There’s been a lot of hype regarding Michael Jordan over the last week or so due to The Last Dance. However, the documentary doesn’t exactly reflect Jordan’s people skills or determination to being a good teammate.
Even Jordan himself claimed people were going to think he was a terrible guy after watching the documentary. However, his former teammate Etan Thomas would disagree with that statement. As a matter of fact, he even praised him as a positive guy during an interview with Inside Buzz’s Mikey Domagala:
“MJ was cool. If you ask 10 people, you’d get 10 different descriptions. My interactions with him were always really positive and one-on-one. I don’t have a negative thing to say about him,” the former big man said.
Obviously, Domagala didn’t get to know Michael Jordan from the early days, as he only shared the court and practice facilities with him towards the sunset of his career in the Washington Wizards.
Over the last couple of days, there’s been a debate about whether Jordan could or couldn’t dominate in today’s game. According to Thomas, Jordan would still be the most dominating scorer nowadays, as people wouldn’t be able to stop with without being extremely physical with him and fouling him every time he drove through the lane:
“He would dominate in this era. The defensive is different. We’re watching him against the Pistons — every time he went into the lane it was a hard foul. All fouls would’ve been flagrant today. Today, where you can’t touch someone? How do you guard him? You think Giannis is a problem? MJ right now… I can’t even imagine. He’d average 50,” the former Wizards added.
Jordan was used to being the King of the world back in the day, yet he didn’t get superstar treatment like most All- do today. If he were playing in today’s league, he’d get 20 to 25 trips to the line on a nightly basis, even more than James Harden does.
Also, Thomas claimed that Jordan was used to dealing with that kind of worldwide fame back in the day and that he was pretty cool about it, but it was still quite impressive watching him break havoc all around the country every time they traveled together:
“It was like traveling with Michael Jackson or the Beatles. We’d travel to a city and there’d be thousands of people waiting for us. People would look at him and start crying. They’d touch him and faint. We used to look at that and go “wow.” He couldn’t go to regular places. They had to shut down a whole mall for him,” Thomas added.
Thomas got to see a less explosive Michael Jordan that became more of a shooter than a driver. It’s normal when you’re looking at a player that’s 40 years old and trying to stay sharp in the league. Still, he adjusted and averaged over 20 points per game during his final two seasons.
However, Jordan’s body just didn’t answer the same way. Father Time doesn’t spare anybody, and not even MJ was an exception to that rule. According to Thomas, you could tell by the way his knees swallowed at the end of practice, but that didn’t stop him from giving 110% every night out there:
“He definitely did, but his body was different. He had a 40-year-old body. We were in the training room and his knee would swell up after games. It was the nastiest thing I’d ever seen. They drain his knee and this black tar, goo looking stuff came out and I asked him ‘you’re MJ, you don’t have to play, why are you doing this?’ He looked at me and shook his head and had no answer. His drive and push? He had all of that. He was so competitive in practice,” he concluded.
That competitive spirit sure made Jordan an enemy or two both inside and outside the locker room. Still, that’s one of the main reasons why he ended up being the greatest player in the history of the game.
