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

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  (#1) Jordan Believes His Infamous 'Flu Game' Was Actually Caused By Poisoned Pizza - But The Pizza Maker Denies This

  One of Jordan's famous performances was when, despite feeling sick, he had 38 points, seven rebounds and five assists in the Bulls' 90-88 win over the Utah Jazz  in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals. It was referred to as the "flu game," but instead of influenza, the cause of the superstar's illness may have been pizza.

  Around 10:30 p.m. on the night prior to Game 5, Jordan was hanging out with his personal assistant George Koehler and his trainer Tim Grover when he arranged for a local Pizza Hut to deliver a pepperoni pizza to be delivered to his hotel room. But that's where the accounts of the night's events start to differ. Tim Grover claimed that five Pizza Hut employees showed up at the hotel room, all trying to get a look at Jordan.  

  “I take the pizza. I pay them. I put this pizza down. I say, 'I've got a bad feeling about this pizza.’” On Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast, the trainer said he was sure the food gave Jordan food poisoning, recounting,  " ... Nobody ate the pizza but him [Jordan]. Nobody. And there were no signs of flu, anything, being sick before that. Then, about 3 o' clock in the morning, I get a call to my room that just says, 'Hey, man, come to MJ's room' and he's literally curled up in the fetal position. ... I've not known any flu that can hit you that fast, but I know how quickly food poisoning can hit you."

  In Episode 9 of The Last Dance documentary, Jordan himself said he believed he had food poisoning, not the flu, and hinted that the pizza may have been deliberately tampered with by someone at Pizza Hut  - the insinuation being that the employees were fans of the hometown Jazz team and hoped that if Jordan got ill, Utah would have a better chance of winning the contest.

  But just days after this episode aired on ESPN, the man who claims to have made the pizza in question denied that the food had been poisoned. Ironically, Craig Fite was a Bulls' fan - the only Bulls' fan who worked at the Pizza Hut at the time. He told The Big Show podcast that when the order was called in, "I remember saying 'I'm doing it, I will make the pizza because I don't want anyone of you doing anything to it.'" 

  Fite told 1280 The Zone in Salt Lake City that he had taken extra precautions in making the pizza to make sure it was safe to eat.  “I'm 100 percent certain it wasn't food poisoning. Or, it sure as heck wasn't that pizza.” He also disputed Grover's account of how many Pizza Hut employees showed up at the hotel room. "The crap story the guy said, that there was five people, there was two of us — and I didn't even have that many people working at the time at the store — but there was two of us," Fite said. He said he asked at the door if he could say hello to Jordan, and that Jordan waved to him from the room.

  So if the pizza wasn't poisoned and Jordan didn't have the flu, how did he get sick? Jason Hehir, the director of The Last Dance, provided an possible explanation when he told ESPN's  Jalen and Jacoby that Jordan had spit on the pizza - a tactic he had used in the past to keep others from eating his food.

  Yet another rumor is that Jordan was simply hung over after having spent the night in Vegas - or at Robert Redford's home.
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  (#2) He Once Got Revenge On A Player For Saying "Good Game, Mike" - Which Didn't Actually Happen

  Michael Jordan is known for holding grudges and for taking things that people might say to or about him as personal slights. And, it turns out, sometimes he has taken offense to things that weren't actually said.

  On March 19, 1993, Washington Bullets' guard LaBradford Smith went off for a career-high 37 points in a road loss to the Chicago Bulls. Following the contest, Smith reportedly told Jordan "good game, Mike." Claiming that he felt Smith was mocking him, Jordan supposedly told people that he would drop 37 points against Smith in the first half of the teams' next meeting. Well, that next meeting turned out the very next night. Jordan didn't quite live up to his boast - he only managed to score 36 points prior to halftime.

  Years later Jordan admitted that Smith never said "good game, Mike" - the superstar had just made up this story to give himself some added motivation because he felt embarrassed that an unheralded player like Smith had torched the Bulls.
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  (#3) Jordan Allegedly Bet $20k On A Game Of Rock, Paper, Scissors

  Jay Williams, who had a career-ending motorcycle accident following his rookie season (2002-03) with the Bulls, spoke about the economics of being a young NBA star and the culture of gambling in an appearance on the Brilliant Idiots podcast in 2015.  Among other things, Williams talked about teammates who went up against Jordan when making bets:

  "I used to have dudes on our team who were messing around with MJ. And MJ was like, ‘Bet it back, bet this back.' And I’m like, ‘Why are you f***ing with the big bank? Why are you f***ing with Brand Jordan? He can't lose. Last year he made $150 million, how are you messing with him?'"

  Williams called this type of gambling part of the experience of being an NBA player: "Think about gambling to the next degree. Rock, paper, scissors you bet $20,000 all day long. Why wouldn’t you? You get bored."  He added that if another player found himself in the hole by $100,000, Jordan might say something like:

  "'Yo bet it back -- rock, paper, scissors for $100,000.'"
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  (#4) Jordan And NBA Commissioner David Stern Deny MJ's First Retirement Was A Secret Suspension

  It's no longer a secret that Michael Jordan loves to gamble. But it wasn't until 1992, when Jordan was called to testify in the criminal trial of James Bouler to explain why the convicted drug dealer was in possession of a Jordan-signed personal check for $57,000 that his penchant for gambling really became public knowledge. The basketball star initially claimed that the money was a business loan, but under oath admitted it was actually payment for a gambling debt incurred over a single weekend.  A few months later, Richard Equinas published his book Michael and Me: Our Gambling Addiction...My Cry for Help; one of his claims in the book was that he had won around $1.25 million from Jordan by betting on golf. Around the time of the book's publication, the New York Times reported that Jordan had been spotted at the Bally's Grand Casino in Atlantic City on the day prior to Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, and that although he'd checked out just after 11 p.m., had been spotted in the casino as late as 2:30 a.m.

  After the Bulls won their third straight NBA title that summer, the NBA launched an investigation to see if Jordan may have violated any league rules with his gambling. On October 9, NBA commissioner David Stern announced that the investigation had ended and that there was "absolutely no evidence Jordan violated league rules." Stern also claimed that there was no connection between the investigation and Jordan's decision to retire from the NBA, which had been announced on October 6.

  But Stern's statement didn't end the speculation that Jordan's retirement announcement was a cover for the fact that he had actually been suspended from the NBA. Speculation that was fueled when Jordan's reply to a question about if he would ever return to the NBA was, "Five years down the road, if the urge comes back, if the Bulls will have me, if David Stern lets me back in the league, I may come back." 

  In Episode 6 of The Last Dance documentary that aired on ESPN in 2020, Jordan reiterated that his first retirement from the NBA was due mainly to a combination of his exhaustion and lack of interest of continuing to play basketball and his grief over his father's murder. Stern (who died in January 2020) also appears in the documentary and again denied that he had suspended the basketball star. 

  "Ridiculous," Stern said. "I could bang on the table, say ... it's a slanderous lie, but whatever, it's just not true. Never was and never will be no matter how many times people ask the question."
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  (#5) Jordan Was Notoriously Mean To Certain Teammates, But Claims That Was Purely To Help 'Toughen' Them Up

  One reason Jordan feared viewers of The Last Dance would think he's "a horrible guy" is because of how he treated Scott Burrell. Prior to the April 2020 premiere of the documentary he told The Athletic, "The reason why I was treating him like that is because I needed him to be tough in the playoffs and we're facing the Indianas and Miamis and New Yorks in the Eastern Conference. He needed to be tough and I needed to know that I could count on him."

  When Burrell went on ESPN's Get Up in May 2020, he stated, "People consider it bullying what Michael did. I think it was just challenging people to be the best person they can be." But he admitted that he didn't think Jordan's tactics would work in the current NBA.

  Burrell wasn't the only teammate who Jordan claimed he singled out in an attempt to motivate the other player to prove to Jordan that the superstar would be able to count on him in a big moment. Jordan and Steve Kerr got into a fight in practice that resulted in Jordan giving Kerr a black eye after Kerr hit him in the chest. Currently the head coach of the Golden State Warriors but back then a reserve sharp-shooting guard for the Bulls, Kerr told NBA on TNT that the 1995 training camp incident improved the relationship between himself and Jordan. “I feel like I passed the test and he trusted me more afterwards.”

  Jordan also believed the incident with Kerr was beneficial. He is quoted in Phil Jackson's book Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success as saying, "It made me look at myself, and say, ‘You know what? You’re really being an idiot about this whole process [of trusting his teammates].'" 

  According to Robert Parish, he was another Jordan target. The future Hall of Fame center joined the Bulls for his final season in the NBA. When Parish messed up a drill during training camp allegedly warned him not to get it wrong again. “I told him, ‘I’m not as enamored with you as these other guys. I’ve got some rings too,’” Parish recalled to Essentially Sports. “At that point he told me, ‘I’m going to kick your a**.’ I took one step closer and said, ‘No, you really aren’t.’ After that he didn’t bother me.”
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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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  (#7) There Was Rampant Speculation About The Motives Behind His Father's Murder

  Michael Jordan's father, James, was last seen alive on July 22, 1993. Twenty-one days later, his family told the police that he was missing. One day after making the report, a John Doe who had been found in a swamp in McColl, SC more than a week earlier was identified as being the basketball star's missing father. Two teenagers, Daniel Green and Larry Demery, were eventually convicted, receiving sentences of life in prison. The generally accepted motive for the crime is a robbery gone bad - the elder Jordan had pulled his Lexus off the highway to take a nap and had been shot after waking up to find the two teens attempting to steal the car.

  But in his failed 2018 attempt to receive a new trial, Green disputed many of the claims made in the prosecution's version of events, a version that had been built mainly on Demery's claims, as Green never even took the stand during his trial. Twenty years prior to this attempt to be given a new trial Green refuted his co-defendant's claim that Green had been the one to shoot Jordan.

  "I did not kill Mr. Jordan, no sir," Green told WRAL-TV in 1998. "...that's cut and dry. It's not like I was even there..." Green identified Demery as the actual shooter but went on to say that he felt that both of them were "pawns in a game."

  Although Green didn't elaborate on what kind of game he and Demery may have been part of, his comment suggested that the motive was not as simple as robbery. Which was in line with the media speculation that was prevalent in the immediate aftermath of the incident. Some reporters rushed to suggest that the whole thing was somehow connected to Michael Jordan's well-known gambling habit. The FBI's refusal to rule out any motive for the elder Jordan's murder helped to boost this speculation, as did Jesse Jackson when he called  the murder "a highly calculated gangland-type killing."

  Mark Whicker, who was then a sports columnist with the Orange County (CA) Register, wrote: "For now, we just know that there is evidence of the son's gambling problem, and there is suspicion of a son's paying [off his gambling debts] problem. The father of that son has been murdered. Coincidence, anyone?" 

  The speculation continued even after Demery and Green were arrested. In an August 15, 1993 column in the San Francisco Chronicle, Scott Ostler wrote: "All of us who were cooking up murky theories in the death of Michael Jordan's father have to feel pretty crummy today for having turned the murder into a parlor game, I refuse to feel chagrined for having played 'Who Murdered James Jordan.'" Ostler gave three reasons for his lack of remorse: (1) the teenagers were only suspects; (2) Michael Jordan himself had been carrying on a campaign to cast shadows over his reputation with his links to gambling and crime; and (3) the basketball star was too famous for reporters to just focus on the basketball while ignoring the off-the-court stuff.
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  (#8) The Oakland A's Offered Jordan A Major League Contract In 1994, But He Wanted To Earn His Spot

  According to former Oakland A's GM Sandy Alderson, Jordan could have skipped playing minor league baseball and gone straight to the majors. In a May 2020 Baseball Tonight podcast, Alderson admitted he offered Jordan a major league contract when he heard the White Sox were going to send Jordan to the minors.

  "When I heard that was happening, or about to happen, I called his agent right away and said, 'Hey look, I understand he may be going to Double-A. I don't even know who the 25th man is on our major league team right now, I will sign him and put him on the major league roster," Alderson told Buster Olney. "He'll be part of our 25-man team. Tomorrow.'

  The former GM admitted that the reasoning for his offer was to spur more interest in the A's, who had been 21st in attendance the previous season. According to David Falk, who was Jordan's agent at the time, Jordan turned down the A's offer because he wanted to earn his spot, not just be a gimmick. “I was excited about [the offer], and Michael was very appreciative,” Falk told MLB.com. “But he wanted to do the baseball thing from the ground up. He didn’t feel he deserved a spot on the Major League roster and didn’t feel he was ready. He didn’t want to be a Herb Washington type who would just steal bases and be a part-time outfielder.”

  Loyalty to Jerry Reinsdorf, who owned both the Bulls and the White Sox, also played a role in Jordan's decision. “Michael’s an amazingly loyal guy,” Falk said. “If not for his relationship with the White Sox, [the A’s offer] might have been something he might have done.”
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  (#9) Jordan Claims His "Republicans Buy Sneakers, Too" Comment Was A Joke Taken Out Of Context

  Jordan has been reluctant to speak out on social issues or endorse political candidates since he became a public figure, perhaps as part of his effort to sell as many Air Jordans as possible. When asked why he wouldn't endorse Black Democratic candidate Harvey Gantt in a 1990 North Carolina Senate race against Republican Jesse Helms, Jordan quipped, "Republicans buy sneakers, too."

  In Episode 5 of the 2020 documentary The Last Dance, Jordan explained that he had made the joking comment to Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant on the Bulls' team bus.  "It was thrown off the cuff. My mother asked to do a PSA for Harvey Gantt, and I said, 'Look, Mom, I'm not speaking out of pocket about someone that I don't know. But I will send a contribution to support him.' Which is what I did." He added, "I do commend Muhammad Ali for standing up for what he believed in. But I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player."

  Gantt lost the election to Helms by just over 100,000 votes. In May 2020, Gantt told Time magazine that he didn't begrudge Jordan's decision not to endorse him.  “He was trying to build a brand,” says Gantt. “And I suppose he wasn’t as reflective on the implications of what people were asking him to do.” While Gantt would have welcomed Jordan’s support, he holds no grudges. “My supporters were very strong, very fervent people,” he says. “You had to want to be in this campaign. We had folks from all over the country. And I would feel terrible if he felt obligated to have done something that he didn’t want to do. So no harm, no foul.”

  In an exception to his usual neutral political stance, Jordan penned an eloquent, lengthy letter in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2016. It begins:

  As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a Black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers. I grieve with the families who have lost loved ones, as I know their pain all too well.
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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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  (#11) Jordan Accused Teammate Horace Grant Of Being A Snitch

  In The Last Dance documentary, Jordan accused Horace Grant of being a snitch, spilling the Bulls' locker room secrets to reporter Sam Smith, allegedly giving Smith much of the material for his 1992 book The Jordan Rules. "I didn't contribute to that," Jordan said. "That was Horace. He was telling everything that was happening within the group."

  Grant has always denied being Smith's source, but in the days after the final episode of the 10-part documentary aired on ESPN in May 2020, he doubled down on his denial, telling ESPN Chicago "That is a downright, outright, completely lie. Lie, lie, lie. And as I stated, if M.J. had a grudge with me, let's settle it like men. Let's talk about it, or we can settle it another way. Yet and still, he puts out this lie out that I was the source behind it. Sam and I have always been great friends, we're still great friends. But the sanctity of that locker room, I would never put anything personal out there."

  Grant went on to say that Jordan himself was a 'snitch' for talking about what went on during his first years as a Bull. "My point is, he says I was the snitch, but still after 35 years he brings up his rookie year, going into one of his teammates rooms and seeing coke and weed and women. My point is, why did he want to bring that up? What does that got to do with anything? If you want to call somebody a snitch, that's a damn snitch right there."
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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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#15) Jordan Gave A Young Tiger Woods Advice On How To Approach Women

  Jordan and Tiger Woods have been friends since the latter was a teenager. Woods was still a decade away from the cheating scandal that destroyed his marriage when he went up to Jordan and baseball star Derek Jeter at a New York City nightclub one night in 1996 to ask them how he could approach women as smoothly as they did. Their advice? "Just go tell them you're Tiger Woods."

  There are stories that a family friend of Tiger's parents had warned them to keep him away from the basketball legend, but that he ignored the warning. Given Jordan's own cheating scandals, in retrospect it can be said that, at least when it comes to giving advice on women, Jordan might not have been the best person to give advice to Woods.

  When Jordan and his first wife Juanita Vanoy divorced in 2006, she was awarded a staggering $168 million in the settlement. He allegedly paid Karla Knafel $250,000 to keep their relationship a secret but in 2006 she hit him with a paternity suit, though she lost the suit when a DNA test showed that he wasn't the father of her child. In 2013, another alleged former lover, Pamela Smith sued Jordan, claiming she'd had an affair with the married basketball star in 1995 and that he was the father of her son Taj, who had been born the following year. Smith's suit ended up getting dismissed - the judge called it a big publicity stunt, pointing out that paternity of the boy had been determined years earlier (Jordan was not the father). The judge even ordered her to pay Jordan's legal fees.
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  (#16) Jordan Reportedly Drank A Lot Of Beer After Games

  Roland Lazenby's book Blood on the Horns: The Long Strange Ride of Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls is currently out of print. In it the author wrote that the rumors about Jordan's drinking after games were true. But he also stated that this wasn't unusual behavior in the NBA.

  "In the first half hour after a game, Jordan and various teammates would pound down five or six beers and often fire up a cigar," the book reads. "It’s not unusual for pro basketball players to drink beer after games. They’ve been doing it for decades. It helped them replace the body fluids they’ve sweated away."

  Sam Smith, the longtime Bulls' reporter and author of The Jordan Rules agreed with Lazenby, telling First We Feast "It was fairly common back then for beer to be in locker rooms and players to have a can or two in the hour or so they’d linger after. Maybe take a few with them to drink later. No one much hurried to leave [the locker room]."

  Of course, since Toni Kukoc apparently drank wine before games and Ron Artest admitted in an interview with the Sporting News that he used to drink Hennessy during halftime of games, it's no wonder that drinking after games wasn't seen as unusual, let alone scandalous.
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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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  (#18) Muggsy Bogues Claimed That One Taunt From Jordan Messed Up His Shot Forever

  Listed at 5'3", Muggsy Bogues is the shortest person to ever play in the NBA. He had a 14-year career, primarily with the Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets and Bulls met in the first round of the 1995 playoffs. Near the end one of those games, Jordan was defending Bogues, who had the ball in his hands with Charlotte down by one point. According to former Bulls' assistant coach Johnny Bach, Jordan backed off Bogues and told him:

  "Shoot it, you f***ing midget."

  Bogues' shot didn't come close to going in. A year later, Bogues reportedly told Bach that he thought that single play ruined his career. Which might be a bit of an exaggeration, considering he played five more seasons in the NBA.

   
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  (#19) Jordan Taunted Dikembe Mutombo By Hitting A Free Throw With His Eyes Closed

  Dikembe Mutombo is best remembered a great shot blocker, and for the finger wag that he liked to break out after stopping an opponent from scoring on him. According to Mutombo, it took Jordan seven years before he was successful in dunking on the big man. But the Bulls' star was able to get to him in other ways. Early in the center's rookie season, Jordan dropped 37 points in a game against Mutombo's Denver Nuggets. The last of those points came on a free throw that Jordan took with his eyes shut, telling Mutombo that although he hadn't dunked on him, "I'm giving you this."
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  (#20) Jordan And Scottie Pippen Had A Birthday Dance-Off

  Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen might have had a dance off to a Trey Songz and Fabolous song at Pippen's 47th birthday bash in 2012. According to the New York Post: 

  "Michael Jordan surprised his former teammate Scottie Pippen for Pippen’s 47th birthday party Monday night. Pippen’s wife, Larsa, planned the secret bash at Chicago hot spot Sunda. Sources told us the fun night ended with a dance-off between Jordan and Pippen to the Trey Songz and Fabolous song,  'Say Ahh.'"

  While there doesn't appear to be any video evidence of this, we do have video of Jordan and Pippen, along with a few other Bulls, dancing to Kool Moe Dee's "How You Like Me Now." The video was shown during halftime of a Bulls-Knicks game in April 1988 and popped up again years later during an Oprah Winfrey interview with Jordan.
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  (#21) Brooks Koepka's Attempt At Trash Talking Jordan Ended Up Backfiring On Him

  Brooks Koepka is a four-time major champion, but the golfer might want to refrain from any trash talk when playing Jordan. Koepka revealed on ESPN's SportsCenter that the second time the two ever played, Koepka was leading by one stroke when he decided to engage in a little friendly trash talk on the way to the 17th tee. Bad idea:

  " I just said something like ‘I’ve got you right where I want you,’ and he just tees the ball up, he takes his practice swing," Koepka explained. "He looks at me and goes ‘it’s fourth quarter baby, I don’t lose’"

  Sure enough, Jordan won the final two holes - and the match. Koepka said that was the last time he tried trash talking Jordan.

   

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