After the Detroit Pistons, it was the New York Knicks that tried to become the ‘bad boys’ of the NBA. They were successful against most of their opponents in the NBA except for the Chicago Bulls. By that time, the Bulls had already gotten past the Bad Boy Pistons and Michael Jordan had gained some muscles to elevate his game on the hardwood. The Bulls-Knicks rivalry soon became the most intense rivalry in the 90s’ NBA. Despite this rivalry, there came a time when Jordan almost left his team to join the Knicks in 1996 for a $25,000,000 offer. Five years before he was offered the lucrative deal, Jordan put Patrick Ewing on a poster dunk.
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In 1988, MJ signed an 8-year/$ 25,000,000 contract, which was definitely underwhelming for a player of his caliber. It was time for the six-time champion to make money and capitalize on his market fame after that contract expired in 1996. At the time, the Knicks offered Jordan a massive single-year $25,000,000 deal. However, the Bulls could not afford to lose their franchise player and offered him a single-year $30,000,000 plus bonus deal.
Michael Jordan’s favorite dunk was on his friend Patrick Ewing
Patrick Ewing was one of Jordan’s best friends in the league. Ewing was a big man and it was almost impossible to dunk on him. However, there is a reason why Jordan is famously known as Air Jordan. MJ had an excellent vertical and the will of a lion that allowed him to dunk on players like Mutombo.
When asked about the most memorable dunk in his career, Jordan selected his poster on Ewing. “My most memorable dunk, that I think about very, very often, is the Patrick Ewing dunk,” said Jordan. On 30th April 1991, in Game 1 of the first round series between Knicks and the Bulls, Jordan put Ewing on a poster by throwing down a hammer on the Knicks legend.
In the 90s, the Bulls and the Knicks met a total of five times in the postseason. Of these five meetings, Chicago won four. The only time the Bulls lost was during the 1994 season when Jordan had temporarily retired from the NBA. Once Jordan came back from retirement, he restored Chicago’s dominance in New York.
Michael Jordan scoffed off Knicks’ John Stark as a difficult opponent
This resurfaced video shows MJ answering questions in a basketball camp. One member of the audience asked him about the hardest player he had to play 1-on-1. Jordan said that small guards like Allen Iverson and Rod Strickland posed problems for him. However, when an audience member took John Starks’ name, Jordan scoffed it off. This is what MJ said in the camp;
“The hardest opponent for me to play against in terms of one-on-one? Small guys. Iverson, Damon Stoudamire, Rod Strickland. Those little guards like that, it’s tough for me. Muggsy. Starks? No problem with Starks.”
MJ and Starks faced each other 24 times with the former averaging 31.4 against the latter, who averaged 12.8 points. That stat itself is a testament that Black Jesus didn’t have a problem against the 6-foot-3 All-Star.
