The third pick in the 1993 NBA Draft, Penny Hardaway was among the guards whose peak was unfortunately cut short by lower-body injuries. But during the few seasons where his explosiveness was on full display, Hardaway looked like the next big star.
Advertisement
He had high expectations from himself too, ranking parts of his game above that of Michael Jordan. Penny was on ‘Grit and Grind’ Grizzlies’ Tony Allen and Zach Randolph’s podcast, Out The Mud, when they touched on Trevor Ariza’s comment that Hardaway was a better player than MJ during his brief peak.
“I’ll say this because everybody can say MJ is the GOAT, right?” Hardaway began. “But when you got guys that understand what they like in somebody’s game — playmaking, passing, shooting — my skillset was higher than MJ’s. So that’s probably what he [Ariza] is like, man he’s better than MJ from a skillset point of view. MJ is the GOAT, I’ll show that love,” Penny admitted.
It’s hard to argue with the four-time All-Star’s take. Though his career didn’t enjoy the longevity and dominance that Jordan did, there were undeniable aspects to his game in which he performed better than MJ.
For the first four seasons of his career, His Airness struggled to crack even the 20% mark from three-point range. It was a different league at the time of course, but Hardaway always had that element to his game. He shot close to or above 30% from deep during his first seven NBA seasons, making himself a legitimate three-level scorer.
Furthermore, as a point guard, Penny was also more adept at leveraging his threat to create advantages for his teammates. Even Jordan’s head coach Phil Jackson has admitted that the six-time champion was never tasked with those responsibilities.
If it wasn’t for his knee, Hardaway could have competed with Kobe Bryant for the title of the NBA’s next great guard. And that’s what he expected to do too when Mike first hung up his jersey.
Hardaway thought Jordan’s retirement would pave the way for his ascension
Before the release of ‘The Last Dance’, ESPN interviewed Penny Hardaway about his experience playing in the league during Jordan’s brief stint in baseball’s minor leagues. “You know, it’s so weird because we were all fans before we got to the league. When we got there, he [Jordan] wasn’t in the league. He came back and I was kind of like, ‘I’m the big dawg’,” Hardaway shared with Jalen Rose and David Jacoby.
“That was my mentality because I had already been in the league and established myself,” he explained. “But quickly, playing the Bulls, you could tell he was rusty, but you could tell he was a bad dude, man.”
Of course, Penny would land the first blow to Jordan after he returned to the NBA in 1995. With Mike back in the lineup, Chicago would go 13-4 to end the season and advance till the second round of the Playoffs, where Hardaway and Shaquille O’Neal awaited them.
Orlando would win the hotly contested series in six games, becoming the only team to defeat MJ in the postseason between his three-peats. However, that would also put them on Mike’s radar, as he would return in hot form the next season and help the Bulls sweep Orlando on the way to his fourth NBA title.
