Michael Jordan being as competitive as he was with his own teammates had its advantages and disadvantages. The obvious advantage was the fact that he made sure they got to taste the same level of championship victory that he did. The disadvantage was that he needed to help maintain solid relationships off the court with them. In one particular instance, he had his now ex-wife, Juanita Vanoy, who he’s had a $168,000,000 divorce with, cook meals for his teammates after gruelling practices.
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Both Jordan and Vanoy met each other when the former was still new to the city of Chicago after he had gotten drafted by the Bulls. They would start to date almost instantly and in 4 years time, they were married in 1989. Unfortunately, even before they had tied the knot, they were off to a rocky start as MJ feared that their first son, Jeffrey, wasn’t his.
While the paternity test proved that Jordan was the biological father, this was just the start of their problems. They kept it under wraps for a long time however and MJ over the years even had his wife involved with his basketball life.
Michael Jordan invited his Bulls teammate over for dinner and ‘busting his a**’
Scott Williams played in Chicago from 1990 to 1994 and would see Michael Jordan rise into superstardom right before him. His competitive drive was more than just something of note and Williams, in an interview with ‘HoopsHype’ talked about what it was like to practice with MJ.
“After he’d bust my ass in practice, he would say, ‘Hey, listen, Juanita is cooking spaghetti tonight. Come over for dinner.’ We broke some bread and we would watch whatever TNT game may have been on TV that night or we would find a game,” said Williams.
One thing ‘His Airness’ did well was leave the animosity out on the hardwood. While he didn’t have very many friends in the league, he knew how to keep the relationships that he had forged. If he felt as though he had gone a bit too hard during practice, he would do things like what is mentioned above, inviting a teammate to your home and having your wife cook a meal for them to clear out the air.
Michael Jordan once went off on Scottie Pippen for missing practice
Michael Jordan made sure his teammates made it to practice. He once dragged Dennis Rodman out of bed in Las Vegas after a weekend long bender and flew him back to the facility to make it to practice. So, when Scottie Pippen didn’t show up, he knew something wasn’t right.
According to one of the Bulls trainers, Scottie missed practice because his cat had passed away. Horace Grant, someone who had built a solid connection with Pippen, was consoling him for his loss. The fact that Scottie missed practice because his cat had died angered him.
In a fit of rage, MJ called up his teammate and said, “You get here. You oughta throw the cat in the garbage can.” Scottie, for as broken as he was, did eventually show up to practice and the team even wanted to hold a moment of silence for the cat.
