Former NBA player and head coach Mike Dunleavy Sr. revealed in an appearance on FanDuel TV’s Run It Back show that Michael Jordan nearly fought him when they first played against each other. Dunleavy first crossed paths with Jordan when the latter was with Team USA for the 1984 Olympics and accidentally slapped him in a game.
“It was a turnover, the ball gets thrown down to the left corner and he’s going from the left corner into the basket,” Dunleavy said. “And I’m at halfcourt, I’m just hustling, I’m just going after the play and I’m like, ‘No chance I’m getting this play,’ And all of a sudden he goes up, and I’m going up, and I take a swing at the ball.
“For people who watched him play a lot… he’d put the ball in front of his face and then he would rock it to dunk it,” Dunleavy stated. “Well, when the ball was right in front of his face, that’s when I swung and that’s when he moved the ball.
“So I have my full hand going through his face and I try to catch him on the way down,” Dunleavy added. “He wanted to fight when he got (down). I said, ‘Look, dude. I tried to catch. I get why you want to fight.'”
You can’t blame Jordan for wanting to fight after getting smacked in the face but it looks like the situation did not escalate. It was completely accidental and cooler heads prevailed.
Jordan would then go on to help Team USA win the gold at the Olympics. It was his coming out party on the international stage and today he is widely regarded as the greatest player ever. In this episode, Dunleavy also spoke about realizing Jordan could be something special in just the third game of his rookie season.
“Game 3, we go up to Chicago and play there, and I think we’re up like 14 going into the fourth quarter,” Dunleavy said. “And Sidney Moncrief, Defensive Player of the Year, is playing against Mike, defending him and they go to a 1-4 flat in the fourth quarter and he starts going to work.
“He’s putting numbers on Sid,” Dunleavy continued. “So, now I’m coming off the corner to double-team him. He only goes for 23 in the fourth quarter to beat us by one I think and he get a total of 37. At that point, I knew how good he was.”
Dunleavy was just a little bit off there. Jordan scored 22 points in the fourth quarter for the Chicago Bulls against the Milwaukee Bucks on Oct. 29, 1984. He did finish with 37 points that night to lead the Bulls to a 116-110 win. The Bucks finished with a 59-23 record in that 1984-85 season, which makes Jordan’s scoring outburst all the more impressive.
Mike Dunleavy Sr. Believes Michael Jordan Is The GOAT
With Dunleavy speaking so glowingly about Jordan, it should come as little surprise that he considers him to be the greatest ever. In this episode, Dunleavy spoke about being amazed by Jordan’s work ethic and he felt there was only one other player who matched it.
“Michael’s Michael. I mean, obviously, in my mind, the best player to ever play, and other than Michael and then maybe Kobe (Bryant)… as far as competitors and workers, both those guys, I don’t know how they did it. 5 a.m. in the morning, they were up. They were basically, from a work ethic standpoint, at the top of the list.”
Jordan and Bryant’s incredible work ethic is a big reason why they were so dominant on the court. They were incredibly similar to each other in many ways, but Dunleavy gave the edge to the Bulls icon. He is not the only one to have done so either, with Jordan being widely regarded as the greatest, as mentioned earlier.
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