You don’t talk trash to Michael Jordan. Perhaps more than any athlete in history, he thrives off of it. He lived to annihilate players –not just defeat them, but destroy their confidence. There are a myriad of stories about Jordan’s exploits, and another one has just surfaced, this one coming from Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson, which he told while on Jimmy Kimmel Live:
This is hilarious, and just so very Jordan. If you’re a fan of the NBA, WATCH THE VIDEO. It’s only three minutes long, and is awesome. I’ll sum up the video below in case you can’t watch at the moment, but you really, really should, because Magic’s narration makes it even better.
Johnson told Kimmel that he only talked trash once in his entire life. Unfortunately for Magic, that was against Michael Jordan:
“We’re with the Dream Team,” Johnson told Kimmel. “For three days in a row, we came into a tie because what Coach [Chuck] Daly did was split the team into East vs. West. So, [Charles] Barkley, Jordan, Larry Bird, [Scottie] Pippen, and Patrick Ewing all played in the East, and then we had the West guys: Myself, David Robinson, [Karl] Malone, [Chris] Mullin, [Clyde] Drexler, and John Stockton. So, we would play every day. Tie.
So, this was the fourth day, and we got out on them about 12-2.” Johnson continued. “And I said, ‘I’m going to really rattle his chain.’ So I went over there and tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, man. If you don’t turn into Air Jordan, we’re going to blow you out today.”
Jordan took that to heart, according to Johnson. His eyes “got big,” and he stuck his tongue out. He kept his tongue out while he proceeded to knock down back-to-back threes, and then making what Johnson described as “the greatest shot” that he had ever seen, beating out the famous Julius Erving baseline scoop shot, and a double-clutch by Jordan.
This shot was even better than those two, says Johnson. He described that shot:
“He came down the right side, took off. David Robinson took off.” Johnson says that Jordan then hung in the air, 360’d around Robinson, and dunked the ball –tongue out the whole time, of course.
What I would give to have been able to see that shot. It’s unfortunate that it came in a practice game, and thus we have no records of it. It sounds pretty incredible, though. As Kimmel points out at the end of the video, the moral of this story is: “You should not talk trash to Michael Jordan.” Kimmel is correct.
