Hall of Famer Michael Jordan has been with Nike for decades now, and his good friend Fred Whitfield once found out just how fiercely loyal he is to the brand the hard way. Whitfield, the former COO and president of the Charlotte Hornets, appeared on the latest episode of The JustIn Time Podcast, where he recounted Jordan discovering Puma gear in his closet.
“So Michael came to Greensboro for my basketball camp and played my pickup game,” Whitfield said. “And I can remember, one evening he said, ‘Hey, man, if we’re going out, I need to grab a jacket.’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure.’ I said, ‘Just go in my closet.’ This is when I was practicing law. I had a little two-bedroom apartment in Greensboro. And he went in my closet.
“And at the time, I had my closet split in half,” Whitfield stated. “One half was all these Nike sweatsuits with the matching shoes underneath. The other half was all Puma sweatsuits and sneakers beneath, that came from my visit to Puma’s headquarters with Ralph Sampson, who had also become a really close friend. And of course, the Nikes were from my trips out to Portland to Beaverton with Michael.
“And so he comes out of my closet, and he has all of my Puma sweats in his arm, like he’s hugging them, and he dumps them on the living room floor,” Whitfield continued. “He goes back in my closet and gets all the Puma shoes, puts them on the living room floor. He goes in my kitchen and gets a butcher knife, and he just starts cutting all my sweatsuits up and all my sneakers.
“And he said, ‘Hey man, either you’re with me, or you’re not. You can’t ride the fence,'” Whitfield added. “He said, ‘Don’t ever let me see you in anything other than Nike.’ And that was in 1989. And to this day, I’ve never had another pair of sneakers on that weren’t either Nike, Jordan, or Converse.”
Mind you, Jordan had only signed with Nike in 1984. In just five years, he was loyal to the point that he couldn’t tolerate a friend of his having another brand’s gear in his house.
Now, of course, Jordan didn’t want to sign with Nike at first, as he loved Adidas. He told the latter he’d sign with them if they matched the former’s offer, but they didn’t even come close. That might be the biggest mistake in Adidas history. In the 2025 fiscal year, Jordan Brand’s revenue was $7.3 billion, according to Yahoo. It had actually fell 16%, but was still ridiculously high.
That could have been with Adidas. Instead, Jordan now can’t stand them.
Former boxing champion Andre Ward once shared how Jordan reacted when someone wore Adidas sneakers around him. He nearly made the individual take off the shoes. Jordan also made an Adidas athlete take off all his gear and wear Nikes when he came to his house. As he told Whitfield, you’re either with him or against him.
As for Whitfield, he and Jordan first crossed paths at his alma mater, Campbell University, in Buies Creek, North Carolina, in 1980. They’d grow very close over the years. After Jordan purchased a minority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats in 2006, Whitfield was announced as president and COO. In 2018, he was promoted to president and vice chairman.
Whitfield only stepped down in 2023 due to health reasons after a successful battle with throat cancer.
