“Couldn’t Let Michael Jordan Dunk!”: Years Before Blowing $31,000,000, Former Heat Star Shed Light on His ‘Fight’ With MJ That Led to 39 Point Performance

Michael Jordan and Rex Chapman have been friends since before college. During their time in the NBA, their friendship was as strong as ever, as the two even shared the same agent. Yet, during the Bulls’ 72-10 season, the two had a little coming together, labeled by many as a ‘fight, something that caused the then-Heat star to go off for 39 points. However, years later, Rex Chapman was on the Dan Patrick Show, where he revealed that ‘the incident’ was something else entirely.

Chapman earned a total of $31,000,000 throughout his career in the NBA. However, soon after his retirement from the league, he was left with an addiction to prescription narcotics as per Sports Illustrated. Any money he had in the bank at the time was completely blown through at the time. After getting arrested on theft charges, and going to rehabilitation multiple times, the former NBA star now has his life back on track.

Rex Chapman and the Miami Heat had agreed to not let Michael Jordan dunk

Michael Jordan was fearsome from everywhere within the arc during his prime years. However, he was something akin to unstoppable once he gained entry into the lane.

Fearing the consequences of letting him into the inside legally, teams often had a rule of not letting him dunk through any means necessary, even if that meant fouling him (preferably before he got off the ground so as to not jeopardize his health).

Rex Chapman and the Miami Heat followed these same rules. And on one occasion, it resulted in the following incident. Take a look at the clip in the tweet by ‘White Bball Pains’ below.

However, while this may look like a fight, in reality, it was nothing more than Chapman explaining himself. Years later, here is what he said on the Dan Patrick Show.

“You couldn’t let Michael Jordan dunk. It was sort of a rule… You gotta foul him. Preferably before he gets off the ground not to hurt him… He was running through the lane. I turned my back and saw him coming… and sort of launched into him to get to him before he got off the ground. I don’t think we had the same agent forever. Michael called me to go to Carolina in 1984. So I’ve known him forever, but I think he didn’t see who got him. He did turn around to say something, we kinda get nose to nose. There was no anything really said worth anything. I think I said something like ‘I can’t just let you dunk it.’”

Perhaps it was Chapman’s friendship with Jordan that saved him initially. After all, despite Jordan being his primary defender, Rex finished the game with a whopping 39 points.

Of course, that kind of luck wouldn’t last long. As you can read here, MJ wasn’t in the mood to let bygones be bygones during their next contest. However, Rex Chapman’s Heat will always be the team that gave Michael Jordan’s Bulls one of their only 10 defeats during that historic season.

Jordan once intimidated Chapman with a bowling ball

Michael Jordan absolutely loved intimidating his competition. On one occasion, he, Rex Chapman, and a few other people went out to bowl.

And even then, the Bulls legend used a gaudy method to intimidate his opponents, something that worked perfectly as the former Heat star revealed. Read all the details of that story here.