Michael Jordan's emotional breakdown in The Last Dance reveals a leader driven by grudges and a militaristic style that alienated teammates like Tony Kukoc, contrasting sharply with Steve Kerr's democratic approach. While rejecting conspiracy theories about his father's shooting, the hosts debate whether Phil Jackson needed an "alpha" enforcer to succeed, noting Jordan's unmatched ability to tap into 95% of his potential despite physical tolls from smoking and drinking. Ultimately, the discussion suggests Jordan's godlike status stems from unique psychological traits rather than replicable athletic skills, challenging modern stars like Joel Embiid to match his intensity. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Why Jordan Cried00:14:56
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to the episode seven and eight.
Seven and eight.
Seven and eight review of The Last Dance.
My favorite episodes of the series so far.
Why did Jordan cry when he was explaining what he had to do to win and whether or not he would be remembered as a nice guy by his teammates?
I've thought about this.
I think there's something like you motherfuckers, you motherfuckers don't get it.
Like you sit here and you fucking judge me.
And essentially, it's like he doesn't even get to enjoy all the shit that he did.
Like him being the greatest was for everybody else.
For him, it's just blood, sweat, tears, sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, hard work, hard work, hard work.
And now I'm 50 and I'm 60 and I'm super competitive and I have nowhere to put this.
I did this for you and you sit there and fucking judge me.
Like who worked harder than Jordan?
Does he feel judged?
Do you think that's where it comes from?
I think he feels underappreciated.
I think he feels judged.
I think he feels like people tell me I'm so competitive and I'm an asshole teammate and this and that.
Y'all don't, y'all don't know what the fuck it takes to be this.
Yeah.
It's, I don't know.
I couldn't fully figure it out because it caught me.
I said, were you surprised when he started crying?
I was like, where did that come from?
So just to clarify for everybody's listening, there's a moment in the documentary.
I think I forget which episode it was.
End of episode seven.
We treat both of the episodes like they're the same one.
It's one episode.
And it's the end of episode seven.
And I think the interviewer asks him, like, how do you feel about the perception that you might not be a nice guy?
Yeah.
Right.
And he goes, yeah, maybe I'm a tyrant, you know, or maybe I'll be looked at as a tyrant, et cetera, and people call me all these names, but you've never won anything in your life.
People who say that you've never won anything.
Yes, you don't know what it takes, which is a bar.
But he's, for me, he's starting to get a little defensive here.
Right.
I've rarely seen Jordan explain himself, but you're starting to see him explain himself in his documentary.
You rarely see greats explain themselves.
And then he starts to go into this feeling of like what he had to do in order to win.
And he goes, listen, I wanted to win.
Don't get me wrong, but I also wanted them to have that as well.
I don't know if I believe that.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe it either.
So he wanted to win.
He knew what it took for him to win.
And he felt this was the only way to win.
And this is how he was going to get the most out of the guys with him.
And if they couldn't handle it, get the fuck out of there.
And then he says that line where he goes, this is how I play the game.
And if you want to play, you can get out of here.
Let me take a break.
And he starts crying.
I think you're starting to see the effects of life and old age, right?
On the effects of mortality.
I think Jordan at one point in time was immortal.
And I think that he had this godlike presence, right?
And what happens is when you see that people no longer view you in the same godlike way, you start to be accountable for your action.
Interesting.
Right?
Like when you really think about Jordan, like he's cursing all these people that he just made 100% more times their salary for them.
Yeah.
Right.
Judd Bushler is not getting paid what he got paid prior to Michael Jordan being the league, along with everybody else.
NBA player today makes more because of Michael Jordan 25 years old.
100%.
So he knows what he's offering an organization.
He knows what he's offering all these players.
So he's demanding the most out of them.
He sees that as the only pathway to victory, and that's fair.
Right.
And I want to get into another conversation about are there other pathways to victory?
But I really think you're starting to see like when he walked around before, this was literally God.
And I think now Jordan can walk around a bit.
I think now Jordan can go to the country club.
I think he can go.
Maybe he's not going to malls, but I don't know if kids are looking at Jordan the same way we do.
You know what's crazy?
Because I had this thought and I just had it and didn't think anything of it.
Yeah.
I thought about meeting someone, someone had like a picture of Michael Jordan on his cell phone 15 years ago or something.
I was like, how the fuck were you even around him?
And yesterday I was like, you know what?
I would be awestruck for sure if I saw Michael Jordan.
But it wouldn't be the same level of, I don't know how to function as a human being at all right now.
He was a Beatle.
Yeah.
He was a beetle to people.
He was all the Beatles.
He was all the Beatles.
He was, yeah, the most recognizable person in the world at one point in time.
And there's no doubt that he's recognizable now, but maybe he's starting to feel the effects of that mortality.
And I think when you realize you're mortal, you realize what life is, you start going, oh, shit.
Did I hurt people?
When you're caught up in the game.
Right.
And I felt this even playing sports myself.
Like you get caught up in the game.
You don't care if what you say to someone you're playing with hurts their feelings.
You don't care about any of these things.
And then after the game, you're like, fuck, I should call somebody.
That's Jordan times a million.
And I feel like now as he's watching the way people spoke to him, spoke about him, as he's watching like what happened to people in their lives.
And as he's seeing people actually as human beings, as he's kind of eliminated some of that competitive drive, because that's just what happens when you get older, I think he's starting to go, whoa, I might have fucking hurt people.
And I think he's trying to justify it to himself.
I think he's trying to go, this was the only way to win, and this is how you had to do it.
You know, the way I took it, Jordan appears to be very sensitive.
And sometimes he uses like what people say about him as motivation for whatever to win.
But when he doesn't have the game or an outlet or a place to battle it.
That's a good point.
He doesn't know how to handle it.
So like when they were accusing him of having something to do with his dad getting killed, like he couldn't channel that into winning a game to make him feel better.
So I think that was a big part of the reason why he stepped away from the game.
Right.
And so I think with this, it's almost like he doesn't realize the way he navigates life or the way he motivates himself is unlike anybody else.
Like he thinks this is duh, this is normal.
If you want to win, if you want to be a champion, this is the way you go about life.
And then now to hear everybody, and he has to, he's been hearing this for years.
Oh, Jordan was rough.
He was asshole and shit like that.
So imagine you're hearing this over and over and over.
There's nothing you can possibly do to change that perception.
And in his head, he was like, nah, but I just wanted to win.
Like, why is everybody else not thinking the way I think?
And I think that's just frustrating for him.
And that's probably why he cried.
That's what I.
So something like, if I win, everybody will be silenced.
I don't have to be sensitive anymore because nobody will hurt me because I won all the time.
You can't question me winning.
But now I won all the time and you still found a way to criticize me.
And I'm still sensitive to the criticism.
And I can't just go out and beat you like I normally did because there's no way to criticize after I retired, he was a bad teammate.
I can't go back in time and be a better teammate.
We wouldn't have won probably.
Yeah, I think what you realize is like when you start to achieve certain things that you really want and you assume that like certain things will come with that.
Like let's say you're like, oh, if I get famous, then all these people are going to like me.
Right.
And then you start to realize like, oh, no, like my friends like me based on how I treat them.
Right.
And like the similarities we have and the love that they feel for me and the love they have.
Like that's how friendship works.
It doesn't really matter if you win a championship ring and all these other things.
And I think like once you remove yourself from competition, you start to realize like what the important things in life are.
Yeah.
You know, and then maybe he, a little part of him is like, fuck, like I had a lot of relationships that I torched to get these rings.
And it was great.
And I think I'm the best and all that kind of stuff.
But man, it'd be cool to have some friends.
Yep.
It'd be cool to call these motherfuckers.
I don't know if he's gotten to the point where he realizes all of it outwardly though, because he hasn't done the Kobe thing post-retirement where he channels everything into being a better person, being a better father, being whatever.
I think he realizes it.
Think he's trying to fight it.
Okay.
He hasn't had the, he hasn't come to grips with the truth.
Yeah, that's the emotional break.
Yeah.
The emotional break is he's still convincing himself he did the right thing.
It's like, uh, it's like maybe like, this is crazy to compare it to, but like, you know, maybe like a soldier that had to do some foul shit to survive in Vietnam.
But he's like, that's what it took.
And we needed to win.
And I needed to get my men home.
So I had to blow up that hut.
But who was in the hut?
It didn't matter who was in the hut.
I need to do what it took.
You know what I'm saying?
And I think he views his life in that way.
And now as he reflects on it, he's like the soldier going, there might have been some fucking kids in that hut, but I had to do what I had to do to save my platoon.
But I don't want to fucking kill.
I don't think he ever had to worry that because winning cures all.
Right.
Right?
Like, there's this thing about winning, man, where if you win, you are forgiven for whatever the fuck you had to do.
We, to this day, all of his teammates who hate him, there's really nobody on his team that likes him.
They respect him.
They don't like him.
Here's what I noticed.
This is actually.
But just to finish the point, so it's like, they don't like him, but they respect him.
Yeah.
But they don't like him.
Yeah.
Right?
And I feel like because he won, you get that respect, but they don't like the difference between winning and losing is Michael Jordan and Chris Paul.
Chris Paul is Michael Jordan if he never won.
Right.
Nobody likes Chris Paul.
Right.
And few people respect him.
Yeah.
They're like, yeah, he's good, but he's not good enough to win.
He's definitely not good enough to talk to me like that.
Definitely not good enough to curse me out.
You know what I mean?
Nobody would have spoken like that to Jordan because they know.
I must forgive you for this because we are here again.
Right.
Yeah.
What were you saying?
To your point about him, nobody really likes him.
I do think like BJ Armstrong was on the sports center after, and he seemed to like he still liked Jordan overall.
Like he still likes him.
But you're watching this thing.
Do you remember what it said for Jordan's personal assistant?
The description of his personal assistant.
Slash best friend.
Your best friend is your personal assistant.
Like something about that seems so fucking warped to me.
Yep.
This is the guy that I have go get me cigars and scotch.
And that's my best friend.
He like he's just my fucking lackey who's also my best friend.
Yeah.
How many friends do you have?
I mean, he's the guy who's paying to hang out with you is your best friend.
He replaced his dad with another dad.
Yeah.
But he's like, now you have to be with me all the time.
And the guy was like, okay.
And that guy probably has kids.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
But like he was, he was inserting these people into different roles in his life that he needed filled.
Yeah.
And it's a brilliant thing to do because he had that singular focus.
I mean, it was genius.
The guy's a genius.
But he is maniacal in his approach to the game.
And it's just, I guess it's a good time to have this conversation, which is like, is there another way to win?
If you compare Jordan and his teams to the Warriors.
Yeah.
And I wish they fucking asked Steve Kerr about this.
And I'm so pissed off they didn't.
Like, Steve Kerr, was everybody at the Warriors practice terrified?
It seems like the Warriors are having like fun pickup basketball game.
They're having a time of their lives.
They're enjoying the game.
Nobody on the Bulls enjoyed playing on the Bulls.
Tony Kukoch is visibly upset talking about his time with the Bulls.
He doesn't smile one time.
And I know he's Eastern European.
I thought he was just Croatian.
No, I know that.
I know, but nah.
There's a difference.
The guy looks upset.
Every time he starts a sentence, like, I thought, well, I figured he's like throwing his arms up.
Oh, the last shot was for you.
I've hit a lot of last shots that season.
The guy does not look enthused to be on one of the greatest teams in history.
That's an issue.
I didn't pick up on that when I saw him.
Think Tony Kukov seems happy?
I don't think he's a happy person.
Why not?
Because he's Eastern European.
Come on.
I really saw that.
I was like, oh, he's fucking Croatian.
Like, he's got a lot of people.
Bladdy Debots, non-stop goofball.
Eastern European from the same place.
Bejos Nojakovich, goofball.
Didn't Vladi get out before the Civil War?
Say again?
Didn't Vladi get out before like Tony Kukovich was stuck in the Civil War for two years.
Yeah, he's making more money, but like he's like, I want, I needed to be here or whatever for whatever reason.
You're still in a country where there's a Civil War for a couple years, and I think he had a kid.
And it's just like, how funny?
How fun is anything?
Yeah, and I don't see how.
I actually agree with you, Drew.
Like, I don't see how he could have enjoyed being on the team.
Like, they came at him at the Olympics.
Right.
Two years later, he's on the team with the guy who hated him, like the guy who they were like using him as a fucking trading whatever.
Yeah.
So, like, how can you enjoy being on the team that you know the players there didn't like you initially to begin with?
100%.
So, you never get close to the players there.
You just learn to play.
It was a job.
That's the thing.
And it was an unenjoyable job.
But because they won, he's like, I can't leave this job.
But I don't think it was an enjoyable setting.
If Steve Kerr, by the way, said to your earlier point, if Steve Kerr said, no, nobody was in fear and we still won.
You know what Jordan would say?
He also lost.
I didn't lose.
He did lose.
Once I started winning, it's over.
I'm 6-0 in the finals.
Y'all aren't.
But he did lose, Jordan.
Yeah, but once he got the taste of winning, give me a full year.
I mean, now we're moving the goalpost, right?
Like, if I have a full year, I can do it.
I mean, yeah, but that's not that.
You're not moving it that far when a guy comes into the season in March and then plays in the playoffs in April.
Yeah.
Like, I didn't realize he was back to the season with just five games left.
No, it wasn't five games left, but it was like 10, 20.
Yeah, it wasn't that many.
I think they were 40 and 30.
So there was like 41, 30.
So they maybe 10 games left.
Yeah.
It's not a lot of games.
It's not a lot of games.
Absolutely.
So you're not really moving the goalpost that far.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't really buy this whole thing, like, my body totally changed to play baseball.
It's like you're still doing an athletic sport.
Nah, I can.
My body was completely different.
My shoulders.
I know.
And my back.
I agree with that.
Like, you are working completely different muscles.
Sure, sure, sure.
They know they're elite athletes.
That's fine.
And maybe he needed every single thing to be perfectly in tune in his body to be successful.
That's the main thing.
That's fine.
That's fine.
Yeah, exactly.
It's a different type of thing.
And then they retired.
That's fair.
I just feel like you didn't hear a single player in his team say they enjoyed playing the game of basketball with him.
And BJ Armstrong even said, he goes to one point, he goes, in order to play with Michael, you got to really love the game of basketball.
What does that mean?
I was telling.
What does that mean?
That means it's going to be so miserable being on Michael Jordan's team that if you don't have the deepest of love for the game, you're not going to be able to put up with this shit.
You know who I looked at in a whole different light to that point?
Scott Burrell.
Scott Burrell to me was always just some fucking spare part.
The Toll of Being Greatest00:10:27
You came, you went, whatever.
Now I look at this guy like, yo, you handled Jordan well.
And for a guy who's not, who's a fringe player in the league, Jordan would give him the most shit.
And he would always just come right back at him.
And he still likes him.
I was looking at him like a big ass pussy.
I see you just let somebody pick him up.
Because he's the greatest player ever.
What are you going to say?
You still speak up for yourself.
No, I see he just sit there and took that shit.
Jordan will break you.
So?
No, no.
I don't see that.
Kerr stuck up for him.
Oh, actually, no, actually, no, I don't see a lot.
I don't see a lot about that with Burrell.
I see it differently.
I see a kind of like older brother, younger brother relationship with Jordan Burrell.
And I think Jordan really liked Burrell.
I think that I think when you look at that relationship, yeah, they took points where he's like, you're a bitch, you're a hoe, this, that, the other.
I also saw Burrell.
Yeah, it was playful.
And I also saw Burrell like in Jordan's room more than anybody else.
Now, listen, they're showing whatever they want to show, but like that little side room of the locker room that he had.
And I feel like they had, and even you saw Jordan like busting his balls on the plane.
Like, yeah, he's a wild guy.
He's out there having sex with all these girls, this, that, the other.
I think Jordan really likes Scotty Burrell.
And he says, even in the interview, they're like, yeah, I couldn't break him.
I just couldn't break this guy.
I tried to get him to fight me.
He just wouldn't fight me.
And I think on a certain level, Jordan got respect from the guy that he couldn't get in his head.
Jordan could break every Jordan made Steve Kerr punch him.
Jordan forced that to happen.
Now, Steve Kerr had the balls to do it.
So they respect each other from it.
But Jordan pushed him to the limit.
Jordan couldn't get Scott Burrell to do that.
And I think that Steve Kerr, that's like the normally the key to getting Jordan's respect is when he goes at you, you fire back.
Yeah.
That's the key.
I cannot back down from you.
Yeah.
But Scott Burrell did it in his own way.
I'm just going to be goofy.
And yeah, whatever, man.
You can't phase me.
I'm fine.
Just I'll fire right back at you.
And Jordan really seemed to like it.
And it was cool to see this guy who I didn't think, I remember watching Scott Burrell as a kid.
I don't, I didn't know basketball at all.
I was like 10 years old.
I was like, this guy's not good at all.
Yeah.
But Jordan loves the guy.
And he just, eh, whatever.
I'm impervious to all this.
Steve Kerr could back up his shit.
Like he had a role, but he was John Pax in 2.0.
Just, I'm going to knock down all the open shits.
I'm not going to drill.
I'm going to get a playoff hero.
I'm going to hit it.
Yeah.
I just wish that Steve Kerr spoke about that.
I wish that Magic spoke about it.
I wish that Bird spoke about it.
Like, how miserable were they and their teammates?
When I hear, when I talk about, you know, or I've heard people talk about LeBron, like, they love playing with LeBron.
They love playing with LeBron.
It's a great thing.
Now, it is a different role.
LeBron is more of a facilitator.
And like the Bulls said, they love playing with Pippen the next season.
Of course, they love playing with Pippen because Pippen likes passing the ball.
Everybody gets to put up shots.
But I just wish there were other people who had won multiple championships that could speak on how it was winning those championships with a joyous environment and atmosphere.
And maybe they didn't get six like Jordan, but fuck it, three, and you actually enjoy your life playing basketball.
That's way better.
And this is where I'm talking about the cost.
Jordan was, Jordan is the best player ever, widely regarded.
You can have some debate, mostly best player ever.
These other guys had more fun, are not the best player ever.
And I think Jordan is like, the cost to be that is this, and y'all don't get it.
Is it though?
I don't know if it is.
I think to a large degree, you can't really argue with it.
But even if it's not, in his mind, I did this my way.
You guys think I'm the greatest ever.
And then you tell me I'm a bad teammate.
Then you tell me I'm not a nice guy.
Fuck.
They didn't.
How do you think I got there?
So, so somebody said this was, was it Purdue?
Maybe.
I think Purdue goes, let's be honest, he's an asshole.
He's a jerk.
But he never asked you to do anything he wouldn't do himself or something like that.
And then he goes, well, he says some other line.
He goes, he was a great teammate.
Yeah.
He goes, he's an asshole.
He's a jerk.
Oh, but he got the most out of every single one of us by doing that.
And because of that, he was a great teammate.
And there is a difference.
Like, if you could, being a great general of an army doesn't necessarily mean everybody loves you.
But if you get to go home to your family after the war and you won the war, you're a great fucking general.
And I think that's the way that he looked at it.
He's just this fascinating fucking guy.
And I wish we had another winner.
I wish that we, I wish Steve Kerr, Steve Kurz went through all of it.
He went through Jordan.
He went through the Spurs and pop and he went through his own situation.
He could have broken down the different ways to win a championship.
I would have fucking, I forgot about the Spurs because they weren't, they weren't Titan Dynasty.
Yeah, because they were every other year, but like he got multiple rings with the Spurs, bro.
And is it worth losing once or twice to be happy?
And I've been on the side where once you get there, you're never losing and it's hell.
And I've been on the side where, for the most part, we're all having fun.
We're all holding each other accountable.
This is a team.
You might lose every once in a while, but you get multiple chips.
Multiple chips and you still have to sacrifice.
Jordan made you sacrifice your soul and your ego.
Yeah.
The Spurs make you sacrifice your ego, but to a lesser extent, but you're not going to be a star.
Yeah.
But you're going to sacrifice your ego to a lesser extent.
And the Warriors are the complete opposite.
Right?
It's almost like you were evolving or devolving, however you want to look at it, right?
It's like the harshest environment, semi-harsh, militaristic environment, but not dictatorship with like a tyrannical leader.
And then freedom, democracy, capitalism.
You want to shoot from 35 feet up?
Shoot for 35.
You want to shoot with 20 seconds left on the shot clock?
Yeah, you might as well.
Do whatever you want.
We trust you're going to make the right decision.
Yeah.
It's crazy to see that he came from those environments and chose happiness and joy and love as the best way to coach.
Hey, hey, Steph Curry, I remember I had a game that I couldn't miss, but I never shot like you.
It must be so great.
Is it feeling good right now?
Remember when he was talking to him?
I remember there's a video clip of him saying to Steph Curry, he's having a bad half or something.
He's like, you know what's great about you?
Oh, yeah.
Is you went one for 12 in this half and you're going to get out there and you're going to keep shooting.
And that's what I love about you.
And Jordan, Jordan would have went up to Steph Curry and goes, you're not going to eat on the plane, bitch.
Yeah.
You're not going to eat on the plane.
Jordan is a fucking sociopath.
Sociopath.
100% sociopath.
And that's why he won all the time.
And I just, I don't, I don't know how a sociopath functions when their means is gone.
Like everything that got me what I wanted, cool, and now I can't do it anymore.
So what now?
Just large glasses of tequila.
Yeah, he's just, he's just coping all the time.
Also, it's everybody kept saying this is a Jordan kind of like propaganda thing where it's like, they all say, Jordan will always address the other side.
Like, yeah, people say I'm an asshole.
And then I get the last word on whether or not I was an asshole.
And then we close with other people saying he's a great teammate.
Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
You know, and I hear this, like, I had to retire because I was so tired.
And they had one reporter saying, I just reheard it.
He was so physically beat up before the Olympics.
He told me he was going to play.
Yeah, yeah.
Blah, blah, blah.
You know what would help you be less physically tired?
Don't stay up late every night drinking and smoking and gambling and playing two rounds of golf before the fucking sun's finals.
Right.
You probably, if you get a good night's sleep, you're probably not going to be so tired.
Yeah.
So we just play it up to mental fatigue I get, but like, oh, physically, he was just so beat up.
Yeah.
The guy never rested.
He makes it a point to tell you he never rested.
Maybe if you're rested, stop fucking drinking all the time, smoking cigars probably fucks up your sleep and your endurance.
Just get a good night's sleep, treat your body right.
Maybe you're not so physically tired.
So a lot of this I'm noticing now.
It's still entertaining, but this time I'm like, oh, okay, I see the format of every other time I've been so entertained.
I'm not thinking, but now I'm like, okay, I see how it's always, was Jordan this?
Oh, no, he wasn't.
Do you, do you think he didn't think of that?
He, no, he did it that way on purpose.
He's, I think his is, listen, I'm going to get the final word on everything.
This is my production.
No, no, no.
I mean, like, didn't think to sleep more.
You think he just couldn't?
Like, for me, I look at him.
He is like, he is the greatest competitor in history, right?
And he's looking for a competitive advantage in every single way he can.
Like, he has his trainer reshape his body depending on the sport that he wants to do.
He knows that he needs to compete against the best to get back in basketball shape.
So he has Space Jam, build him a practice facility where he's playing.
Like he's doing everything he can.
I can't fathom that he would overlook sleep.
I can't fathom that he wouldn't talk to like a sleep scientist and go, how many hours do I need bare minimum for my body to recover and function in the right way?
Tim Grover, as elite as Tim is, like, he must go, Jordan, you need a certain amount of sleep in order for these exercises that we do to have an effect so that muscles can recover.
I think he, in his mind, I need those outlets to be great.
And I can believe that.
I just, at that point, I don't want to hear you saying or like having pieces put in a documentary.
It's like, oh, he was just so physically tired.
The toll of being the greatest.
I believe that.
I also believe, and maybe you needed to smoke and drink and party to Cope.
That's also why you're physically tired.
And you can at least give me a well-rounded, like, I'm physically tired.
Yeah, I did all this stuff, but I also did it to Cope.
But like, that, all of it just took a toll.
Right.
I look at him like godlike.
And whenever he needs to turn up that gear, he can turn it up regardless if he has sleep or not.
So it's like, of course, yes, he's still human at the end of the day.
But I think that without the drive, without the drive pushing him to win is why he's physically beat up and tired.
Yeah, I guess I just saw that as.
I see like he lost that drive at the third.
I just saw that particular moment leapt out of me.
I was like, oh, that's one of those moments where it's Jordan kind of spinning everything to where it's not a big deal that he walked.
I mean, I get, listen, he was the greatest ever probably the first time he walked away.
So I can, I can understand him saying there's no challenges anymore.
There's nothing for me to get up for.
I can understand all that.
Just when they were like, he was so physically beat up by the second Olympic, by the second championship, blah, blah, blah.
I was like, you're physically beat up also.
That one line, I just took issue with that one line.
Like, you're also physically beat up because you don't recover ever.
Right.
And you don't probably need sleep like the normal person.
And I think about him and Dennis Rodman, and I was wondering, like, is that a common ingredient for greatness?
Is just, I have energy all the time.
Yeah.
But I just thought that one line of, oh, I'm so tired.
It's like, you're tired from more than just basketball.
Disrespect and Physical Exhaustion00:09:05
Right.
Just let's be honest about this.
Sure.
Sure.
That's all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you've been having problems sleeping, haven't you?
I always had a problem sleeping.
Yeah.
But I don't, I don't drink.
I don't smoke.
I don't go out and gamble.
So it's like, I'm not blaming on other shit.
Yeah.
But that's what you really resented him for.
Boy, he had sleep.
It's like, yeah, it's like you're like, you could have slept, bitch.
That's what you want, where you really can't.
It's out of your control.
I think that you're projecting a little bit.
I think that you have sleep issues and you're like, this guy could have easily slept, but he's out drinking and doing debaucherous activities where you're laying down on that pillow at 11 p.m. and you can't knock out.
I just think, don't use it as an excuse.
That's all.
Yeah.
That's all.
Yeah.
It's stupid.
How's your shower situation, Andrew?
What did he say?
How's your shower situation?
Oh, my shower is great.
Anyway, so look, there's the question that I had during this is like, can you get greatness out of people without having that attitude?
Can you is the Jordan way the way to get the most out of the people that you are working with?
It's going to take somebody being better than Jordan for us to say, yeah, well, you know, you don't need to do it like that.
Because right now, the guy that we all think is the greatest ever did it like that.
So how can you argue with that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like if you need to get the most, that is the way to do it.
And some people can't handle it.
And some people will be broken by it.
But that is how you get the most.
Undeniably so.
Like, if Steve Kerr didn't get the most out of his team.
Right.
I mean, his team lost games.
That team should never lose a game.
That team lost a 3-1 lead.
Yeah.
73-9.
Greatest regular season team ever.
Yeah.
Have to come back from 3-1 down in the playoffs and then lose a 3-1 lead in the playoffs.
How Jordan made sure that in the documentary they showed that the actual best record ever, including playoffs, which is what counts, are the Bulls.
And then they made it, I think it was an extra shot to put second was the Warriors.
Oh, 100%.
That's pointed.
This guy's a fucking Celsiopath.
100%.
But do you think he lost both of those games against Seattle so that he could come back and win at home for Father?
On Father's Day?
Yeah.
That's a widely thought about thing.
Yeah.
And yeah, I could come back.
100%.
And that's why he fucking laughs hysterically again.
Yeah, I was okay.
What do you say?
I mean, the glove.
I didn't have.
I had no problems with the glove.
Son, that laugh was a belly laugh.
That was a belly laugh.
That was so disrespectful.
So disrespectful.
Gary Payton looking all bloated and shit.
Gary Payton looks horrible, dog.
He makes that face of shock.
And then I think he laughed extra hard just because you out of your fucking mind.
How dare you?
He didn't know you out of your mind.
Yeah.
How dare you?
I'm watching this thing.
I feel like these two episodes really honed in more than any other episodes on the fuel for Michael Jordan's machine.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
And he feeds on grudges.
Yes.
That is his fuel.
That he is a vampire for grudges.
That's the blood that he sucks on.
And he creates these grudges.
Yeah.
Right.
And one, I guess my first question is: what does the grudge do?
It gives him an extra edge.
And I think he's a good person.
It's fuck you.
Everybody plays a little bit.
It's the same reason NFL teams probably play.
Let me clarify the question.
A grudge doesn't make you shoot better.
A grudge doesn't make you jump higher.
A grudge doesn't make you run faster.
It makes you focus more.
Okay, now, so that's what I'm trying to say.
What is the grudge enabling him to do?
There's a competit, there's a weird competitive thing.
Every sports team, what do they say?
Nobody believed in us.
Hey, you're giving them bulletin board material when you guarantee a win against the other team.
Competitors always need that thing to make them lock in, which is, oh, you don't think I'm the, oh, you think I can't do this?
Right.
Fuck you.
Jordan is, oh, you think you could just fucking we're going to play the finals and you're going to walk by me, even though we went to the same college and you're not going to acknowledge I exist?
Fuck you.
Right.
Oh, you're going to put your arm around me and tell me nice game after you have 36.
Fuck you.
It just helps you lock in and elevate your focus and intensity and everything.
And then the game does, you do perform better usually.
Right.
Like that.
Yeah.
I think a grudge is like a lion trying to eat you.
Like a grudge is like a rock that falls on you out in the woods.
Like you like if you're getting chased by a lion, you'll tap into a speed that you didn't know you had.
Like you'll push your bones and like your ligaments to like tearing to get away.
Right.
Like you've seen the stories where like the car is on the kid and the mom's able to lift the car up.
Yeah.
And in the process, she like tears all the muscles in her body.
Yeah.
Like it taps into a part of your brain where you're like, I just have to do this at all costs and nothing else matters, even if it means sacrificing my body.
Like you can only cognitively put your brain into output at like 80%.
Right.
And then it's only when you're faced with like no other option and no escape that you're going to tap into the 95, 96 percentile, I think.
Right.
So the interesting question is, is like, why does that allow him to tap into it?
Like I understand if a lion's chasing me, how much more focused I'll be.
I'll understand if like a rock falls on me in the forest, how much more focused I'll be.
I don't understand how a coach just walking out at a dinner elicits the same physical reaction or mental reaction.
There's something about disrespect that for him is big.
Like if he feels disrespected, he's ready.
Just make me feel disrespected and I'll lock in.
I think that like you have a I think that the intensity thing for Jordan, right, is his competitive advantage obviously is he's the best to ever play.
I think this shows it, that he's the best to ever play, right?
And not only is he the best at ever play, he has something that can get him to that level at his disposal.
LeBron doesn't.
LeBron does not have the ability to go.
He calls it zero dark 30 or whatever the fuck he does.
He doesn't have it.
He can output as much as he wants, you know, or like as he tries to, but he can't lock into the tenacity that Jordan has.
And Jordan, I think his competitive advantage, outside being the most physically gifted player that we've ever seen, he had the ability to tap into his top potential at any given night with the smallest of stimulus.
Yeah.
Literally somebody not shaking his hand was enough for him to go to 100%.
Bro, he invented stuff.
Yeah.
He made a big story against the bulls player just to create a thing.
Yeah.
Like, I almost feel like it's a form like OCD where like you create this enemy or like this fear that you have.
Yeah.
And then like you start doing these behaviors to fix the thing that you created in the first place.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's pretty amazing.
I think he has that top dog situation where it's like everybody needs to kiss the ring.
Yeah.
So like, you know, when he first came on the balls, he's like, oh, who's the best player?
I'm going after him.
Now I'm top dog.
So everybody needs to kiss my ring.
And so he'll create these enemies in his head.
It's like, oh, wait, you're not kissing the ring?
Yeah.
But like, I'm going to make you now.
It is interesting.
So it's like he created it.
It is interesting to see.
And maybe this is all narrative and maybe they're just cooking this into the documentary, but like nobody has ever been afraid of pissing off LeBron.
Oh, you're going to piss all LeBron.
Be careful tomorrow.
Nobody's ever been afraid of pissing off Kobe.
You know, Kobe's going to, Kobe is going to give you everything he has every single night.
Jordan.
I don't know about that with Kobe.
I think.
Again, I haven't watched enough Lakers games to say, but I think every time we saw Kobe, he tried his hardest.
I think what he's saying is Kobe's mentality was rip your heart out without the need to hate you to rip your heart out.
Yeah.
I just want to rip your heart out.
But when he had like that player that, oh, people were saying, like, oh, he's the Kobe stopper or some shit like that.
Like, you'll see him turn up.
Jordan Patterson.
Yeah.
Like, you'll see him like, oh, I have a grudge against this player.
I'm going to turn up and score fucking 61 tonight.
Sure.
Just to shut you up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He definitely has it.
For sure.
He's super competitive.
That's what I'm saying.
I think every competitor at that level has it to a level.
100%.
But Jordan's was like different.
Okay.
And I forgot what I was saying.
The needing the grudge, needing disrespect.
You said Kobe.
LeBron, nobody's afraid of pissing off.
Okay.
So nobody's afraid of pissing off LeBron.
I don't think it really mattered with Kobe in the same way.
I don't think so.
I think he was just going to give it no matter what.
And maybe if the news media was saying, maybe if it was like a public thing, maybe it inspired him a little bit more.
But if he had to score 60 to win, he scored 60 to win.
Or if not, I think he was just like, I want to get the championships.
I think Kobe is just chasing Mike.
People were afraid of him.
The way you hear these players talk about Mike, they're like, oh my God, why'd you say that?
Hero Ball and Team Dynamics00:09:04
Why'd you say that?
It's in the same way when there's like a movie or some bad guy.
Why'd you do that?
Why'd you have to think about that?
Remember in Ghostbusters, why'd you have to think about the state puff marshmallow man?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, why'd you have to unlock the what is a movie or like a bad guy?
I think his gang's in New York.
Bill the Butcher is like cutting up meat.
He's like this big knife.
He's intimidating whoever the other guy is.
That's Jordan.
After BJ Armstrong hits that game winner and starts talking shit, Jordan, the next day in the locker room, he's just swinging a baseball bat with one hand, a cigar in his mouth.
Yeah, that's right.
And he's just talking that shit.
It's like a super villain stroking his fucking cat or whatever.
And he's just talking about how he's going to ruin you.
X-Men, what is the bitch that's Phoenix or something like that?
She's like Phoenix, Gene Gray or something like that.
You know, like if she loses it, she loses it.
Tasmanian devil, if they lose it, they lose it.
There's examples of super villains.
It doesn't even exist in like regular humanity.
It doesn't even exist as humans in movies.
But there are people that, if they go crazy, or these super villains, if they go crazy, they're kind of unstoppable.
Don't piss them.
Hey, don't piss Thanos off.
Why'd you have to do that?
Blah, blah, blah.
It's like an abusive dad.
You're like, I'll say the thing to make dad mad.
Yeah.
And then it goes crazy, right?
So it's like, have you ever let me just get so?
It's like, so that's what Jordan was, and that's how they saw him.
Right?
Like, I've never seen this before.
The trick with Jordan was just to kind of be nice to him, and then hopefully he wouldn't tap into his peak potential.
But even eggshells with him.
Yeah.
That's like every girlfriend, though.
Yeah.
Like, you tell her, like, but there's nothing productive that comes out of them.
No, but I mean, I'm talking about the Tasmanian devil part.
No, I understand.
I'm saying by pissing them off, nothing good happens.
They can't do anything with it.
Like, Jordan would win with them.
They spin around and yell about him.
Yeah, they just waste your fucking time.
I tapped into something just right out.
So it's like he just tapped into it.
It's just an interesting thing.
It's like most people, when they get angry, they actually get worse.
Most people, when they get upset, they throw the game away.
They're reckless.
They can't function.
They're reckless.
They start equipping.
They do what's called hero ball.
Have you guys heard of this term?
Hero ball.
I'm going to try to do it myself.
You know, Brett Favre, oh, you saying that he's lost it.
He's lost a step.
Okay.
Now he's just throwing interceptions in the fucking playoffs.
Right.
And with Jordan, the opposite thing happened.
Usually, when people tap into that aggression and that anger, bad things happen.
Because Jordan was the hero.
I think not only was he the hero, I think that he was so good.
That's right.
And we've never seen somebody on this level of greatness.
I think he was so far superior.
I would say a minimum 20% better than anybody else.
Quite close.
Any given point.
Who was even close at the time?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean, you can't even put Reggie Miller in the same ballpark.
I love Reggie Miller.
I want him to get 25%.
It's not even close.
It's 20, 25%.
And you know what it is?
This is what it is.
When he taps into it, it's Jordan playing against his little brother.
Not his actual relationship.
It's anyone playing against their younger sibling.
That's how far above everybody he was in the league.
When he was able to tap into what he wanted, he was playing against a younger sibling.
And that's pretty amazing at any point in time, going, all right, I'm going to drop 60 a night.
I'm going to drop 36 and a half because that motherfucker scored 37 on me in a full game.
Doug, we, the idea that we compare, like, no disrespect to Kobe, but when you think about the stats, they said Jordan averaged 40 points a game for an entire playoff series seven times.
You know how fucking crazy that is in a league that wasn't that high scoring and didn't like you were allowed to hit everybody on the perimeter, like crazy numbers this guy would put up.
He was, he could play hero ball effectively.
He could play hero ball effectively.
That's what I'm saying.
He was the hero.
Everybody wants to play hero ball and then they die, right?
Jordan was an actual hero.
I could play hero ball and I'm a win.
And I'll make the pass when I need to, but against the Suns in game six of the closeout game, I'm only, there's only going to be one other guy that scores one time.
The rest of the quarter is me.
Don't worry about it.
Bro, and you know what's interesting?
Rodman could do it too.
I think that's why he respected Rodman.
We don't look at the same way because we only really value scoring.
But when Rodman locked in, he's like, yeah, I can get 20 boards tonight.
It's fucking hard to get 20 rebounds.
That's a huge number.
It's a massive number.
And what it does to change the game, if you get nine of those on the offensive board on the offensive side, that's twice as many shots.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Potentially 18 to 27 points.
Think about that.
You won't get that, but that's potentially.
That's what changes the game.
Like, let's say you win by eight.
That game is decided by Robin's offensive rebounds.
If you win by eight points, when he gave you the potential for 20, 25 extra points.
I mean, look, I guess the point I'm trying to say is I think he had that ability to lock in and give 100% diving into the crowd and doing all these other things at his specific thing.
And I think Jordan recognized it.
I think he was like, oh, shit.
He might not need the grudge.
He might not need it.
Like, I need it.
But when he taps in, he is 25% better than everybody else on the floor at his specific thing.
And I am that way with defense and offense.
And I can pretty much do everything because I'm Jordan.
I'm the greatest, but I recognize what he's able to do.
And he's also great at the things that I can't do it.
I can't elevate rebounding.
I can't elevate interior post-defense.
Yep.
He's got that.
So now we're a team.
We're good.
Dude, now it makes so much sense.
It makes so much sense.
I think that you were saying this earlier about like, was it you saying it?
Like he didn't understand how other people couldn't tap in.
Now it makes so much sense why that rumor about him saying Horace Grant couldn't eat.
Yeah.
I think he's looking at Horace Grant.
He's like, you have all the physical gifts of someone who should be able to dominate this game.
You're agile.
You're, I mean, you're incredibly like muscular.
And your jumping ability is insane.
Your height is insane.
You have everything that you need to be good at this.
You just don't empty the tank.
How can I respect you?
Yeah.
You don't deserve food.
Yeah.
Like.
You don't deserve fuel if you can't empty the tank.
If you boom, you, oh, no, you got enough fuel left.
Yeah.
We saw it today.
Yeah, man.
That's also insane.
If I'm a grown-ass man and you tell me I can't eat.
Yeah.
Like, that's crazy.
I had a bad game, so I can't eat.
Are you fucking serious right now?
Yeah.
I wonder if a bad game was just lack of effort.
Not poor shooting, just lack of effort.
I bet if you scored two points, but had like 14 boards, he wouldn't give a fuck.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
Like, but if you miss shots, it's still like, I don't know.
Jordan was just like, don't give the ball to Bill Cartwright at the end of the day.
And Bill Cartwright, when you watch him, you're like, yeah, I get it.
Yeah, I get it, man.
I forgot I was going to say, oh, yeah.
There's an interesting thing Tim Grover says, which is like, he doesn't believe.
So he has these, he calls people like Jordan closers, Jordan, Kobe, these absolute killers.
Do whatever it takes at all costs.
It doesn't matter.
He said, I don't believe anybody above 6'10 can be that.
And I wonder if he thinks that because it's like, if you're a 6'10 and Jordan is talking like this, don't you just beat him up?
Yeah, you're a Horace Grant at some point.
Aren't you just like, yo, I can beat the shit out of you?
Yeah, I think what happens at like, what you said, 6'10 or 6'0?
I think what happens at that height is you don't find the game.
The game finds you.
Yeah, maybe.
And when the game finds you, in other words, when like a coach from your elementary or like junior high school team comes to you and goes, oh my God, you're so tall.
You got to play for us.
Life comes at you too easy.
Yeah.
When you're 6'6, it comes pretty easy until you get into like elite high school ball or college ball.
Then shit gets to be normalized, right?
But it's pretty easy.
But I think the big guys, they don't ever experience it.
And then when they do experience it, they're already in the league and how they view the game has been formed.
Yeah.
Right?
Like you're 22 years old.
You're not going to start looking at the game in a different way.
Like Joelle Embiid, perfect example.
He cannot lock in the way Jordan could lock in or the way a Robin can lock in.
Yeah.
Right.
You see it.
He's like, he'll score and then the next possession, he just won't play D. He'll get in a little fit about something.
He just can't focus for the extended period of time.
He just doesn't have it.
Are we going to see the Jordan Kobe breed anymore?
Who?
Nobody in the league right now.
LeBron is the best player in the league, one of the best players ever.
He's not that mentality.
Are we going to see that again?
And is that necessarily a bad thing?
So, a question I have about that is, is what is Kawhi?
Like, what is his leadership strategy?
Like, how does he win?
He doesn't seem vocal.
He doesn't seem to come down on his teammates.
The Kobe Legacy Question00:10:31
Yeah.
Right?
Like, how is he getting maximum output from the people around him?
That's a good question.
Because I gave it all up to the Spurs organization when he was there.
Yeah.
But then he comes to Toronto and replicates it.
So it's like...
His team plays well.
Fred Van Fleet played out of his fucking mind.
Kyle Lowry had a good series.
Great series.
So it's like, who do we give credit to?
How is he leading?
When you look at him, you don't feel like he's a leader at all.
He's a hired gun.
He's an assassin.
But he must have some ability to lead.
And maybe it's just by example.
Maybe.
I mean, I'm not, apparently Kawhi is different than we all know him, and he's more talkative and all that.
Maybe it's just, I'm going to give maximum effort, and then you just, you're going to follow.
Like, I'm not going to sit here and yell at you.
I'm also not going to sit here and baby you.
I'm just going to do what I'm going to do.
And then when you see me, you're going to follow.
Or maybe he just makes you want some affection from him so badly.
You're like, maybe if I work hard.
Interesting.
Maybe he'll show some emotion if I work harder.
Interesting.
Yeah, man.
Jordan's the abusive parent.
Kawhi maybe is the emotionally unavailable parent.
Yeah.
Dad, did you like that?
I'm here.
Yeah.
Is my painting cool?
Yo, I wonder what Jordan, like, he was so maniacal and so like locked in and like rude to his teammates in order to get the best out of him.
Why was that not parented out of him?
His parents seem really sweet.
Like if they saw him doing that in high school and college, why weren't they like, hey, Mike, like be friendly.
Like don't be afraid of me.
How many kids, how many brothers and sisters did he have?
How big was his family?
One or two?
No, I think it was like five of them, right?
I don't remember actually.
I don't know.
I can look it up.
Yeah, let's look.
Games seems to be the only one in the documentary, sibling-wise.
His brother.
I think he's got a sis.
How many did he have?
Four.
He had four siblings or there were four total.
Four siblings.
So five of them total.
Yeah.
I think two brothers, two sisters.
Yeah, he taps into this earlier in the documentary.
But I think he's just competing for his dad's affection.
And you got five kids and his pop's working a full-time job.
There's not a lot of time.
How can I get attention from dad?
Oh, shit.
He really likes it when I do well in sports.
Yeah.
And that's my best friend and that's the coolest person in the entire world to me.
Okay, I will destroy everybody so I can get a pat on the back from my brother.
Oh, you're going to tell me to go inside so that you could play with my brother at sports?
Oh, no, I got to beat my brother now.
Yeah.
You know, his brother was a grudge for a long part of his life.
And I think he even touches in on it.
Yeah, he did.
Right.
He was like, he's like, imagine you could fight the person that you love more than anything in the world.
Like, of course.
Yeah.
Like, that's the highest.
And then his dad passes away and he goes, all right.
I don't need any more affection.
He can like retire.
I'm done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wonder if that plays out.
Oh, yeah.
Why did he retire?
I remember as a kid thinking, yeah, his dad died.
He doesn't want to play anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah, let's get into that.
Yeah.
Because so me watching this, all the whole gambling rumors and Mike having something to do with his dad, I don't believe it anymore.
You don't believe what?
He had some type of gambling debt that the mafia went after his debt.
Yeah, it seems weird.
It's completely believable what happened.
Yeah.
So two kids, essentially, they were like 18 years old, right?
This is what's weird about the story.
And I'm not even getting into conspiratorial shit.
This is what I always assumed happened.
I thought it was two guys trying to get a lick, right?
They saw Jordan's dad.
They recognized him.
Maybe they've cased out where he lived and they were like, all right, he's leaving the crib.
Let's follow him, see where he goes.
Maybe he'll stop somewhere.
We go rob him.
We get five grand.
Maybe he got a nice watch.
They stole his car.
Say again.
They stole his car.
They stole his car.
Made a rap video with the car wearing Jordan's, one of Jordan's championship rings that he gave his dad.
Like these kids, there is some conspiratorial shit with the murder, but not necessarily linking to gambling.
See, I didn't know that.
See, that's interesting.
That means you just.
You got to listen to the Tiki Wiki sometimes, guys.
They got some good info out there.
So this is crazy, though, really.
Two dumb kids.
And I was actually going to see, Gagnon, like, and you will get into it and like read about it.
I heard all this and I was like, oh, crazy.
I should read about it.
I know I never will.
Yeah.
They said Jordan got shot.
Jordan's dad got shot in his car.
They could shot him in the chest and he died in his car or whatever.
They found him in a creek later.
Okay.
There was apparently no blood found in the car.
So if you got shot in the chest, because they said it was internal bleeding.
There's no way you get shot in the chest and it's only internal bleeding.
I don't understand that at all.
That's possible.
Yeah.
Well, it depends on like the caliber of the bullet, I guess.
I don't know.
Go on.
Like, if it's not like a hollow head bullet, like if it's just like it just got lodged in the body, so there's no blood.
Because that was the thing.
They had a few different things.
And one of them was like the kids made cell phone calls from Jordan's dad's phone.
And one of the calls was to somebody who was like the son of the deputy of the police department or whatever like that.
So maybe there was some cover up there.
That's where it might be conspiratorial.
But yeah, there's like some weird shit with the case, apparently.
I didn't know was that possible.
In my mind, I'm like, you get shot in the chest, you're going to bleed.
But there's some weird shit with that case, apparently, that doesn't necessarily link it to gambling, but there's some like just funny shit around it.
Apparently, they didn't report him missing for 30 days.
I don't know if that's true or not.
30 days.
I don't know if that's true because in the documentary, they said Jordan's dad has been missing for three weeks.
So that's 21 days automatically.
It couldn't have been 30 days.
He died on July 23rd, and his body was found August 3rd.
When was the car found?
The car was found immediately, pretty much.
It was like pretty close then.
I can't find the exact date.
Yeah, I mean, I think.
I said in the dock, they found a body in the creek.
Right, I remember that.
But they find the body in the creek a month later or three weeks later.
So something happens.
Yeah.
I mean, like, now to me, it's sounding like, all right, these two kids, and they said he was sleeping in the car.
I don't know if that's true, but whatever.
These two kids, they probably followed him.
It's like, hey, nice car in some area that we probably don't really see these cars or whatever.
UNC 23 on the plate.
So it's like, hey, let's, they might not even know it was his dad.
They just probably saw the car.
It's like, yo, let's rob this person.
Maybe his dad could have put up, tried to defend himself.
Bang, shoot him.
And now it's like, yo, let's get away with this crime.
So let's throw his body in the creek.
And then they got a rap video.
Yeah.
They said in the testimony they didn't mean to kill him.
Like that they were trying to tie him up.
And then one of the guys, according to Wikipedia, pulled the trigger for no reason, for no reason.
And that they just killed him on accident, I guess.
Huh?
Yeah, I don't buy the gambling thing.
I think that they were casing him out.
Yeah.
I think it's premeditated.
And I think that they were like, we can come up on some money.
We can get a ring.
We can get all this other shit.
Yeah.
That's what I assume it is.
It's too random that you just also happen to be at a truck stop and you also want to rob somebody where you're hanging out with your friend.
Like, nobody robs truckers.
Yeah.
Who's going to rob a trucker?
You know, a trucker's packing something.
One, two, they're not going to have any money.
If you're at a truck stop, you're at the truck stop because you followed that motherfucker.
And it could be as simple as you and your boy were just driving and then you saw UNC23 and you're like, wait, what the fuck?
That's a nice car.
Holy shit, is that Jordan's dad?
It's not like people didn't know what his dad was.
You look like Jordan.
You might have thought it was Jordan.
Yo, I don't want to kill Jordan, but if I could tell people I robbed Jordan, that's a fucking shit.
Same thing come up.
I think that's what it is.
The car is found.
I don't know why they bashed up the car.
That makes no sense to me.
Why is that?
Maybe to intimidate him, get him out of the car.
So they start bashing up the car first?
See, yeah, that I don't understand.
It's weird.
That's the weird thing.
They would have burned the car.
I get that.
But bash it.
Just break the windows?
Or are they trying to make it look like it was a robbery?
Like, were they trying to.
Or just dumb kids was just like, yo, let's just fucking bash the car.
That's possible.
Like, think about it.
You just broke windows and shit like that when you're a kid.
Like, maybe you guys didn't, but going around the hood and just throwing rocks and shit.
At 18?
I mean, kids are dumb.
It's not an internet age.
So we weren't growing up as fast then.
Yeah.
Like, kids were kids at 18.
I don't think it was gambling per se.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
Yeah.
Also, the idea that Michael Jordan can't cover his debt is like crazy.
I'm not going to lie.
Breaking the car seems like gambling.
That's what I would do.
If someone owed me money.
No, I would take the car and sell it.
Nah, you want a message sent.
And you also might be owed more money than the car's worth.
Yeah.
So it's like, and also, if you owe me money, I'm not going to do work.
You owe me money.
It's not up to me to go sell a car.
Oh, yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you owe me money.
Pay me my money.
I mean, this could be the possibility.
Let's say, hypothetically speaking, they follow him.
They were told, yo, go bust up the car and send a message.
And then Mike's dad is going to go tell Mike.
They go to bust up the car.
Maybe Jordan's dad reaches for the glove compartment.
They're like, oh, shit, he got a gun.
Or maybe he reaches down for something.
Oh, shit, he got a gun.
Yeah.
They shoot because they don't want to die.
Now all of a sudden, they got a body on them.
They make the phone call or they don't even know what the fuck to do.
They're like, yo, we got to hide this body somewhere.
Let's bash up the car so it looks like he was just broken into when in reality the whole thing was premeditated.
And you know what?
Maybe Jordan never finds out.
Maybe Jordan never knows that it had to do something with gambling.
Maybe deep down he knows, but it's never confirmed.
Then why'd they steal it and like do the music video?
I don't know that part to be true.
That music video shit sounds weird.
I don't know that part to be true, but like that's what that's the just makes me feel like, oh, these are just two dumb young kids.
Like that's that's convinced me right there.
Yeah.
So you're going to make a music video with the car you just stole.
Yeah.
But another thing that was that now I don't believe this this story is true is it doesn't benefit anybody to kick Jordan out of the league.
Yeah, that was no one.
Jordan made everybody money.
Like how do you're not punishing Jordan?
He's going to make money outside of the league.
Also very randomly hurting the very randomly suspension.
A year and three quarters.
Yeah, it's just odd.
You can come back in March of your second year.
Yeah, it's just odd.
I thought it was dope that Jerry Reinsorf paid him, though.
Jerry Reinsdorf's Payment Decision00:02:40
Yeah.
Continue paying him.
Like, obviously, he deserves it, but it was a lot of people don't often do the right thing.
Yeah.
Especially billionaires.
Like, rich people often don't do the right thing.
Yeah.
And that's why they get to be billionaires.
Yeah.
But he paid him because, like, oh, if I stay on his good side, maybe he'll come back.
I think, I think, I think that's part of it.
But I also think it, I also think there's like, he's like, he's made me tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars.
Probably.
The least I could do is pay the most underpaid motherfucker in history 3 mil a year, which is nothing.
And that lets you know how exceptional Jordan was because he ain't do that shit for Pippen.
Oh, yeah.
Pippen made him a lot of money too, but you can't make me Jordan money.
So you're in a shitty deal.
You in a shitty deal.
I told you not to take it.
You took it.
I don't got to do the right thing by you.
Jordan, he's like, I mean, it's Jordan.
Yeah, but I can play Jordan.
What are you talking about?
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These episodes, I think, expose something about Phil Jackson.
A chink in his armor, if you will.
Alpha Male Coaching Styles00:15:26
I think Phil needs a bad cop, an alpha male bad cop.
I don't think Phil's hippie, peace, love.
Here's some Native American spirits.
Let's all do some yoga.
I don't think that works unless you have a supreme alpha male that's willing to chew out every single person on that team to get the most out of them.
I think, so he had Jordan and he had Kobe, and those things functioned beautifully.
And the second he got Carmelo Anthony, who is not a alpha male who's willing to chew out his teammates, who's just a guy who's there for himself, and he tried to trade him.
He's like, I don't want, it's me or I don't care about this guy.
He's not what we need to win.
And he just wasn't able to function.
He just wasn't able to like really, granted, he wasn't coaching, but still, he wasn't able to create the culture that was needed.
And he didn't get people to buy into him.
And I think the only way people buy into Phil is if Phil can get in the head of the alpha male and the alpha agrees to be coached by Phil.
And then the alpha does all the dirty work for Phil.
I don't think Phil can be the lead dog.
I think he needs a dog to do all the bites.
It's interesting because I wrote a note in my phone as I was watching that said MJ needed Phil more than he needed anybody on that team because Phil was the guy that would tell him he was taking it too far and he would eventually listen.
And nobody else is going to tell Mike you're taking it too far and Mike is going to be like, yeah, you're probably right.
I get what you're saying.
Okay.
Like when he was going too hard.
Like when you're when Michael's being too much of an asshole, Phil was the only one that could say, yo, tone it down.
Yeah.
I'll send you home from practice.
Whatever.
Nobody else is Mike respecting that from.
And you see Mike's respect level towards Phil.
Yeah.
Because he's like, the moment I saw Phil, I was like, yay, I'm sorry.
Like, immediately.
No, he respects Phil.
Mike had a lot of respect for his coaches in general.
Like, he seemed to kind of just do what they said, which was really interesting.
The way I think of players nowadays, you could tell your coach to go fuck themselves.
But you've seen Mike in the documentary, not just with Phil, with other coaches, be like, all right, I got kicked out of practice, but everything's good.
Or, yeah, the coach told me he want to take the ball to man, so we got to do it.
Doug Collins, at least, also knew how to play campaigns.
Work with him.
Yeah, we'll make the offense around you.
And then if I kick you out, what are you going to do?
I already do everything for you.
How many can you be?
I kicked you out for a reason.
But Phil knew how to win and get Mike to listen.
And I also thought that play where Pippin sat out, which we can talk about too, because I know you brought it up in the notes, that to me proved, that proved wrong the one thing everybody says about Phil.
He can't win without stars.
So Mike is gone that year.
They go to the conference semifinals, take the Knicks to seven.
And in that play, your second star, who's not Jordan at all, was like, I'm not going to go into the game.
And Phil is like, I fuck you then.
We're going to win without you.
And then they go win without him.
That to me was like a testament to Phil doesn't have to have a star.
Phil can coach up a team.
Now, he's the best at taking stars and winning with them.
And maybe he can't win a championship without a star, but he can win at a high level without a great player.
I don't think so.
You disagree.
Yeah, because the next year it fell apart.
The next year, they were still a playoff team.
Barely.
Yeah, but they lost two major weapons.
Oh, they lost Horace Grant that year.
You don't have Grant.
You don't have Jordan.
You don't have Rodman like you.
Well, you didn't have Jordan the year before, right?
And they lost Horace Grant.
That's who they lost.
They didn't have Rodman yet.
Who's the second best player on that team?
Who Horace was?
It's Pippin, and then I guess it's Ku Coach.
Pippen, Ku Coach.
And then Grant.
And then I guess Horace Grant.
I think Grant was probably second best.
Yeah, but he's like the first year.
He's there, like size.
Yeah.
And in the 90s, interior, the game is one from the inside.
Ku Coach isn't going to play some D.
I hear you.
I hear you.
I just feel like I feel like Phil needs an enforcer.
And Phil is like Professor X, like an X-Men.
You know who Professor X needs?
Wolverine to slap the shit out of motherfuckers who are getting out of line, yo.
You need a badass motherfucker that's willing to go up to someone, choke the shit out of them.
And Phil can't do that.
Phil can motivate you from your soul, right?
He can get in there and he can get you to love him and he can relate to you in ways that no other coach will ever relate.
And he can really make a team bond.
I think he can get guys to come together and sacrifice for a greater good.
I truly believe that he's good at that.
But sometimes you need that whip cracked.
And Phil can't crack a whip.
Like, have you ever seen those images on the sideline where he's yelling at players?
It just looks like his breath stinks.
You know what I mean?
It's just like, it doesn't look like it's effective.
Like, remember who he yelled at Pau Gasol?
Yeah, he threw it in the chest.
And it's like, what are you doing, Phil?
That's not you.
Yeah.
Give him some stones or something like that.
Tell him to smell some incense.
That's not how you coach.
You get Kobe to yell at that motherfucker.
You get Jordan to yell at that motherfucker.
Where like a Popovich, Popovich can do the yelling.
Yeah.
Popovich can do both.
He doesn't need the super alpha male.
He can do it.
Tim Duncan is not the super alpha male.
Tim Duncan is the best player on your team, no doubt, but he's not going to do to you what Jordan does to his teammates.
Yeah, I also am thinking, though, like if you take the stars away from any coach, it's hard to win.
Like Popovich hasn't won a championship since Duncan Kawhi, Genobly, and Tony Parker were all on the squad.
Yeah.
So there's an element of that.
There's coaching stars and then coaching regulars.
And I think like a Larry Brown is great at coaching regulars, but can't coach stars.
And that's why he won't win the championship.
Well, he's definitely got the one.
Yeah, but yeah, I think they got two, right?
No, he got the one ringless or the one starless championship, and then they didn't win that.
I thought they won two.
Nah, I won one.
They made it back, and I think the Spurs beat him, actually, ironically.
But yeah, so it's like, there's different types of coaching.
And coaching, and Phil is great for a star, but he's someone with bite.
And maybe he knows what optimizes.
Like, this is the best way.
This is the best cast for me.
I need that guy to be the best version.
That's how I win-win.
Yeah.
That's when we're really great.
And he's self-aware enough to know that.
He's a guy that's going to be hyper-aware of everything.
Yeah.
And so he's like, yeah, I don't want to coach LeBron.
LeBron doesn't have that thing.
Yeah.
I mean, players need other tools in order to be effective.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, Jordan needs a wing, a tall wing guy that can pass.
He needs a Pippin like that.
LeBron wants his power forward behind the three-point line.
Boom.
Exactly.
Phil, I want my enforcer to be my best player.
I don't think Phil can coach LeBron.
He said early on, he was like, I don't have interest in coaching the Cavs.
I remember that.
I think he recognized it early.
He's like, I can't do anything with them.
I can't do anything with them.
I wonder somebody who's in the league now that Phil could coach.
That's what I'm saying.
I don't know who's the, maybe Kawhi, but even then, Kawhi's not really, it doesn't seem like if that's what he needs, the enforcer, the killer, the fucking at-all costs, whatever.
Yeah, Westbrook.
It's interesting.
Westbrook would be interesting.
Westbrook probably just isn't good enough, but that is the mentality.
Yeah, he's just not.
Go out there and put it all on the line.
Dude, if Westbrook existed in Jordan's NBA, where a mid-range game was valued and a mid-range game could work.
That was fun.
Imagine Jordan and Westbrook going at it.
It's so fun.
Oh, man, that would have been fun.
He is kind of a throwback player.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Mentally strong.
Yeah, he'll put up bad shots.
But a lot of his batch ups now is because he's chucking up these threes that are just out of his range.
If he stayed in his range, which was the old NBA.
Yeah, in the 90s, they didn't shoot threes like that.
Yeah.
That's why Jordan wasn't a good three-point shooter.
Yeah, somebody made this point that like Glenn Rice was a knockdown three-point shooter.
He hit like three a game.
Yeah.
And he was like, lights out.
You've never seen anything like this.
Yeah, Larry Bird barely shot threes.
And we thought of him as a fucking, oh, this guy's a three-point shooter.
Specialist.
That's his specialty.
He's out there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you had just brought up something with Pippen.
And do you think this documentary has been unfair to Pippen?
Do you think it's making him the fall guy?
So originally when you said that, I thought no.
Okay.
You know what's interesting?
I still think no.
Two things.
One, somebody on Twitter, I should find their name, but he said, Pippin's, when Pippen had the Migraines series against the Pistons and he lost, his dad died around that same time, like May 2nd, 1990 or something.
Oh, see, I didn't know that.
The documentary didn't really bring up, oh, Pippin's dealing with the death of his father.
It's migraines and it's Jordan being like, I mean, he says he has migraines, whatever.
But Jordan's dad died, and it's like, yeah, I lost those two finals games because I had a lot.
My dad died three years ago.
Pippin's dad died three weeks ago.
Max.
Maybe during the series and you're just like, yeah, I don't know.
Migraines, bro.
Grow up.
Like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Wow.
That was interesting.
And Mike Wilbon brought this up after Sports Center.
If Phil dared draw up a final play that went to Pippen, do you think MJ would have handled it well?
Back when MJ was playing?
No.
But he did.
He had that play.
He's like, yo, if what's his face is open, give it to him.
If he's open, the ball goes to you.
And then you make the final decision.
And you make the final decision.
If he's open, kick it out.
I will say this.
Just to go back to it being unfair to Pippen.
I think it is unfair to Pippen because these things that have happened throughout history that they're touching on with Pippen, like the 1.8 seconds left, et cetera, don't really play a larger role, right?
Yeah, they hit that shot, but then they ended up losing.
Yeah.
So it seems like I understand if you hit that shot, then you go to the finals and you win the finals.
Yeah, you must include that in the legacy.
That's very important.
But hand selecting random games where, yeah, Pippen did something and then they either won or they lost, but it really didn't affect the legacy of the Bulls as we know it.
It actually plays no part whatsoever in the story besides just showing that Scotty Pippen was kind of selfish, like the contract nonsense.
But I think that's important to show because it's like, it shows his mentality as a person and that carries on to the court.
Like if you're, that's a bit weak, in my opinion.
Yes.
Like when you let your emotions get the best of you that much.
It was weak.
I agree.
He also.
I think I'll say this.
I think that they do it to position Jordan as the alpha.
And I think what I think the lesson for Pippin was: I'm not insecure about being second fiddle to Jordan because I know he's better than me.
Yeah.
I'll wear his sneakers and ask for him to come back.
I don't think Ku Coach is better than me, but my greatest insecurity right now is that the organization does, that the players around me do, and it maybe the fans do.
So when everybody sees he gets to take the last second shot instead of me, it confirms my greatest insecurity, which is this other guy's better than me.
When they choose Jordan to take a last shot or choose Jordan to do some commercial for the Bulls or choose Jordan to do anything, it's like, you know what, they should because he's actually that much better than me.
I can live with that.
I just think if you don't have those moments to be filmed and to come up in this documentary, we wouldn't see any of that.
So that's interesting.
And the fact that he has so many of those moments, him throwing the chair out of frustration and shit like that.
I'm like, who there's a moment where Pippin throws the chair.
MJ slaps teammates.
Yeah, but that's what I'm saying.
They highlight those bad qualities.
It is unfair to him.
No, I'm just saying.
So he's like, it just paints the full picture.
It paints the full picture.
It shows God, though.
Don't you think it's worth it?
I think a lot.
I think, I don't know if it's that deep with positioning Jordan as the alpha.
I think a lot of this is just Jordan wanting to explain things away.
Yeah, the gambling, I gambled, but I didn't have a problem.
Like they talk about all his problems and then he gets to address them.
This isn't Pippen's documentary.
So they actually kind of, I think Jordan kind of threw him a bone with, listen, let's explain that everybody on the team forgave you after you didn't go into that play so they get full context that you owned it right away.
You apologized to the team.
You got emotional.
Let's explain all that, but that's pretty much after that, we don't really need to worry about you.
Yeah, the migraines.
I thought that was bullshit.
Yeah, I mean, if Jordan had migraines during a game seven, you don't think that would be a full fucking episode?
Yeah, but they big them up.
They big up Pippen throughout this whole shit also.
Oh, my best player.
Oh, he's the greatest player.
I think it's fair.
I don't think the purpose.
Yeah, but the purpose of this documentary, I think, is a lot of Jordan being like, let me explain myself.
It's a sneaker commercial and it's, I'm going to explain myself for the last time in history because I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here.
And I want to make sure that I decide what history is going to look like from now moving on.
So I think they just don't have that kind of time to, I can't explain away Pippin.
You decide what history is.
Like we are going to decide how we are remembered.
And the only way you decide that is you put it down on paper first.
Now there's no more paper, right?
Now there's video, right?
So it's like Jordan is going to go, this is what happened with the Bulls.
Even if it isn't, if you want to look into the Bulls 30 years from now, you're going to watch this documentary.
And this is history now.
And that's why Isaiah Thomas is so fucking pissed because I've been on some level.
He knows, oh, shit.
I'm a dick throughout history.
Oh, shit.
So he's trying to rectify that situation.
I mean, we go through this, you know, with our stuff.
It's like, you know, if we see history being shifted a little bit in a way that we don't think is fair to us, then we need to correct it.
You know, I see, I saw it happen with my parents' business.
My parents are completely written out of like the dance business and the way that, and dance in general, and how they like, you know, support it.
It happens.
You got to fight for your place.
And I think Jordan recognized that.
And he's just like, I don't care about Scotty's version.
I don't think he cares.
I agree with you.
I don't think he's trying to make him look bad, but I don't care to explain your shit.
This is about explaining why I'm the greatest.
How I'm the greatest.
I just think if Scotty didn't give him that much material of the show, we wouldn't see it.
Bro, you know how much drama there is on a fucking team at all times, especially a dynasty?
But it's like, you don't see anything from Kerr.
Because Kerr wants to see.
We see Rodman and all this craziness going to be.
Only reason we're talking about Kerr is because he has had a successful coaching career.
Yeah.
If Kerr wasn't the coach of the Golden State Warriors, he wouldn't be in this documentary.
Except for when Jordan punched him in the face.
Yeah, it'd be very small, his role.
But he's had this resurgence as a broadcaster and as a coach.
And so now since he's like a person of fame, we care about him.
Like Clyde Drexler was probably as popular a player maybe as Charles Barkley.
No?
No, I don't think so.
Charles just had the personality.
Charles had a personality, but like in terms of like he was really good and he was a sensational dunker and he was like Clyde the Glyde.
I mean, he was just, he was an amazing guy.
He was an amazing player.
And they were successful, right?
Like, but we don't remember Clyde at all because he didn't have this second career as a sports commentator, which Charles had, and he's so fucking entertaining.
I mean, Kenny Smith.
Kenny Smith will be remembered as a much better basketball player than he was because of his.
Kenny Smith is perfect.
Charles, even when he played, had that personality, like when the Suns Bulls series, when they were up 3-1, the Bulls, and they were like boarding up the windows.
Kenny Smith's Personality Impact00:14:55
Take that shit down.
Yeah, he said, anything you'd like to say to the people of Chicago?
Take that shit off the windows.
Like, that's just a funny thing to say as you're playing.
So I think he got elevated while he was playing.
But to your point, Kenny the Jet Smith is irrelevant because he had a post-playing career.
Steve Kerr is in this documentary a lot more because he had that.
Now that incident with Jordan punching him, I remember Jordan talking about that in like one of the old shits from like the early 2000s or whatever.
He punched him in the chest.
He said he punched him.
Kerr punched him in the chest.
Jordan punched him in the face.
What a weird place to punch someone.
Low scared.
It is kind of pussy, right?
I stood up to him, did you?
You give him a fucking purple nervous.
Perhaps I'm probably a half a foot taller than him.
So he just punched straight.
Swing, bro.
Let's go.
If you're going to dance, dance.
If you're going to take a shot at, like, I respect, I think I respect most about T.I. more than any rap song he's ever done or like activism or any of that shit.
I truly respect the T.I. swung at Floyd, right?
Because you got one shot.
You will get close enough to swing at Floyd.
And if you drop him, you get to do the thing that no other boxer has ever done.
And he went for it.
He knew that the security was going to separate him.
But you could have knocked out Floyd, bro.
100%.
That's a real ass dude.
Steve Kerr out here combing Jordan's chest hairs and shit.
Fuck out of here with that.
And then acting like I stood up to him.
That changed our relationship.
No, it didn't.
He punched the littlest guy on the court and he felt bad for you.
I don't think he had this huge respect for you afterwards.
I think he felt bad.
I think Jordan needs to know you have that in you.
That's what he was trying to get out of Burrell.
Fair enough.
He got out of Curry.
He's like, okay, I can go to war with this guy.
I don't think he was like, this is a fucking, he's a, I can't believe he's still.
I think he's like, okay, good.
He got a little something in him.
Yeah, you got something in you.
Let's go.
Do you think he believes that like your asshole gets tight if you don't stand up for yourself?
I think he does.
So in other words, like when the going gets tough, people who stand up for themselves are willing to take down the challenge.
Yeah, they'll go.
And the people who aren't are going to get nervous and they're going to fight.
I think that's his entire mentality is trying to, maybe in his mind, it's not, I'm not being mean.
I'm just going to get you to that point where you'll finally fight back and then, okay, we're good.
Now I'm done.
Now I know you got that in you.
Now we're good.
And I'm going to push until I get there.
And maybe Horace never punched him in the face.
So he was like, I'm going to keep bullying Horace until he gets there.
Yeah.
Scott Burrell, I kept trying to get Scotty to fight me and he wouldn't.
Yeah.
So I think that was his thing.
Once he pushed Kerr to that point, okay, good.
He's got that in him.
Let's go.
Right.
Now I'll pass it to you in the finals.
There's a point in the documentary where they talk about his comeback.
Do you think Jordan comes back if, go, go, go.
If the Bulls win the finals without him.
Yes.
I think he comes back and I would love to see that alternate history because I don't think he goes to the Bulls.
Yes, it's the same thing.
I want to see.
There's an alternate unit.
Let's pull back.
So let's pull back, right?
So Jordan leaves the sport.
The next year they go to the Eastern Conference Finals.
They are one game away.
I think it was the conference semifinals, but they went to game seven.
And then the Knicks beat the Pacers in the conference finals and then went.
No, they went to the Eastern Conference Finals.
He double-checked that, Mark?
Yeah, they lost in the semis when Jordan came back, but they went to the Eastern Conference finals when the first year without him.
And they lost to the Knicks.
I know they lost in seven.
Either way, that's the team that made it to the finals.
Yeah.
You lost the team to the family.
You lost the team that made it to the finals, right?
And so they go to the Eastern Conference finals without him.
They lose to the Knicks.
I don't think Jordan is rooting for that Bulls team.
No chance.
I was wondering that.
I think he's rooting for that.
Because if they win without him, they don't need him.
Not only do they not need him, it tarnishes everything he's worked for.
He wants to be in the same league as Magic and Bird.
That's what he's been saying since the beginning.
Magic and Bird's teams don't just go win without Magic and Bird.
No chance.
Not even a fucking chance.
No chance.
Right?
LeBron leaves his team when he was with the...
It falls apart.
It falls apart.
So.
So you think it's like a KD situation.
Which is.
Like, KD got his rings with the Warriors, but we don't give him as much credit because they're not his rings.
It would be that.
Because they can win without him.
It's exactly what they're doing.
It would be a chink in the army.
I'm not going to win the ring without you.
I don't.
I'm impressed.
So that first year, they don't win.
He's like, whew.
The second year that he's not on the team yet, the year he ends up coming back, they struggle.
They are.
They're not doing great.
And that's what I think brings him back is he's like, I get to be the Wild West hero.
Yeah.
I get to save the day.
Oh, they're barely making it into the playoffs.
Well, I can't play baseball because of this strike shit.
Should I come back and save the day?
I think even a doper question is, does he come back if that strike doesn't happen in baseball?
Here's what I think could happen.
He's slowly, they're saying he's getting better and better and better.
Let's get into the baseball thing in a second because I want to talk about, I want to talk about him in a second, but if the Bulls end up winning without him, what do you think, Hal?
I think he goes to another team.
It proves.
I can beat the Bulls, and he's probably going to go to an Eastern Conference team.
Whereas a lot of, like, Tom Brady, as much as I think he's a GOAT, he went to the NFC to get away from Bill Belichick.
I think Michael would go to the East just to make sure he faces the Bulls.
Let's do it.
I think Brady went there so he could face Belichick in the ship.
That's a super alpha move.
That's what I think he did.
That's a super alpha movie.
I think he's thinking, I hope I don't have to face him.
Because you can also, I'm going to make sure I play you.
I can go to the AFC.
I go to the fucking Dolphins, play you twice a year.
Fuck you.
You know where I think he could have gone?
Where?
The Knicks.
And he loved playing at the Garden.
He loved playing at the Garden.
Your huge market.
They would have worshipped him.
He would have finally got them the ring they hadn't had in 20 years at that point or whatever.
Patrick would have been a great number two.
Amazing.
Fuck you, Scotty Pippen.
Yeah, real talk.
Fuck you, man.
I don't know.
We don't know the whole scope of the league or how, but that's, as we're talking it out, that makes a ton of sense to me.
Okay.
Jordan at the garden every night.
That'd be perfect.
Okay, so then he decides to go play baseball.
There's a strike.
He stops playing baseball.
We'll rewind a little bit.
If Jordan, if there's no strike, is there even a shadow of a doubt in any of your heads that Jordan makes the majors as a baseball player?
Yeah, a little bit, but I don't know anything about baseball.
And I feel like Jordan played a real sport at a high level, so he could probably play baseball at all.
100%.
I really truly makes the majors.
I truly believe that there is, in Jordan's prime, there is not a single physical activity that he could not do at a professional level, given the amount of time he would need to train.
I think if he won, he would be the best swimmer.
Despite, you know, I think if he won, he would be the best skier.
I think if he won, he would be the best at whatever he chose to do.
And I think it just comes down to God-given physical talent and God-given work ethic.
And the work ethic is actually a thing that's more impressive to me because usually when you have that much physical talent, you're lazy because you can be.
Yeah.
And he had the work ethic of a midget of Mugsy Bogues.
He had the work ethic of the smallest guy in the NBA with the most perfect basketball body that we've ever seen.
You put that into baseball.
I swear to God.
Give Jordan two more years, you see him in the majors.
Yeah.
I mean, he was batting 200 after not touching a baseball bat for 14 years.
Unbelievable.
Double A.
And that's the other thing.
Double A, like for everybody who's listening in Europe or like South America, these kind of or Australia, whatever, the way baseball works is there are multiple divisions of minors.
Minor, yeah, the minor leagues.
You don't start at double A. You actually start at single A or rookie ball.
So you can go rookie ball, single A, double A, triple A.
So he's already jumped a division.
I guess they said that because they didn't have like adequate press facilities in the single A clubs.
But like, think about that.
You start actually with better players.
You get up to batting 200.
You hit him 50 home runs.
Apparently, they like switched his average up towards the end when he was playing like the spring ball in Arizona or something like that.
And he was actually batting closer, like two mid-twos like in that series.
Okay.
I mean, it's just unbelievable.
The RBIs is a lot, it seems like he started the season on a 12-game or started his first season, 12-game hit streak.
13.
Like 13.
This is just crazy.
What do you think the equivalent would be to basketball?
Like, you don't play basketball for 14 years, then you get put in the D-League, and then you put up like 10 field goals a game?
I think that A, I don't know.
It's Lynn Sanity.
Being Asian and playing that well so quickly.
That's the equivalent.
That's super impressive, man.
That's the greatest performance I've ever seen.
What is that?
Lynn Sanity putting up 38 on Kobe.
Yeah.
Shut up.
I'm just saying.
Jordan would not allow that.
Jordan would not allow that.
Get out of here.
Kobe's still the golf.
Jordan would not allow an Asian guy to score 38 points on the score 48.
Nah, nah.
Jordan wouldn't allow that.
Son, he was Asian American.
Say what?
He was Asian American.
Whatever, bro.
So, I mean, it's just insane, like, this guy's dedication.
And then talking about like hitting with his hands being raw.
Yeah.
Yeah.
His manager, who's Terry Francona, who ended up being his manager at the time, went up being the manager of like multiple World Series teams, winners.
A manager is the coach of a baseball team.
He said, if this is a lot of ad bats, he said with 1,500 ad-bats, he could have gone to the majors.
I don't even know if he would have needed that many.
I think he's saying that out of like respect for how hard the game is in his mind.
But I mean.
And to put this in perspective, for anybody who's not familiar with baseball, batting 200 is you hit the ball and you get on base two out of every 10 times.
You are an all-star in baseball if you bat if you bat 300 or over.
Yeah.
You're an all-star.
You're a hall of famer if you bat.
You're a guaranteed Hall of Famer if you bat 315.
Guaranteed.
I can believe it.
I don't know.
Right?
The highest batting average in 2019 in the MLB was 335.
Wow.
Think about this.
So it's like, yeah, it seems like crazy, but the single hardest thing of all sports is hitting a baseball.
I think that's the single hardest thing you can do in sports is hit a baseball.
I think golf.
The only reason I say no is there are a lot of scratch golfers that aren't, which means you golf par that aren't pros.
They're just country club guys that are like really good and they can hit par golf, right?
I don't know if there's scratch hit 90 mile per hour splitters out there.
You know, like you're competing against another guy, so your percentage is just lower.
But yeah, I don't, I think about him playing NFL wide receiver.
I would have loved to have seen that.
He ran a 4'3840 at 6'6, which is insane.
He ran under 4'4?
He ran in college.
Now it's the handheld timer, and they say that's slower than like the 22 a second action.
But he ran a 4'38, I believe, which is like even now at the combine.
That would be like, holy fuck, that's so fast.
By Randy Moss.
Randy Moss ran apparently four like high four twos, which is even crazier.
But Jordan is two feet taller and can jump higher.
Two inches, but yeah.
Two inches taller.
And he jump higher.
Yeah, and jump higher.
And I'm sure his catch radius is crazy.
His longer arms.
I mean, let's talk about hands alone.
Massive fucking hands.
Yeah.
I say his 40 time is 4.3 seconds.
4.3.
Yeah.
4-3-8, I think, is what I heard, but 4-3 is fucking crazy.
Deion Sanders.
Especially when you're not training for a 40.
Like in basketball, who cares about a 40?
He literally just put on some sneakers and ran straight.
Great point.
He would have been a fantastic wide receiver.
Basketball players need to bring back palming the ball, like doing moves because I love it.
And B does that a little.
Yeah.
More players need to do that.
That shit just looks nuts.
Yeah.
It looks like he's playing with a toy ball.
Yeah.
It is interesting.
Like when you look at Kobe's hands and Jordan's hands, not only size, but they look almost muscular.
Like when you see his hands in the documentary, did you guys pay attention?
You see his shooting finger.
This finger is kind of bent off to the side a little bit.
Yeah.
But like, I don't know.
There's something, there's something about that.
Like, it seems like the strongest part of them.
Like, that guy's fucking hands, man.
Like, I don't have any muscles on my hands.
I have pretty big hands.
Clearly.
But this, dude.
Bro, he has a faster 40 time than Odell Beckham.
Yeah.
Faster forward time than Julio Jones.
Faster than Antonio Brown.
I'm telling you, and he's 6'6, which is, again, Randy Moss was huge at 6'4.
Jordan is taller with longer arms and bigger hands.
It's crazy.
That's nuts.
Any sport.
Any sport.
If he went pro.
Tennis, imagine tennis, dude.
Oh, yeah.
Imagine the amount that he could cover.
Yeah, it'd be insane.
It's the serving, like, being tall, held to a serving.
You're just because you're serving.
Because you're hitting down the ball.
And every great server is always like 6'5, 6'6.
Just off of that, he'd win.
He'd be good just off of that.
He could play anything.
He's built for basketball, but he could play anything.
It's crazy to think about.
He could play anything.
What else?
What else would there be?
Where else would you have him?
Probably swimming like he's at.
Swimming with the sword.
Dude, swimming?
100%.
The size of the arms, the size of the hands.
I mean, these are your paddles, right?
That's what your hands are.
Yeah.
Fucking nuts.
Big feet, like flippers.
I mean, like, whatever he wants to do, he can do it.
He was built for basketball, but he could have played anything.
Would you guys want to play with Jordan?
I almost want to just as like a test for myself.
Like, I want to see if I could handle that level of scrutiny and intensity and fuck you, you piece of shit.
And I want to know, I want to know that I would stand tall in the face of that.
Yeah.
It would not be fun to.
I don't think so.
No.
Yeah, I don't think so.
That shit be miserable, bro.
Yeah.
You would just dread every single day.
Yeah.
Going to practice.
Oh, I'm going to get yelled at.
I'm going to get beat up.
Like, if you don't have that same drive, like, trying to get on that level every day, day after day, is exhausting.
And I know me personally, I just have a problem people talking down to me.
Like, that shit.
I'd be one of the first players to punch him back.
Yeah, I would want to do it.
I would want to do it.
Handling Intense Scrutiny00:08:19
But I like eye control.
I'd maybe try it one season just to, because if you know Jordan is Jordan at the time, it's like, okay, I just want to be around greatness.
Yeah.
And I want to know I can, like, I can handle the strongest level of scrutiny or whatever.
There's like a weird thing with me that's like, I like to test myself like that.
Like, can you stand up to that?
But now, what if you're playing in a pickup league and there's a guy with the same tenacity and like, let's say, like, equivalence in the league as Jordan?
I don't give a fuck because there's no stakes for me in a pickup league.
You're showing up to every game and he's yelling at you.
That's me, but not as good.
That's what, no, I remember I literally was watching this and I was like, oh, how he talks to his teammates.
That's how I talk to people when we play basketball.
Alex, we played basketball before.
Like, I have people who just don't talk to me anymore because of it.
Just because of the way we play basketball.
Like, guys that are on the team, right?
There are a certain guy who won't say names, but like, we're not friends anymore just because of how I talk to them on the court.
That's hilarious.
Yeah.
But did no one ever check you on that and be like, yo, what are they going to do?
Say, I'm not going to, I don't want to do this anymore.
Yeah.
I'm taking my ball.
I'm going home.
Go home.
Yeah, no, I didn't.
The league still goes on.
Yeah.
In my mind, better.
I used to do that shit when I was a kid and I would play with people and like I would scream at motherfuckers.
Yeah.
And my sister was like, don't do that anymore.
That's really dumb.
And then I like stopped.
But like, usually the punch in the face usually makes you stop.
Yo, a physical altercation definitely changes things.
For me, it probably would definitely change things.
But like, I yell at motherfuckers when we're playing ball.
It could be pickup.
It could be anything.
You see how crazy I am?
Three on threes.
Yeah, no, I know.
In a three-on-three, half-court game, I will walk up and I'll take the ball away from you if the possession is important.
And you don't feel guilty afterwards?
We should win.
Afterwards, the game's over, you won, and everyone's like, let's go have drinks.
And you're like, man, I'm really embarrassed that I was so crazy.
No, no.
No, because when you're in the game, it's different.
Yeah.
Like, it's like rules don't exist when you're playing.
And then after the game, you just forget what happened during the game.
Right.
But then afterwards, people were like, man, you were going really hard.
Nah, because what happened in the game, that's not part of real life.
Right.
So you can't tell me about what happened in the game.
I remember yelling at a kid in college and he just like it hurt his feelings so badly that I felt bad and I was like, you know what?
I could probably get away with this if I was taller.
But like getting yelled at by me, it's got to be like extra like, what the fuck, man?
Because he was like tall and he like kind of goofy and I gave him like a perfect like just right there under the basket pass and it went right through his hands.
And I look at him like, what the fuck, man?
And then the look in his eyes, I was like, yo, I remember that break motherfucker.
That broken look, I was like, yo, shit.
I don't know, man.
Breaking someone like that.
Like, there was a kid on our team that quit because like the seniors were too hard on him.
Shouldn't be.
We were yelling at him.
Shouldn't be there.
And his dad had just died.
And like, he didn't deserve it.
Shouldn't be there.
I saw him in class afterwards.
He'd be like, how's the team going?
And be like, I'm sorry.
Better.
If I know we can yell at each other, let's go.
No, no, no.
Ain't no, if you know this is.
Because me and you played a lot of pickup ball in New York City when New York City was rough outside.
So it was like, it was constant shit talking.
Like that was part of the game.
If you ain't talk shit, like you were just, you probably didn't play.
Simple as that.
Because some people will try to like, you'll call next.
And some people are like, nah, no, no, I got it.
He's like, no, nigga, I got next.
Like, so just to play is a fucking there's a lot of animosity just playing, but also it like I come from a place where if you lost, you had to wait five games.
Like I didn't grow up in a fucking like country club where it's like, well, I'll just go shoot around over there.
There was one court and there was 50 dudes and it was a fucking hour wait if I got to go on again.
So if you're missing layups or you're not playing D, if you're not giving effort, the fuck you doing on the team?
That's the way I looked at it.
It was like, what am I doing?
Like, even when we were playing in the league games, like Effort would drive you crazy.
If you're not given effort, go.
That's the thing about it.
I'll empty the tank.
I'll always empty the tank.
I'll never ask you to do more than I'm doing.
I'll never do it.
I'll always empty the tank.
But if I see you not fucking making an effort, come on.
No effort is rough.
Come on, bro.
But that's why, like, there's certain guys who will always be able to play.
Like, me and Jameel will always be able to play well because I can say whatever I want to Jamil.
It doesn't matter.
He's a robot.
He's fucking, he's locked in.
He's going to do exactly what he does.
It doesn't matter what you say to him.
No amount of shit talking could ever affect him.
I feel like Kawhi actually.
He's Kawhi.
There's like no emotion.
He could score mad threes.
That's it.
In your mouth.
Bang, bang, bang.
Simple as that.
That's why I like.
Yeah.
That's funny that you say that.
Anyway.
Anything else we should touch on?
Let's wrap this up.
Check my little notes.
You haven't talked about Jordan crying at the end of episode eight.
We did.
First thing we talked about at the end of episode 7.
Did I miss it?
Yes.
No, not at episode 7 when he's like on the ground sobbing.
Oh, yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah, he killed his dad.
I almost got emo at that.
That's the only thing that made me think he killed his dad when he was crying.
That's such a type of crying.
I was like weeping.
That's an exorcism, bro.
Yeah.
That's like you hold that shit in for a long time.
Yeah.
I almost got emo at that shit.
Did you?
Because to see hearing it, dude, hearing it.
Yeah, to hear that, to see someone not able to weep like that.
I'm like, that's coming from deep.
You know what I mean?
So if I was fucking Scott Burrell, whatever, I'd be in there like, man, get off the ground, you whimpering ass bitch.
He's a hoe now.
That was you.
That was you watching Upward, bro.
Don't talk about that movie.
Disney's been fucking advertising that shit.
I can't even see the advertisement, bro.
How are you going to do a part two?
He loses mom.
Just everybody around this motherfucker dies.
Oh, man.
Yo, you know, I thought of when I saw that, I was like, man, you can't even cry in private if you're Michael Jordan.
Like, your most vulnerable moment in your entire life.
There's four cameras watching you.
Yo, turn the light off or something.
It was too bright.
I can't cry in that bright.
That's why he's covering his eyes, you think?
He's still, yeah.
It was just like so, it was like hospital room bright in there.
Son, he still did the post-game interview.
That's where I'm like, this guy's a little sociopathic.
Like, I remember Dirk as a Mavs fan won a championship and just, it had been so many years.
Before the game is over, he runs off the court, starts crying on the locker room.
They have to like force him to come out for the post-game.
Jordan gets the ball.
He's on the ground, does the post-game, compartmentalizes everything, then goes to the locker room and fucking weeps like we've never heard anybody weep before.
Wow.
That's like the level of compartmentalization that takes to be like, yeah, I'm listening.
I'm going to do this and then I'm going to go fucking lose my mind.
To me, that's like, this guy's crazy.
But do y'all not do that?
Do y'all not save up cries?
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I mean, that's a real thing.
That's why I get it out on the plane.
Yeah.
I hold like whatever shit that gets built up and then I'll watch something sad to invoke it and then just let it out of the plane and nobody's paying attention to me and boom, get it out.
I cry once a quarter.
I give myself a good cry once a quarter.
Yeah.
And I have like, I'll watch like top 10 like saddest movies.
I have my things that I can go to.
I'll go like top 10 saddest movie scenes.
I'll do the what's the guy who died from cancer that does the SPN guy.
He had that long-term John Valvano there, Jimmy V. I'll watch the Jimmy V. Stuart Scott.
No, no, no, no, that shit don't tear me up.
The Stuart Scott shit.
Ton.
But the Jimmy V, bro.
And I'll just be crying in my life.
Nah.
No, I'm just exhausted.
I don't feel shit.
I just got to cry to remind myself what feelings are.
I don't got time for that shit.
But it bubbles up.
And every once in a while I go, honestly, crying and jerking off.
Like if I wasn't fucking regular for like a couple weeks, I'd be like, why am I in a bad mood?
What the fuck is going on?
And that'd be, oh shit, did I not nut for a couple weeks?
All right, let me jerk off and I get it out and I'm good.
Crying is like jerking off.
Both of them, I just need that release, but I fuck more than I cry.
Oh, that's why they call it a tear.
That's why you're a man, yo.
You fuck more than you cry, like a man.
That's what men do, bro.
That's what men do.
But for real, I need to get a cry out every once in a while.
And that's why I don't like that.
Say again.
When was the last time you cried?
That onward shit fucked with me because it like I didn't want to get to get it out yet.
It wasn't ready for me to do it.
Right.
And it just, you can't, there's nothing I could do in that moment.
The gates open, the levees broke.
Craig Sager's Political Questions00:03:42
That was it.
That was it.
Damn.
Even now to this day.
I just thought about I'm going to bring the VR on the planes.
And then if I cry, you're going to missed up the VR.
Yeah, shit's going to get filled up with water.
Yeah, yeah, you can't do that.
You can't.
You got to take that shit off to cry, bro.
Everybody's just looking at you.
Man, I just be crying.
I don't know what y'all talking about.
Son, I don't know how you got it.
Yeah, when was your last purge?
Compartmental.
When was your last purge?
I think it was also onward.
Son, the quarantine must be rough on you, dog.
Quarantine must be rough on you.
You can't get it.
Well, yesterday, almost during this fucking documentary, that scene where Jordan, I always felt that.
So when you cry, do you do the same?
Andrew's going to let that cry out like two to three months.
Watching Jordan be sad, it's in there a little.
It's like 2% in you.
And then in two, three months, we're going to be on a plane.
You're going to watch rerun of COVID again.
Yeah.
You'll let it out around mid-August, I think.
What month is it now?
It's mad.
Many men enter the fucking Spider-Versus.
That's the thing with me.
Is it like, it could be a ring.
I just realized this.
It's not the movie.
It's where I am at the stage.
Yeah.
Right.
If you're filling up.
You know what it is?
You know that like when you go to the arcade and that game that got all the quarters that are like pushed up to the ends and you think one quarter that you put in could push everything out?
That's what I am with crying.
So that's how I knew Onward was good because there wasn't even quarters on it.
And it filled you up so much.
That shit just fell right off.
It just shot up.
Let's wrap this up.
Yo, last thing I want to say, Craig Sager is a G, dog.
The first question of the first episode, he's asking Jerry Krauss, you think it's going to be tough to win with all the backstabbing, you know, between you and the coach?
Like, he goes right at that motherfucker.
Was it Craig Sager?
That was Sager.
Yeah, they say Craig Sager.
And I was like, yo, geez, I see why he gets respect.
Because he didn't say, he didn't stop at with all the backstabbing going on and all the rumors.
He just says, between you and the coach.
And then Jerry Kraus gets super defensive.
But like, the balls to ask that question.
Man, great for you.
Great for you.
R.I.P., man.
Yeah, for real.
R.I.P. That's right.
Someone after it goes, Good job, Craig.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
What a beast, dude.
Anyway, man, one more weekend of this.
It's a shame.
It's coming to an end.
So sad.
I love talking about the.
You know what's interesting?
This is how I could tell how invested we all are in this.
Is when we come and do a regular episode of Flagrant, we just busting balls, joking around, like making fun of each other, et cetera.
When we come in here, it's business.
It's business, bro.
Like, I feel like we're breaking this shit down.
Like, you know, like CNN talks about a debate or something like that.
Like, I don't even want to joke around.
Like, there are times where I'm like, ah, a joke could go here, but it wouldn't make sense.
It wouldn't be appropriate.
It wouldn't be appropriate.
Like, we are.
It's not disrespectful.
It's not really.
Wait, is Scotty Pippen selfish or not?
This is serious.
I feel you.
It's so inconsequential what we're talking about.
Like, it's basketball.
It means nothing.
It's stupid.
I judge people who are really into politics.
I was disrespectful.
But what I'm doing.
But it's stupid, right?
Go on, go on.
What'd you say?
What I'm into with sports, I'm so into all of it, and it has no consequence on anything in the world.
On nothing.
But I look at people who follow politics.
I'm like, y'all.
Jordan's fucking stupid ass person.
You fucking idiot.
He signed this bill.
What you know about bills, you fucking dork?
There was a bill signed in 80.
Shut the fuck up, right?
How many points Jordan has in his third season in the league, huh?
Oh, fuck.
Anyway, y'all.
Thank you guys for listening, man.
One more weekend.
One more fucking weekend.
It's sad to come see it come to see it come to an end.