‘Larry Jordan Would Beat Me, Talk to Me and Not Let Me Forget About It’: How Michael Jordan Receiving Some Tough Love From His Brother Helped Him Become An NBA Legend

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan was one of the most fearless competitors, and some tough love from his brother Larry Jordan may have helped him.

Jordan became the most dominant player in the NBA during the 1990s as aside from putting up gaudy numbers and eye-popping stat-lines which he had done in the 1980s, he was finally winning too. He won a lot as well.

The Bulls won six championships in the 1990s, courtesy of two different three-peats, led by ‘His Airness’ himself. Jordan won Finals MVP in each of those titles and he was the NBA MVP five times as well. Nobody came close to matching his combination of winning and play.

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Michael Jordan Used To Get Beat Up By His Brother Larry Jordan In Basketball

Perhaps part of Jordan’s rise to NBA invincibility may have been the way he was brought up. MJ would routinely play pick-up ball with his brother Larry and MJ was often on the losing side of games, he only took positives away from it. Those losses helped light the fire that would fuel his acension to the top of the NBA world.

MJ spoke to SLAM Magazine in 1996 about the impact his brother had on him and how those pick-up basketball games used to go:

“Man, my older brother Larry used to kill me. He was older and bigger than me. He would beat me, talk to me and not let me forget about it. What that did for me was make me work that much harder to beat him. He had no idea that I was going to end up taller than him. I look at my games with him as a great experience when I was young, because I developed my love for the game and it made me work harder to get better.”

Turning a loss into something positive is only on par with the kind of athlete MJ was. He saw every moment as a learning opportunity and worked hard to take as many things away from his experiences as he could.

After all, not everyone becomes great at the game simply by playing the best or being the most athletically gifted. he mental battle and attitude that you carry around play huge roles as well. MJ clearly knew where his mind needed to be at and it helped him reach the heights he did.

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Post Edited By: Ashish Priyadarshi
Basketball Chicago Bulls Larry Jordan Michael Jordan NBA

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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