The competitive fire in the hearts of the NBA’s greatest players burns strong. They respect their contemporaries, but their inner competitor refuses to succumb. Many recognize Bulls legend Michael Jordan as one of, if not the greatest NBA player of all time. However, when people praised the six-time champion too much, it rubbed some players the wrong way. An instance of this came from a coach of Julius Erving, who had no limits to his praise for Jordan.
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The biography, Michael Jordan: The Life, by Roland Lazenby, highlighted an account from former Sixers coach Matt Guokas. Before a game against the Bulls, Guokas continuously praised Jordan. Sixers star Dr. J became annoyed, and his response opened Guokas’ eyes. The former coach said,
“I remember we were getting ready to play. It was in a back-to-back situation, and I was trying to make sure our guys were ready to go. I was going on and on about Michael. Doc kind of like had his head down and he was sort of fiddling with his sneakers or whatever. He finally looked up. He’d had enough of it. He said, ‘Hey, wait a minute. We can play, too, you know.'”
Following Erving’s comment, Guokas immediately realized his wrongdoing. However, his words lit a fire under the Sixers players to prove that they can compete against Jordan. Guokas continued,
“I said, ‘You’re right.’ It was a good lesson to learn. Enough said. I didn’t need to be going on about how great he is. He and Andrew Toney went out and beat the bejeebers out of Michael that night.”
According to Guokas, the Sixers’ domination was led by Erving and Andrew Toney. The most important thing is Philadelphia came out with a victory over the Bulls. However, there were no hard feelings between Erving and Jordan. Matter of fact, the Sixers legend enjoyed playing against MJ.
Erving’s enjoyment of competing against Jordan
Erving didn’t get the opportunity to compete against Jordan in his prime, but the two had great duels. The four-time MVP played against a young MJ before he became ‘Air Jordan’ but enjoyed every second of it.
In a guest appearance on the Knuckleheads Podcast Erving recalled a moment between Jordan that he will remember forever. Erving said,
“I remember one time he came down and dunked on our whole team. And then I went down and dunked on his team. So I’m looking at him, and he’s looking at me. And he was like … ‘I can do it again, you know?’ And I was like, ‘Alright, well, I only get one shot at it and I made it!’ But it was fun.”
