Had Michael Jordan not won so many championships, the man would have been thrown and thrashed around the league for his arrogance
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Michael Jordan is as legendary and enormously successful a figure in the sports world as they come. But the man was notoriously infamous for being disrespectful towards his teammates and even other legends of the game.
For a man who demanded the utmost respect and the best performance out of his teammates, MJ was a tad too derogatory towards almost every individual he was teammates with.
If it was like that after he came back from his first retirement or the second, after he had won six championships, it would have been a different thing. But he was like that much before he started winning those rings.
So, imagine how arrogant he might have gotten with every championship success he has had in the 90s. Let’s hear what a Celtics legend has to say on this matter.
Robert Parish believed Michael Jordan never cared about crossing the line of disrespect
Have you heard of a man having an ego so big, that he sometimes had to create a story about himself getting disrespected, just to boost his own morale to perform better?
That’s MJ for you! And this story is told by the man himself on the Netflix Docuseries “The Last Dance.” Now, imagine dealing with that kind of ego every day in training and games.
That’s what his teammates had to go through for the 15 years he played in the league. But not all of them were as tolerant as Scottie Pippen.
Much like Steve Kerr, who didn’t take the crap by the then 3x NBA Champ and retaliated, the 7’1 legend of the game, Robert Parish, in his final year in the league, almost punched ‘His Airness’.
Parish was a 3x NBA champ, and a 9x All-Star, who played alongside Larry Bird for most of his career and never faced any disrespect by one of the greatest trash talkers of all time.
But he had to come to Jordan’s team in 1996. Imagine getting in the face of a 43-year-old, 7-footer. Jordan did take it too far.
MJ never saw any of his teammates as friends
While he had some friendships here and there, Jordan never had a true friend in the league for too long. He always managed to fend off most of them by saying something too personal on the court or off it.
You might have seen the man getting face to face and saying a lot of disgraceful things that your ears might bleed.
For a man with such talent and mastery over something, he was too arrogant. It wasn’t until he came back out of his second retirement to play for the Washington Wizards that he looked like enjoying the game much more than anything.
He even developed a good relationship with his closest predecessor Kobe Bryant in those two years. But even, then in practices, he reportedly made some of his teammates’ life a living hell. Jeez, that man was possessed.
