Bryon Russell is somebody who’s featured prominently in a couple of the best moments in the storied career of Michael Jordan.
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In an interview with HoopsHype, the only 4 players to be teammates both with LeBron James and Michael Jordan were featured. These 4 players are Jerry Stackhouse, Brendan Haywood, Scott Williams and Larry Hughes. All of them had some great revelations to make about both players.
Jordan’s penchant for being a trash talker is something every basketball fan knows now. The Bulls legend would wear opponents down both psychologically and physically on the court.
How Michael Jordan trash talked Bryon Russell when on the Wizards
In the interview, Brendan Haywood revealed what a nasty guy Jordan played as during his Wizards tenure. In addition to demoralizing Kwame Brown, Jordan was also hard on a couple of his other teammates.
These included Bryon Russell, over whom Jordan has two famous gamewinners:
“Some of the days in practice, what MJ was saying to Byron Russell were just flat-out embarrassing. He would just go after this guy! It wasn’t like he didn’t like him. It’s just how he was. They used to compete in practice but Russell was just a glutton for punishment.”
“He would talk trash to MJ every day. But you can’t win that battle. One day, MJ was cooking him and he pulled up and hit a game-winner. He said: ‘That’s why they call you the human highlight reel. Not because you have any highlights of your own but because you are in all of mine.’ That’s GOAT trash talk. That shut it down.”
It goes without saying that Russell and Jordan actually were close off the court. That is part of the reason why MJ is so revered. He was a gentleman off the court, but a killer on it.
