Random Wild Stories And Rumors About Michael Jordan (21 items)

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  (#6) Terry Francona Believes Jordan Could Have Made The Majors If He'd Committed To Baseball For A Few Years

  When Jordan called a press conference on February 7, 1994 to announce he had was going to play spring training baseball with the Chicago White Sox, people jumped to conclusions: he was doing this to honor his late father, who loved baseball and thought his son could be a two-sport star; he was doing it as a way to pass the time while serving out his (never confirmed) NBA suspension for gambling; or he was doing it as a marketing ploy for his brand. Some reporters made fun of his decision, put down his attempts to prove he could be a baseball player. But Jordan ended up proving to at least one expert that he wasn't over his head.

  Terry Francona has had a highly successful career as a baseball manager - he led the Boston Red Sox to two World Series titles and is currently the manager of the Cleveland Indians. But in 1994, he was the manager of Michael Jordan when the basketball superstar played for the Birmingham Barons, the Chicago White Sox's Double A team. At age 31, Jordan hit just .202 with three home runs and struck out 114 times in 497 plate appearances in his lone season for the Barons, although he did steal 30 bases. But having seen Jordan's baseball ability closeup, he believes the basketball superstar could have made it to the majors as a baseball player. 

  "If he had been willing to commit three years, I think he would have found his way to the major leagues, I really believe that," Francona said on ESPN's SportsCenter program in 2020. "One, because of some of the tools he had, but the other one and maybe more important, and I found out firsthand, when you tell Michael 'no,' he finds a way to make the answer be 'yes.' And it doesn't matter what you're doing, he's really good at that."
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  (#10) Jordan Keeps A Running "List" Of Everyone Who's Ever Wronged Him

  Jordan had a habit of using any perceived slight against him - real or imagined - as extra motivation. When the Bulls met the Utah Jazz for the first of two times in the NBA Finals in 1997, he had (at least) two things to use as extra motivation - Karl Malone being named the league MVP that season, and a chat with Bryon Russell (when Jordan was still playing baseball) in which Russell claimed he could guard him. "From that point on, he's been on my list," Jordan admitted in The Last Dance documentary.

  When Jordan unretired and returned to the Bulls in 1995, he briefly wore number 45 instead of 23. In Game 1 of the Bulls' playoff series against the Orlando Magic, Nick Anderson reportedly said "45 isn't 23" after sealing the win for Orlando by stealing the ball from Jordan. The next game, Jordan was back to wearing number 23 and led the Bulls to a victory to tie the series. By 1993, Jordan had little use for Bulls' GM Jerry Krause. He knew that Krause was a fan of Dan Majerle, especially his defense. Which was enough to make Jordan constantly attack Majerle's defense when the Bulls and Suns met in the NBA Finals that season. In 1996, the Bulls faced the Seattle SuperSonics in the NBA Finals. When George Karl deliberately refused to talk to Jordan when he saw him at a restaurant prior to Game 1, the basketball star took it as a personal snub.

  Even future and former teammates weren't immune from the wrath of Jordan. In the 1992 Olympics, both Jordan and Scottie Pippen deliberately targeted Croatia's Toni Kukoc, who was a huge star in Europe and who had been drafted by the Bulls in 1990 and was known to be a favorite of Jerry Krause's. B.J. Armstrong, meanwhile, had been a key member of the Bulls' first three title teams, but in 1998 was playing for the Charlotte Hornets. The two teams met in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, and in Game 2 Armstrong hit a big shot over Jordan that sealed the win for Charlotte and tied the series at 1-1. “I hit that shot, and I remember, I let Michael know. I let Phil Jackson know, I let Scottie know, I let everybody that I knew over there know,” Armstrong said in The Last Dance documentary. Big mistake - and he knew it.

  “If you’re going to high-five, talk trash, now I had a bone to pick with you. I’m supposed to kill this guy, you know, I’m supposed to dominate this guy," Jordan explained in The Last Dance. “And from that point I did.”
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  (#13) Jordan And Charles Barkley Are No Longer Friends Because Sir Charles Talked Smack About How MJ Ran The Bobcats

  Although Jordan and Charles Barkley were fierce rivals on the court, for years they were close friends and gambling buddies off of it. But the friendship fell apart in 2012 after Barkley criticized Jordan's success as a part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats (and his earlier tenure as the president of the Washington Wizards).

  "I think the biggest problem has been I don't know if he has hired enough people around him who he will listen to," Barkley told The Waddle & Silvy Show. "One thing about being famous is the people around you, you pay all their bills so they very rarely disagree with you because they want you to pick up the check. They want to fly around on your private jet so they never disagree with you. I don't think Michael has hired enough people around him who will disagree."

  Eight years later, in the wake of The Last Dance documentary airing on ESPN, Barkley was back on the same radio show discussing the broken friendship. He said that, until the falling out, he thought his willingness to be honest with Jordan was one of the reasons why they had been great friends. “‘I [MJ] can ask Charles anything and I know he’s going to give me a straight answer,’ but… I can’t go on TV and say another general manager sucks and then just because Michael is like a brother to me say he’s doing a fantastic job. That would be disingenuous.”

  The TNT analyst admitted the rift between the two men  “[is] Really, really sad because the guy was like a brother to me for 20-something years, at least 20-something years,” Barkley said. “I feel sadness, but like I said, to me he’s still the greatest basketball player ever. I wish him nothing but the best, but hey, there’s nothing I can do about it.” He went on to say that if the friendship could be repaired it would have to be on Jordan's terms and joked that Jordan had his phone number and could call him whenever he liked.
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  (#12) Jordan Hates Isiah Thomas, But Claims He Didn't Keep Thomas Off The Olympic 'Dream Team'

  It's no secret that there is a long-running feud between Jordan and Isiah Thomas. In The Last Dance documentary, Jordan openly admitted that he hates the Hall of Fame guard, even as he called him the second best point guard in NBA history. The documentary has reignited the feud and caused the question of whether Jordan was responsible for Thomas being left off the 1992 U.S. Olympic men's basketball team (the "Dream Team").

  It's not clear what started the feud. Some point to a theory that Thomas conspired to freeze the rookie Jordan out in the 1985 All-Star Game - an allegation that Thomas has denied. Others suggest that Thomas - a native of Chicago - was jealous that Jordan had come along and become a superstar in that city. Then there's the fact that Thomas and his Detroit Pistons' teammates were the roadblock standing in Jordan's path to the NBA Finals - Detroit defeated the Bulls in three straight playoff meetings between 1987-88 and 1989-90, going on to win the NBA championship in the latter two seasons.

  When Chicago finally broke through and swept Detroit in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons left the floor before the final buzzer sounded, refusing to congratulate the victors. Jordan was among the Bulls' players who considered that a classless act, and he still holds that event against Thomas, “There’s no way,” Jordan said, “you can convince me he wasn’t an a–hole.”

  In The Last Dance, Jordan denied that had any influence in the decision to leave Thomas off the "Dream Team" roster. “You want to attribute it to me, go ahead and be my guest. But it wasn’t me.” And Jordan wasn't the only other NBA star who allegedly didn't particularly want the Pistons' guard on the team. But Jordan's denial contradicts a quote in Jack McCallum's book Dream Team in which the Bulls' superstar allegedly told Rod Thorn [who was responsible for assembling the roster], "Rod, I don't want to play if Isiah is on the tea.,"
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  (#17) Jordan Supposedly Gambled On His Baggage At The Airport

  In an article for ESPN The Magazine, Bill Simmons recounted a story about how the Bulls were waiting around for their luggage in the Portland, OR airport one night when Jordan slapped a hundred dollar bill on the conveyor belt, betting his teammates that his luggage would come out first. According to the story, nine of the Bulls took Jordan up on this bet, only to see him gleefully collect their money when his bags were the first to arrive. What he probably didn't tell him is that he had bribed a baggage handler to help make sure he would win the bet.
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  (#14) Jordan Bet Jeremy Roenick He'd Score 40+ Pts And Beat The Cavs By 20 Pts After Playing 36 Holes of Golf And Slamming 10 Beers Earlier That Day

  In November 2019, former NHL star Jeremy Roenick went on radio station 670 The Score and told a story about playing golf with Jordan just hours before the Bulls took on the Cleveland Cavaliers in a late-season contest. After playing 18 holes Jordan suggested that they play another round. According to Roenick, they filled up a bag with beer and ice and played another 18 holes, with the NHL star winning both rounds - and thousands of dollars from the basketball star:

  "We'd been drinking all afternoon. Now he's going from Sunset Ridge to the stadium to play a game," Roenick told the radio station. "And I'm messing around, I'm like 'I'm going to call my bookie, all the money you just lost to me I'm putting on Cleveland tonight.' He goes, 'I'll tell you what, I'll bet you that we win by 20 points and I have more than 40.' I'm like 'done.'" Roenick continued, "Son of a gun goes out, scores 52 and they win by 26 or something… after [36] holes of golf and having maybe 10 Bud Lights. ..."

  Roenick's story has some inconsistencies - at one point he said they had been drinking Coors Lights, not Bud Lights. And while Jordan had multiple career 50+ point performances versus the Cavaliers in his career, none of them came in games won by the Bulls by 20+ points. Roenick thought this event happened in either 1992 or 1993, so by process of elimination, it is likely he was talking about the March 28, 1992 contest between the Bulls and Cavaliers - Jordan had 44 points in Chicago's 24-point victory that night.

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