Chris Mullin was a guest on All The Smoke. When talking about his experience with the 1992 Dream Team, Mullin shared a previously unheard tidbit about the now-legendary closed-door practice session led by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. As the two phenoms were going at it, Larry Bird stood from afar, snickered, and told Magic to pass Jordan the proverbial torch, as he was the best player there now.
“Magic and Bird were guys I looked up to… It was a grabbing of the torch. Larry passed it. A lot of those practice sessions you talked about, one of those was in Monaco. We went to San Diego for training camp and had to qualify for the Olympics because we lost in ’88… We went to Monte Carlo, played the French national team, and didn’t really play well.”
“So, Chuck Daly is like, ‘We need one more practice before we go to Barcelona.’ That’s where that practice happened. Closed-door, no one in the gym. Chuck Daly split up the teams. Michael had a squad, and Magic had a squad, and they were just talking trash. I remember Michael just going at Magic, and Magic was not giving up. One of the greatest players of all time, and still he wasn’t going to just hand it over.”
“Larry had a bad back. I remember during the scrimmage, and everyone is talking sh*t. You looked over at Larry, and he’s just laughing while [shaking his head] and saying, ‘It’s over, man. Leave that guy alone, man. We had our time in the sun.’ It was cool to see, not only Michael take it, but Magic fight for it, and then go ‘Here, you got it.'”
It’s fascinating to hear this is how the dynamics between the three superstars were at the time. Both Bird and Magic were coming to the end of their careers at that time, and Jordan had firmly cemented himself as the best player in the NBA. But MJ had to snatch the torch from Magic’s hands, who wasn’t ready to give it up just yet, despite not playing in the NBA anymore.
College Jordan More Athletic Than Magic And Isiah Thomas
During the same interview, Mullin also spoke about his experience teaming up with Michael Jordan at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The former Warriors star revealed that in the build-up to the tournament, the Olympics team had to play against several NBA squads. Despite playing against stars like Magic, Isiah Thomas, and Kevin McHale, Jordan was the most athletic player on the court each time.
“I saw Michael for the first time at the McDonald’s All-American game… In ’84, we played eight exhibition games against NBA teams. If you look at those rosters, it was Magic, Isiah [Thomas], [Kevin] McHale – all the top guys. Almost every night, Michael was the best player by far as a junior in college. Everybody knew it.”
It appears Jordan was an electric player from day one. So, his astronomical success should come as no surprise if what Mullin is saying is true. For a third-year college player to be better than some of the most decorated and talented professionals in the league during an exhibition game is remarkable.
Could it be possible that some of the NBA players weren’t playing at full speed due to it being an exhibition game that didn’t count? Perhaps. But given what we know about that generation of players and how competitive they were at every level, there is no doubt they wouldn’t want to be shown up by a group of college players and made them earn everything they could get on the floor.
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