During the 1990-91 season, the Chicago Bulls played one of their final games of the regular season in Miami. Craig Hodges, a former teammate of Michael Jordan at the Bulls, narrated a hilarious story about MJ from that game on the most recent episode of Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson‘s ‘All The Smoke’ podcast.
“We’re playing in Miami, we rolling at this time —so we going to shoot around and we leaving shoot around and we’re on the bus and MJ like “Man drop me off here.” And dropped him off at the bar, he said he going to have some beers, right?—he tells us to pick him up on the way back to the game. We pick him up, he still got his sweats on, you know MJ come to the game suited and booted all right? Still got his sweats on, pick us up, he gets on the bus, ‘yeah man I’m feeling good’, bubbly, can smell the beer on him, got 30 at half, all right. Going through warm-ups [MJ says] ‘Man I’m seeing three rims, I’m going to shoot at the one in the middle’—and then told us if y’all can’t beat them, we don’t need to win a championship. Y’all could beat them without me. But came in there and he got it done early and wouldn’t sat down”, said Hodges.
Michael Jordan bent the rules of the NBA several times in his career. From his signature sneaker getting banned to his gambling controversy, Jordan was not afraid of bending the rules. While there was never a rule against showing up to games inebriated, it would make him prone to getting fined by the Bulls or the league, depending on his behavior and conduct. Since the league was not involved in this, Jordan was so confident in his value to the Bulls that he wasn’t afraid of the potential disciplinary action the team could take against him.
Matt Barnes Compares Luka Doncic To Michael Jordan After This Beer Story
Following the aforementioned story, Matt Barnes compared it to what the Dallas Mavericks management did with Luka Doncic. He said, “That’s the kind of sh**, not that, but it bothers me what Dallas’s management is trying to portray Luka as. Like we aren’t grown men and can handle what we need to do. They’re mad ‘cause they think he smokes hookah and drinks beer, like if you knew what mot***f***rs was really doing and still going out there and being professionals like, shut that sh** up.”
What Matt Barnes fails to realize is Mavericks are likely maligning Luka Doncic publicly to convince themselves that they took the right decision to trade him. If Michael Jordan was ever in a position to be traded, who knows, the Bulls organization may have acted the same way. The similarity here is understandable as both players were the faces of their respective franchises. However, Jordan was never traded.
In my opinion, as employers of their services, especially in the modern era where players are earning a lot more than they did in Jordan’s era, the teams have a right to keep a check on their investments. But where do they draw the line? That’s the pertinent question that Barnes may be trying to highlight here.
Not saying that what the Mavericks are doing is right, since they could hamper Doncic’s entire NBA career with their comments. But at what point do the teams have a right to draw a connection between a player’s private life, tendencies, and their professional commitment? And could they have handled this matter privately instead of publicly throwing him under the bus?
