Michael Jordan reportedly never won 3-point contests while retired despite being the one who held them to win a pair of shoes.
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Michael Jordan had the luxury of retiring thrice during his career in the NBA and yet managed to accumulate a net worth of $2.1 billion. Each retirement that he had between 1984 and 2003 served a meaningful purpose but none of his hiatuses were as important as his first one that he took after winning the 1993 Finals MVP.
That same year during the summer, Jordan’s father, James Jordan, was found to have been murdered in his car. This led to Michael having second thoughts on what he wanted to do going forward and after 9 years as a Chicago Bulls, held a press conference to announce his retirement from the game of basketball.
There were several factors as to why he went through with such a drastic measure: the weight of his father’s passing, James wanting him to have always tried out professional baseball, and the fact that his love for the game was dwindling ever since the 1992 Olympics, according to Magic Johnson.
Despite going all out and making the Birmingham Barons roster, Michael Jordan still had an itch to go hoop whenever he could.
Michael Jordan would play pick-up at random fitness centers.
Being Michael Jordan meant you could play pick-up ball at any fitness center you wanted to in Chicago. H*ll, you could do so in any fitness center in the United States of America. So, with no constant stream of basketball games being ‘provided’ to him, MJ began to yearn to hoop. This led to him taking the court at random fitness centers in the Chicago area.
Of course, Jordan dominated in every one of the pick up games he played in, to nobody’s surprise. He would even talk trash to the ‘average Joes’ that would pull up to the fitness centers despite the obvious gap in skills (goes to show that perhaps Dejounte Murray isn’t doing all too much at these Pro-AM games).
Underneath the post that showcased a clip of Jordan dunking at these centers, a man who was actually present wrote, “That’s me in the turquoise shirt! I ran the gym and also played with Mike and against him.” You can see him in the second slide in the background as MJ goes up for the dunk.
Scottybrown1 (the man’s Instagram handle) would then go on to say, “He would come into the gym and would have a 3-point shooting contest. Whoever won got a pair of his shoes. I never saw him win one of those contests.”
If we are to take him on his word, it’s safe to say that Michael Jordan stuck to his word on not wanting to get better at shooting 3s so as to not become reliant on them.
