The success of coaching is measured apart from just winning, great coaches make their players better. Four-time NBA champion Craig Hodges stated that Michael Jordan did the same for his teammates, as a player, even comparing his impact to player-turned-coaches Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
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“He brought the intensity in not only scrimmage, but in drill work, that made everybody around him to take their game to a level,” Craig stated on the BlackTree TV podcast.
Hodges was a three-point specialist, who still holds the record for most consecutive shots (19) made in the three-point contest. The Chicago Bulls landed the guard in 1988 and he was on the team for their first two NBA championship runs. The Bulls waived him after the 91-92 season, but he was in town long enough to witness Jordan’s impact.
LeBron James has often been spotted calling out plays for his co-stars. But MJ had a different way of preparing his team. According to Craig Hodges, he was able to get more out of his teammates than players-turned-coaches, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
“When you look at Magic and Bird, who were great players but their coaching wasn’t that, it was okay, you know what I mean?” Hodges added, “Because it’s hard to relate greatness.” He believed that no NBA superstar could successfully communicate the game the way they saw it. At least not through words. “Greatness is something that emerges from the experience,” explained Craig Hodges.
For him, the experience in this case was the pre-game practice. Hodges contextualized how the 90-91 Bulls locked in due to the intensity of their workouts. It didn’t just prepare their body, but it also allowed them to prepare for the various looks they would receive from defenses.
“That’s what we gave to one another every day in practice – different looks. So that now when the season came…Very rarely did we have to make monumental decisions and changes,” Hodges added.
This was spearheaded by Michael Jordan, whose intensity urged the entire team to take practices seriously.
MJ did not want to win alone
Much has been said by Jordan’s teammates about how hard the six-time champion pushed players. Perhaps as a coach, he would have hurt the sentiments of his team. But as a member of the team, Mike led by example, asking of others what he was already willing to do.
“When people see this, they’re gonna say ‘He [Jordan] wasn’t really a nice guy, he might’ve been a tyrant. Well, that’s you. Because you never won anything. I wanted to win but I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well,” MJ explained during The Last Dance.
This is why even though Jordan punched Steve Kerr during practice, the championship-winning teammates harbor no bad blood. His Airness didn’t push his team for kicks, he did it for wins. That’s how Michael Jordan won the Chicago Bulls six NBA championships.
