an illegal screen. I don't think I ever stopped. I just ran right through him, knocked his ass to the ground. He got up and immediately just turned around and hauled off and swung at me. And boom, made him up, made him up. It was over. But again, it wasn't like it turned into a debacle. You know, once I realized what happened, I kind of started to step towards him. He was on the team at the time, grabbed me from behind and just kind of said, oh, big boy, that's probably not a good idea. And then the other thing was we just, you know, settled down, continued to practice. It wasn't like they separated practice and oh, that's it. We're done. You guys got to go in a room and hash it out. We just kept practicing. That stuff happened a lot more than people think, but it was refreshing when we played games on those goals teams because of how competitive and how hard we went at it in practice. Well, Purdue here on the Rich Eisen Show, did you have to have that environment you think in order to win as much as you did? I mean, is that, was it necessary? That type of atmosphere wouldn't work now. And maybe it wouldn't because people are different. Personalities are different. Egos are different. But the one thing I can always say is people are like, oh, he was a tyrant. I never looked at it that way. I thought he was a guy that was trying to motivate his teammates. You had to adapt to his style. They had this philosophy, I'm the best. And no one is going to tell me that I'm not the best. And that's that being that having that competitive spirit. Michael Jordan was a score first, second, and third. He was a phenomenal, phenomenal finisher of the game. And what I mean by that is Michael Jordan stopped playing the game. He stopped having to facilitate. He didn't have to do all those things. He just finished the game. He was, I think the game's greatest finisher because he had no weakness in his game. So I was just, my moment was watching him play 35, 40 minutes. And then come to practice with the same energy. Yeah. And you're like, wait a minute, now this isn't normal. And maybe not much sleep. Rex is being kind with no sleep. Okay. His true gift, Rex, as Rex knows his true gift, which we don't want to say what Rex can put in a kind, he can explain it. I'm just going to say it and let Rex explain it. His true gift was hanging out. If the man would, if he would have slept, we don't know how good he really would have been. We didn't see the best of Michael Jordan because he didn't sleep for 14 years. Okay. Literally. Literally. Okay. I'm not like, this isn't like the little sleep. He literally didn't sleep. I've never seen a guy practice this hard. And that's what we should be showing the kids. Because we're just showing them the games when the lights were on. This guy would, if he, I've never seen someone this competitive and it's always on. I mean, who goes out and you're up 20 and you're still playing the game if the score was tied. But he did that. You ready? When I was in college, you know, I was a big Michael Jordan fan. 33, Stacey King. I had a poster of Michael Jordan on my wall. So when I would go to the game, I would actually rub the poster, you know, one time. Sometimes twice if I wanted to have a really, really good game. And I'd go out and score 30, 40. And so I always attributed touching MJ's poster brought me luck. So then, how ironic I get drafted by the Bulls. So my first game come in, I felt like I didn't need the poster anymore because, you know, I got Michael Jordan next to me now. I remember going out, getting ready to go shoot. He was, um, had his shirt off. He's had his North Carolina shorts on. So he's in the middle of getting dressed, you know, which is kind of awkward if you think about this story I'm going to tell you. I start to walk out and I go, wait, you know what? I used to touch his poster. I think I'm going to touch him. What luck would that be? That'll be really awesome because I get to touch the real guy now and that'll bring me luck. So I walk over to MJ. He's, you know, his shirt's off. He's got his back turned to me. He's in his North Carolina shorts. He's getting dressed. And I walk over and I rub him twice. Now that I look back on it, it's kind of awkward. So he looks at me, he's like, what are you doing? He said, oh man, I used to touch your poster when I was in college, man. He used to bring me luck. He said, man, get away from me, dude. Don't be doing that. I'm like, and then I didn't think it was weird at the time, but then I look back. I said, oh yeah, that might have been a little bit crossing the line. But after that, I didn't have to touch him. He said, don't ever touch me again. I'm on your team. So I'm like, okay, cool. But your mind tells you, you know, it's a mind thing. You got to believe in something. All right. We were in practice going at, we were scrimmaging. And it was a, it was a timeout. And Michael walked over to me and said, the ball went to Stacey King. I'm going to steal it and go down and dunk. I'm like, yeah, okay, all right. So we go back on the court, ball went up down a couple of times. Then I looked at Michael and did like this. Give him the face. The next play, the ball went to Stacey King. He spun middle and it came back baseline. Michael stole it, went down and dunked it and did like this to me. But it was like, he's one of those guys who, who's played the game in his mind several times over and over. It's like he's been there before. And you know, I always say, you know, playing with Michael, it's like he's in a time war that he's just going to play. He's in a time war that he's just come back, time travel, come back and play the game to go back forward. To play some more, to come back, to play some more, show you guys, you know, this is what I know. He knew, he knew every play that was going to happen before it was played. I read something where Michael Jordan kept telling you he's going to get you a read. Yeah. Can you explain that a little bit? Yeah. You know, one of the, one of our drills in warmups of practice with three person shooting drill. Right. I'm thrown in with Michael and Scotty, right? And these two are going at each other every day. And here I am. I become a target every now and then, but I can shoot Steven. So I could hold my own when, when the, when the final tally went down at the end of practice. You know, who made the most of you? Well, but I could hold my own. And Michael had a good sense of his teammate. So that's where I was sitting and not playing. But Michael, he put his arm around you and say, hang in there, man, hang in there. I'm going to get you a ring because I was the only one on that team. I was the only one in that building that was not a part of a championship team. It is a tough situation. You know, the world champions and to be traded. And luckily I got some time early with some injuries and just try to do the best I can. What do you, how do you cope with playing behind Michael Jordan? I love it. It's the greatest job in the world. You know, you come in for him and relieve him a little bit. And he comes in a little three person rotation with Scotty Pippin. And it's worked out well so far. John Paxson gave me the best bit of advice. He said, here's one bit of advice. I'll give you when you're in the game with Michael and he drives the lane and he hits you with that pass and gives you that look. He said, don't miss. I'm like, why is that? He said, you'll never get it back. So, go on and behold, Stephen, the end of the first quarter. I'm in there in the right corner and gives you that look. And thank goodness it went in. Swish and everybody on the bench was happy. Michael was like, yeah, man, way to go. So you're kind of in at that point. Bobby's stepping in and playing well. You know, we were hoping that he can come in and do exactly what he's doing. You know, some hard, tough defense and knock down jump shots whenever he needs to. He's picking up the offense pretty quickly. So he's really been a great addition for us. That was the best advice I ever got on the Triangle offense was when MJ gives you the ball, don't miss. You know, was he a great player on the floor? Yes. Was he this great leader off the court? No. He's not that real image that is being depicted right now. Now, he was not a nice guy. He was that guy that was so motivated every day and everything that we did. If you didn't come to work, you weren't going to have problems with Michael Jordan in a way that he would let you know he's got a problem with you, whether he was going to attack you verbally or he was going to get after you on the court physically. There was no in between. They talk about what a fierce competitor Michael was. And they asked, was he really that hard on players? And yeah, he was because he wanted to win and he was pushing us. But I don't think people that don't play sports, they don't understand that that's kind of the way most locker rooms were. Now, Michael took it to a different level and brought it up. But the key of seeing and the pushing of each other and trying to make each other better and poking fun at each other was going on in every locker room I've been in, going back to high school. But Michael brought it to a different level because he wanted to win and he was making us all feel the pressure and practice so that in the games, it would be easy for us and we would be prepared to go out there. And he was also testing us to find out if we were good enough to be there. There was times where Mike would get pissed off at Luke. He'll say, oh, Luke wasn't this and Luke wasn't that, so I made him this and I made him that. I pushed him, challenged him in certain situations where I felt like, you know, look, you're just, you're not doing what we expect you to do. It was a mindset that I felt like Luke had to learn and I think he did learn. And I'll say, well, you know, it may or may not be true. You don't have to love a bloke to be on his team, to care about him, to play basketball together. I didn't love MJ. I thought MJ was difficult and unnecessarily harsh on his teammates and probably on himself and I think, you know, I just didn't enjoy being around him that much and that was cool. It was cool. The MJ was cool with me. At the end of the day, we found a way to respect each other on the court and to co-exist and that was cool. You know, he wasn't the easiest teammate to play with. In fact, he's probably the hardest teammate I've ever played with. But it was really productive because he was able to raise the level of our competitiveness but also our confidence. Because every practice day almost felt harder than games, you know, because you had to deal with him. Michael was so dominant, not only on the court but in the locker room, you know, and so everybody felt more a sense of we're going to win because we have Michael. So there was a comfort level with his confidence and his dominance, his sort of king of the hill mentality. So you went into every game, like, yeah, he's on our side, but you went into every practice, like, I better not get on his bad side, you know. And so it was an interesting combination. He raised the level of every practice so dramatically. Everything mattered to him. Every shooting drill, like, he was so competitive and so, and we used to scrimmage a lot more back then than we do today. Most practice days we would scrimmage at some point, and those scrimmages were, they were battles. And when I got to the Bulls, that first day of practice, I was like, what do they do this at? A lot of people say, oh, MJ, he's tough on his teammate, he's this. Dude never, ever raised a voice at me. The only thing he did was rain. You're not doing your job today. This dude brought it, man. Like I said, the kids, people saw what they saw on TNT. They didn't see the two hours that he put in in practice, dude. This dude practiced, man, which was surprising to me. I don't care what it was. It can be 0-0, the dude just brought it. Who averages 35 points in the season? Right. This dude, this dude, man, and a lot of kids, they only saw the finished product with the tongue out. They never saw what this dude did in practice. Right. This dude practiced. And he went hard. He lived. He practiced. And if you didn't practice, you're going to hear from him. I want you to tell me this story that you told me about Michael Jordan. When you and Michael Jordan kind of came to, you know, kind of little differences about your opinion about how the game was played when you played with Chicago with Michael Jordan. Yeah, what you want to call the confrontation came about. Fear was alternating players, you know, second team on the first team, first team on the second team. So I started with scrimmaging. We played, like, six games of going to five points. And so after the first two games, fear put me with the second unit where I always played with, you know, my boys. We proceeded to kick their butts like four straight games. And Michael took a fence to it. So I asked him, how did he like that? And he took a fence to it because clearly no one ever ever manned up to it, you know, challenged him. So he said that he was going to say that if I wasn't careful, he was going to kick my ass. And I told him, like, I'm not at all you. I played with some of the bad fellows there walking the court. You know, he looked at me like I had slapped his mother. I love that story. Then you went even further. And I think you talked about when the rookies came over to you and said, man, I can't believe you talked to Michael like that. And without due respect to he and Scottie and Dennis Rodney, you know, you don't know my hanging from the rafters. The guys are just named hanging from the rafters. And I've been missing. I played with some Hall of Fame, Hall of Fame. And I'm going to be all him. I risked my case. You know, I absolutely love that story because people for a while have been talking about, well, Michael Jordan was a bully. You know, Michael was in your face, he challenged his teammates. And as you know, Larry was our leader. But Larry led by example. Michael, he all up in your face talking trash. You know, he might get a short ride, Max, you. What did you do when you wanted to get under Michael's skin? This big Croatian because he didn't understand it. That was the only way. Well, but we all understood that he is so competitive that he's going to bring anything and everything. And I think we accepted that thing. Do you think that Michael Jordan would be as successful without you? No. But I don't think I would be successful without him. I think we both complimented each other in a lot of different ways. And we kind of competed and pushed each other to be great. Michael was the greatest one-on-one player in the game. And if he played in today's era where the game is more open, more spacing. His numbers would just go off the roof. I mean, I played with the guy pretty much his whole career. So I know that the guy goes in the game thinking 50. He was a great scorer, but a lot of things that he did was based on him as an individual. And I think basketball is a team game. He just had that mentality of just bearing you. Michael is the greatest player ever. You know, Michael's been injured one time. He never asked to sit out. He never asked me anything, but only he asked for respect and money. If Michael played in this era, he would have his 50. He had his 50 points. Being 40 years old, playing back-to-backs, he played 82 games. Yeah, 82. But the crazy part about it, he would never sit out of practice. Michael Jordan had 40 practice every single day. Doug Collins had to, you know, try to kick him off the floor. He wouldn't leave. Doug Collins was like, man, no. He wanted to play and practice every single day. He's 40 years old. Still, every day, first one there, always called a breakfast club. You always get his lift in. Yeah, but he wanted to practice every day and play 82 games at 40. When we came to the league, that was a badge of honor to play 82 games. That's a badge of honor. And this man would do it at 40 years old on one leg. Come on, man. Tell my dedication to the game. It don't get no better than that. He's never brought me to tears. Did he upset me a lot? Yeah. I mean, he's a competitor. That's what I think it's a lot of much to do about nothing. So many people want to make up stories of my Michael Jordan that he could have been the greatest guy in the world to me. They still would have made up something. Like, seeing Michael Jordan somewhere, we all idolized everybody. I don't care what you say. Everybody idolized Michael Jordan. For me, Michael Jordan was a killer. It didn't matter. He wanted to come in and kill you. In my mind, as far as just a straight killer, killer mentality is Michael Jordan. I know that last shot that Jordan had in the playoffs when it won the game and you guys lost to them in the finals. It was kind of controversial. A lot of people thought that he pushed off you. And now here you are, his teammate, trying to help him get one more title. Kind of ironic. Nah, kind of pretty good. You know, while I had somebody that worked their hardest against you, against you, why not have them with you? Right. Was he integral in bringing you to the Wizards? Yeah. He was. It was his decision. Kind of controversial. A lot of people thought that he pushed off of them. That was a controversial call from your perspective, but referees called the right call. You know, so, I mean, yeah, it's good to have those guys. I mean, I think, I believe in his skills. You know, and that's what I went for. I didn't go for the sentimental value of him. No, I went for his skills and that's how I viewed it. And let me know what you thought about this video down below in the comments section. What did you think about MJ and some of the comments his teammates had to make about him? If you enjoyed the video, I'd really appreciate it if you guys could hit that like button. Let's aim for 5,000 likes for the next episode. Be sure to hit that subscribe button. And here are two new videos I think you might also enjoy. Take care.