Michael Jordan is a six-time NBA champion, a five-time MVP, and thought by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time. If there’s one quality that helped him achieve such success, it’s the fact that he was such a ruthless competitor. But according to Troy Bell, he sometimes takes it a little too far.
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Jordan is famous for taking everyone who ever doubted him and using it as fuel. He even used to invent slights from other players to motivate himself to destroy them. In short, there’s nothing MJ wouldn’t do to win.
That win-at-all-costs mentality served him well throughout his career, but a story told by Troy Bell on the Scorer’s Society podcast this week shed some light on how MJ can resort to cheating to get one in that W column.
Bell was a great player in college and, to this day, is the leading scorer in Boston College history. He only got a cup of coffee in the NBA, but one day in 2005, he got to play against His Airness in a game of 1-on-1 in Chicago. MJ was infamous for his gambling habits, and so, of course, there had to be $10,000 on the line.
“I did beat [Jordan] 1-on-1,” Bell said, “but I didn’t get the $10,000 because we ran it back. And I hate to say it like this, because he’s my favorite player, but for the people that were there that saw it, he kind of cheated his way to the win in the second game.”
Bell described winning the first game 11-5, then being up 10-4 in the second, following which they agreed to make it double or nothing. That’s when MJ’s over competitiveness manifested itself.
“It just got to the point where if he missed a shot, it was always a foul. I don’t think I called a foul either game,” Bell hilariously recalled.
That favorable self-whistle helped Jordan come back and win that second matchup to even the battle at a game apiece.
Bell described how Jordan initially wanted to play 2-on-2, but agreed to 1-on-1 instead after the Grizzly found the teams to be unfair.
Jordan is a billionaire, and he certainly could have afforded to lose $20,000, but as we’ve seen many times over the years, it’s not about the money with him; it’s about winning. It’s probably why he was able to pull off a three-peat with the Bulls, then retire to play baseball, then come back and three-peat again.
Jordan has a legacy to protect, so it’s unlikely that he’ll ever comment on this story, even if there would be no shame for a 42-year-old retired guy to lose to a 24-year-old who’s much closer to the top of his game. Father Time comes for us all eventually.
