The Houston Rockets team of the early 1990s was one of the best basketball squads in history. The team, led by Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, won the title in back-to-back years in 1993-1994 and 1994-1995, on the back of Olajuwon’s MVP and DPOY season in 1994.
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Still, the narrative that followed the Rockets teams was that they only won those titles because Michael Jordan took time off to play professional baseball. Members of that Houston team don’t want to hear that, especially the outspoken Vernon Maxwell.
The two-time NBA Champion spoke about this during an appearance on the All The Smoke podcast. “We knew that year that year, in 93-94, we were gonna win the championship. We started out the year, I think we were 23-1. We knew it was a special year. And we had the big African in the middle,” said Maxwell.
When All The Smoke host Matt Barnes asked Maxwell about the MJ narrative, Vernon immediately shot that down and reminded fans that His Airness was there in the 1995 season.
“He was there the second year. Y’all got to understand when he took off 45 and put back on 23, Shaq and them beat em,” he barked. “Okay, so let’s stop acting like, ‘Oh he wasn’t in basketball shape.’ Naw f**k that he was in basketball shape.”
The always funny Maxwell does have a point. If Jordan wasn’t in “basketball shape,” then why would the Bulls have cleared him to play the second half of that ’95 season? That said, it was pretty clear that MJ had not been training for the endurance of basketball the same way he was building muscle for baseball.
In the acclaimed Netflix documentary The Last Dance, Famed personal trainer and businessman Tim Grover said, “The workouts are going to be totally different. Two totally different methods of training your body and muscles. This is going to be detrimental to your basketball career,” regarding Jordan’s workouts.
It makes sense why Vernon would say this about Michael. The two always butted heads when they were on the court, and Maxwell was one of the few players who could really get under the Jordan’s skin.
Vernon once confronted Jordan moments after getting dunked on
No one tells an NBA story quite like Vernon Maxwell. The Rockets legend regularly appears on All The Smoke to give the show hosts, as well as its loyal listeners, a good laugh.
One time on the show, he shared a story about how MJ slam dunked on him during a game in Houston. He was super impressed by His Airness’s athletic ability. “I ain’t never seen a motherf***er that spin and jump at the same time,” said a chuckling Vernon.
This led to the second part of his story. “This mother f***er spin and dunked on me and hit me on my ass. When running back, I grabbed this motherf***er, ‘Hey man, keep your motherf***ing hands to yourself.'”
You have to love the competitive spirit in Vernon. He didn’t care if fans came to see Michael; he cared about winning. Sure, Jordan and the Bulls would go on their second epic run the following season, but it doesn’t make him and the Rockets’ triumphs mean any less.
