BJ Armstrong talks to Rex Chapman about how Michael Jordan may not the GOAT but he certainly is the greatest practice player of all time.
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Michael Jordan has become a player who has been mythologized ever since his retirement nearly 20 years ago. Even during his playing days, hearing stories about him, whether they were good or bad, felt as though they were talking about a superhuman of sorts, especially when tales of his Bulls practices were released.
It’s no surprise that Jordan was a stickler for perfection. During ‘The Last Dance’ docuseries, he had quite the emotional moment when talking about what he demanded from his Chicago Bulls teammates.
“I challenged people when they didn’t want to be challenged. I earned that right because my teammates who came after me didn’t endure all the things I endured. The one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn’t f**king do.”
“That’s how I played the game. That was my mentality. If you don’t want to play that way, then don’t play that way.”
Sometimes you struggle to contextualise greatest in small video clips. This is as close as you can probably come. #THEGOAT
— Jim Hamilton (@jimhamilton4) May 13, 2020
BJ Armstrong on how Michael Jordan was the greatest during practice.
BJ Armstrong witnessed Michael Jordan during the most formative part of the latter’s career. The trials Michael faced against Detroit, his ascension into one of the all-time greats, his eventual retirement to go play Minor League Baseball, and his eventual return to the NBA just to lose to Shaq and his Magic in the ‘95 ECSF were all events Armstrong was a part.
BJ understands ‘His Airness’ on a level most do not as he’s seen him do things most have not seen. While on a podcast with NBA sharpshooting retiree, Rex Chapman, he talked about the greatness of Michael Jordan behind closed doors i.e. during practices.
“My [welcome to Michael] moment was watching him play 35-40 minutes and then come to practice with the same energy and you’re like, ‘This isn’t normal.’”
“You know what stinks? We didn’t show him practice. Ok, he might be the greatest player ever. I don’t know who the greatest player ever is and he’s certainly somewhere in there. He was the greatest practice player I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen a guy practice this hard and that’s what we should be showing the kids.”[at 53:30 mark]
One thing about Michael Jordan however, according to his trainer, Tim Grover, was that he knew when enough was enough. That unfortunately, could not be said about MJ’s pseudo-protégé, Kobe Bryant.
