Michael Jordan is the GOAT of the NBA, as per most people, so there’s no doubting the fact that he is the greatest Chicago Bull ever too. During his prime in the 90s, MJ was the biggest contributor as the Bulls won 6 NBA championships in 8 seasons, arguably the greatest prime any player has ever enjoyed.
So when the Bulls decided to move on after the Last Dance, the players coming into the franchise had to deal with playing in MJ’s shadow. And considering that the team had entered a rebuild, this was hard for the younger players especially because the standards that had been set in Chicago were too high for anyone to fulfill.
Eddy Curry was one of the players that came into the franchise just a few seasons after Jordan, becoming the 4th overall pick in the 2001 NBA draft on a big contract at the time. And if things had been hard for the Bulls before, it got even worse when MJ returned to the league to play for the Washington Wizards in 2001, as they now had to play against Chicago’s most beloved icon in Chicago. Curry addressed this in an interview with DJ Vlad.
(starts at 4:25 minutes)
DJ Vlad: “Right, at that time, Jordan was playing for Washington? So how much of the ghost of Michael Jordan, how much of that was floating around the Bulls at the time?”
Eddy Curry: “Oh man, it was there, it was still there. I mean, you gotta think, even the fans that we had at the game were there because they had already bought season tickets to see Jordan play with the Wizards. All our fans were there to see MJ. All our fans were there because they had bought seats from a couple years ago. They didn’t make us feel about it, it definitely didn’t help that we were losing… I just wish I could’ve done more, personally, especially in those early years.”
The Chicago fans still supported their Bulls even if it wasn’t the same situation for them, but it’s hard to blame them for also wanting to see Jordan, even if he was on another team. The legend of MJ has always loomed large in the NBA, and it doesn’t help that the Bulls haven’t won a title since the icon retired for a second time.
