July 10, 2025 • 23 mins
Can a simple internet meme really mischaracterize Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players ever? It sure seems that way, but you'll have to listen to the episode to find out the full story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Say, hey, folks, I'm happy to announce that Sports Dot
(00:28):
MP three is back and hopefully better than ever. Not convinced,
we'll get ready for a new episode not every other Thursday,
but every single Thursday. That's all right, folks, this is
no longer a biweekly podcast. You won't have to wake
up Thursday mornings in a cold sweat wondering if the
(00:48):
latest episode was dropped two weeks ago or last week. Instead,
you get to listen to me explore fascinating sports adjacent
stories every single week for free, stories that have been
researched and written by me Will Gatchel without the use
of artificial intelligence, because the only AI Sports dot m
P three recognizes is the answer himself, Alan Iverson, and
(01:11):
we already did an episode on him. So please remember
to subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're listening
to this on. If you haven't already, sit back and
enjoy today's episode, which dives into how Michael Jordan's greatest
ability has been misrepresented by an Internet meme. But first
we have to talk about Nelson Mandela. Cue the music, No, no, no,
(01:37):
the other one. Sorry, everyone, it's been a while. Let's
try that again. Cue the music. In nineteen sixty two,
(02:04):
anti apartheid activist and South African politician Nelson Mandela was
sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the government.
Some twenty seven years later, Mandela was released by then
President F. W. De Clerk in nineteen ninety and the
two began negotiating an end to the apartheid. Four years later,
(02:27):
Nelson Mandela won a multi racial general election and was
elected President of South Africa, a position he would occupy
until nineteen ninety nine. According to paranormal researcher Fiona Broom, however,
Mandela had died in prison during the eighties. She had
vivid memories of the news coverage surrounding his death, and
(02:50):
even remembered listening to his widow's televised speech you see
in two thousand and nine, Broom had learned that Mendela
was still alive. At first, she cast aside her false
memories as an odd phenomenon, well until she attended a
science fiction and fantasy convention that same year and found
(03:10):
out that other attendees had similar memories of Mandela dying
one prisoned in the eighties. Not long after, Broom created
a website for people to share instances where their own
memories of events did not fit with what actually happened,
an occurrence she called the Mandella effect. The term became
immensely popular, and it's no surprise the rise in popularity
(03:34):
coincided with the massive growth of social media and Internet
use across the globe. One of the most popular examples
of the Mandela effect has to do with Fruit of
the Loom, specifically its fruit based logo. The clothing brand
has existed since eighteen fifty one, so it shouldn't be
surprising to learn that its logo has undergone a number
(03:54):
of changes over that time period. The logo has also, unsurprisingly,
always depicted a bunch of different fruits, with an apple
in the center and two different colored bunches of grapes
on either side. One thing the logo has never depicted
is a cornicopia, also called a horn of plenty, which
looks like a horn filled with flowers and fruit. Yet,
(04:18):
according to the sworn statements of tens of thousands of
Internet users, Fruit of the Loom's logo absolutely definitely positively
included a cornicopia. The issue is that there's no proof
to verify these claims the only proof available is proof
that there never was a cornucopia. The most famous Mandel
(04:41):
effect is also one of the most misquoted movie lines
in history. If you haven't watched Star Wars, plug your
ears and maybe just watch the movies to avoid these situations.
In the future, during a pivotal lightsaber duel between Darth
Vader and Luke Skywalker, Vader, who is Anakin Skywalker, reveals
(05:01):
that he is Luke's father. You might have already said
the line to yourself by now, but if it starts
off with Luke, as in Luke, I am your father,
I have some unfortunate news for you. Because Darth Vader
actually says, no, I am your father, unlike the mysterious
(05:22):
Fruit of the Loom cornucopia. We can actually go back
and listen to the line, proving without a doubt that
he did say, no, I am your father, which sort
of makes it even more baffling that so many people
misremember that iconic phrase. This type of Mandela effect, one
where a quoter saying is slightly altered, happens all the time.
(05:45):
Changing one word here or putting one phrase there might
seem unimportant, and it largely is or is it. Sometimes
these light changes can compound over time, and suddenly the
meaning of the original quote or saying is changed or
even worse, completely forgotten. Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, for example,
(06:09):
is often attributed with the saying winning is in everything.
It's the only thing in actuality. He was repeating the
words of a UCLA coach named Red Sanders. Lombardy later
told a reporter quote, I wish to hell I'd never
said the damned thing. I meant the effort, I meant
having a goal. I sure as hell didn't mean for
(06:31):
people to crush human values and morality. End quote. It
seems like what he really meant to say was that
winning is in everything, making the effort to win is,
but we don't remember that. While many of these misremembered
events and quotes are inconsequential, others are more significant, especially
(06:51):
in the modern era of memes, and by memes, I
mean photos or screenshots of someone, usually making an odd
facial expression, and often with text that person may have said,
like a picture of Alan Iverson with the phrase we're
talking about practice. Athletes are some of the most memed
people on the planet, and my personal hypothesis is that
(07:12):
these seemingly innocuous memes often end up as representations of
athletes themselves, representations that tend to unfairly paint a one
dimensional aspect of that player. That might seem like a stretch,
but it's certainly the case for Michael Jordan. If you
(07:44):
pold sports fans on which player epitomizes having a killer mentality,
I bet whatever money I have on Michael Jordan being
the number one reply. His willpower and will to win
are legendary, and there are dozens, no hundreds of stories
that stress his otherworldly competitive nature. Kobe Bryant, who would
(08:05):
be my second guest after Jordan, for whose sports fans
would answer the most, is famous for his Mamba mentality
and guess who he modeled his game after, yep, Jordan.
Perhaps the most infamous example of Michael Jordan's mentality hit
the mainstream masses at the peak of the COVID pandemic
when everyone was watching The Last Dance, Netflix's hit docuseries
(08:29):
recounting the rise and fall of the Chicago Bulls dynasty
in the nineteen nineties. While talking about a playoff series
against the Indiana Pacers, Jordan mentions that he was being
scratched by the Pacers every time he came into the
game and says, quote, it became personal with me. End quote.
(08:51):
The quote is massively misquoted to the point where it's
very frustrating because it's literally like five words, he said
it became personal with me, not I took that personally.
So boom, there you go. You're now allowed to swiftly
and confidently correct anyone online or in person you see
(09:13):
using that line wrong. You're welcome. It crushes at parties,
trust me. The reason for that slight difference, as you
might have guessed, was because the viral meme that spawned
from it displays texts saying I took that personally. The
phrase just plays better in the meme format. In this instance,
at least for now, the two slightly different sayings actually
(09:36):
have basically the same meaning. The major fundamental flaw with
this meme is not due to the Mandela effect. Its
flaw lies in the fact that the entire narrative is wrong.
That people wrongly point to Jordan taking things personally as
evidence of his killer mentality, the thing that made him great,
the thing they claim separates him from more team oriented greats.
(10:01):
Why are they so wrong? Well, as it turns out,
Michael Jordan, the man who ballhogs and me first mentality
players idolize, was a team player. He wouldn't have won
six championships if he wasn't. I know, I know that
sounds like a wild take, and I will explain it's
kind of the whole purpose of the podcast. First, however,
(10:24):
I'll quote Michael Jordan himself. Talent wins games, but teamwork
and intelligence win championships. Michael Jordan was selected by the
(10:47):
Chicago Bulls with the third overall pick in the nineteen
eighty four NBA draft, and describing his rookie season as
taking the league by storm would be an understatement. When
the eighty two game regular season came to a close,
only two players had averaged more points per game than
the rookies twenty eight point two, the Knicks Bernard King
(11:10):
and Celtics Larry Bird. Jordan was also voted an All
Star starter for the Eastern Conference by fans and named
the NBA Rookie of the Year. The playoffs were a
different story for the Bulls in their star rookie the
team lost their first round matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks
in four games. Then Jordan missed sixty four games due
(11:32):
to a broken foot the following season, which miraculously saw
the thirty win fifty two loss Bowls enter the playoffs
against the juggernaut Celtics. In a fitting theme for his
early years in the league, Jordan averaged an absurd forty
three point seven points per game, including a still standing
(11:53):
single game playoff record of sixty three points, and the
Bulls lost all three games. It's almost inconceivable to imagine
the Bulls winning that series against the Celtics. No matter
what Jordan did or how he played, it wouldn't matter
if he decided to pass the ball more, because sometimes
the other team is simply that much better than yours.
(12:14):
It's a team sport, and having the best player on
the court is pretty meaningless when the second, third, fourth, fifth,
and sixth best players are all on the other team.
Plus it's not like Jordan wasn't passing the ball at all.
He led the Bulls and assists his rookie year and
was second on the team from nineteen eighty six through
nineteen eighty nine. As a self admitted lebron James Truther
(12:38):
I have certain biases against Jordan, and while I would
love to use these examples as evidence of Jordan's inherently
ball hog centric nature, that would be unfair. The truth
is that, given the roster around him, Jordan squeezed every
last ounce of effort ability and will power within him
to try and beat the Celtics, and the best way
(13:00):
he knew how to do that was by scoring something
he was exceptionally gifted at. Is it really inherently selfish
for Jordan to do the thing he believed gave the
Bulls the best chance at winning? Sure, him believing that
the thing that maximized those chances was him taking the
most shots might be a bit self confident, but at
the time it was also probably true. Jordan's next season,
(13:25):
his third in the league, would take the concept to
its logical extreme. The shooting guard averaged a league leading
thirty seven point one points per game. For comparison, Dominique Wilkins,
the second leading scorer that year, averaged eight point one
points per game, less than Jordan, and the Bulls three
(13:46):
leading scorers after Jordan averaged a combined thirty five point
five points per game, still less than Jordan. Sticking with
the theme, the playoffs would mirror the previous year and
conclude with a first round sweep courtesy of the Celtics.
The following three seasons would be different. They would end
(14:06):
all at the behest of the Bad Boys, a Detroit
Pistons team built around brute force and hard nosed defense. So,
just for reference, six years into his NBA career, the
player long associated with winning it all costs, the shooting
guard many called the greatest of all time, had twenty
four playoff wins, twenty nine losses, and never made the finals.
(14:31):
The next eight years would be a lot different, as
in ninety five playoff wins, thirty seven losses, and six
NBA championships formed by two separate three peats. What caused
this tectonic shift and outcomes? For one, the bulls Ross
had accumulated a crop of more talented players to surround
(14:52):
Jordan with this time, but that wasn't enough. The real
instigator wasn't a what. It was a who who by
the name of Phil Jackson, the man who recognized that
Jordan's greatest trait had nothing to do with his scoring
ability or how insanely high he could leap. The man
who saw the inner workings of what made Jordan's special
(15:14):
an unceasing will to win at all costs, no matter
the consequences. If I had to name Jordan's career before
(15:35):
Phil Jackson took over as head coach, I'd call it
Michael Jordan Versus the World, and his career with Phil
Jackson at the Helm, I'd call the Chicago Bulls Versus
the World. Jackson was named head coach of the Bulls
at the start of the nineteen ninety season, which would
end with the Detroit Pistons knocking them out of the
(15:55):
playoffs for the third consecutive time. As the team geared
up for the nineteen ninety one season, Jackson knew he
had to do something to get past the Pistons, and
that something was implementing the Triangle offense, a change that
would require the Bulls star player, the best scorer in
league history, to give up some control of the offense.
(16:18):
In an exerpt from his book titled Eleven Rings, Phil
Jackson spoke about the change, quote, this was not going
to be an easy conversation. Basically, I was planning to
ask Michael, who had won his third scoring title in
a row the previous season, to reduce the number of
shots he took so that other members of the team
could get more involved in the offense. I knew this
(16:41):
would be a challenge for him. Michael was only the
second player to win both a scoring title and the
league MVP Award in the same year, the first being
Kareem Abdul Jabbar in nineteen seventy one. I told him
that I was planning to implement the triangle, and as
a result, he probably wouldn't be able to win another
scoring title. You've got to share the spotlight with your teammates,
(17:05):
I said, because if you don't, they won't grow. Okay,
I guess I could average thirty two points, he said.
That's eight points a quarter. Nobody else is going to
do that. Well, when you put it that way, maybe
we can win the title, I said, But how about
scoring a few more of those points at the end
of the game. In general, I tried to give Michael
(17:28):
room to figure out how to integrate his personal ambitions
with those of the team. Phil knew that winning the
scoring title was important to me, Michael says, now, but
I wanted to do it in a way that didn't
take away from what the team was doing. End quote.
There's a lot to take away from that excerpt, including
(17:49):
how casually Jordan talks about dropping his scoring average to
thirty two points per game, which would still lead the league.
The main takeaway isn't something explicitly said in Their Strange though,
it's the very idea itself that Phil Jackson believed he
could convince Jordan to adapt to the team first triangle offense.
(18:09):
One would think the man most linked with a killer
mentality to be an immutable, stubborn, selfish player, incapable of
sharing the ball more with his teammates to quote help
them grow, and Jordan could have ignored Jackson and continued
to score at an unfathomable rate. The thing about Jordan, though,
is that he wanted to win, wanted it badly enough
(18:31):
that he was willing to listen to Phil Jackson, willing
to give up the reigns of the offense in the
hope that the team would win more. And that's the
essence of Jordan. Small slides did end up becoming personal
to him. He did want to score more than anyone else,
and he did believe in his innate talent, but none
(18:51):
of those things could surpass his desire to win, and
that's what Phil Jackson recognized too. Jordan fans and haters
alike seemed to focus too much on his arrogance or
his do it myself mentality, losing sight of his true
greatness and letting that blind them. It's the same way
people equate Steve Jobs and its tendency to be a
(19:12):
bit of a jerk with his genius. His genius was
born from his innate skill in understanding what customers want
and delivering that to them, no matter how impossible it seemed.
It was in spite of his disagreeableness that he became
what he was not because of it. When we think
of Michael Jordan, we think of the shot, his game
(19:34):
winning jump shot that clinched a best of five playoff
series against the Cleveland Cavaliers. We ignore that the Bulls
lost the next series against the Pistons. We remember Jordan's
scoring sixty three points in a loss to the Celtics,
and somehow forget that Jordan won his first NBA championship
because he chose to trust Phil Jackson's team first vision
(19:56):
and chose to pass the ball to John Paxson, who
scored ten points in the final four minutes of the
first championship Jordan and the Bulls ever won. Minor slightes
(20:20):
did become personal with Michael Jordan. There's no doubt about that.
His ability to turn that adversity into motivational fuel and
elevate his game is an undeniable part of what made
him so good. He was also a vicious perfectionist, one
who punched fellow teammates, cussed out his co stars, and
wanted the ball in his hands for the final shot.
(20:44):
I took it personally. Meme Spawn from the Last Dance
offers a truthful glimpse into his stunning intensity and competitive nature,
but it's just that a glimpse. It doesn't paint the
full picture. The meme falsely implies that Jordan's killer mentality,
his me versus everyone else's attitude, was what made him
(21:05):
so special. Reality is more complicated than that, and above
all else, the trait that truly made Jordan one of
the greats was his unceasing, unending, unflappable desire to win,
no matter what, even if it meant sacrificing His own
statistics were personal achievements for that goal. Yes, Jordan wanted
(21:28):
the ball in his hands. For the final shot, but
he didn't need it, not if passing to someone else
gave the bowls a better chance at winning, because more
than anything, Jordan wanted to win win when. Thank you
(22:11):
so much for listening to this episode of Sports Dot
MP three, the sports podcast your non sports friends might
actually like or at least tolerate. If you enjoyed today's episode,
please remember to share it with everyone in your life
who might enjoy it. Lastly, make sure to follow at
Sports Underscore MP three that's spo r TS Underscore MP
(22:36):
three on socials to never miss an episode or update.
As a reminder, I'll be back next Thursday with a
new episode. Thank you again for listening to this episode
of Sports Dot MP three. I'm Will Gatchell and I'll
see you next week.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Peace at about the
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Do
Say, hey, folks, I'm happy to announce that Sports Dot
(00:28):
MP three is back and hopefully better than ever. Not convinced,
we'll get ready for a new episode not every other Thursday,
but every single Thursday. That's all right, folks, this is
no longer a biweekly podcast. You won't have to wake
up Thursday mornings in a cold sweat wondering if the
(00:48):
latest episode was dropped two weeks ago or last week. Instead,
you get to listen to me explore fascinating sports adjacent
stories every single week for free, stories that have been
researched and written by me Will Gatchel without the use
of artificial intelligence, because the only AI Sports dot m
P three recognizes is the answer himself, Alan Iverson, and
(01:11):
we already did an episode on him. So please remember
to subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're listening
to this on. If you haven't already, sit back and
enjoy today's episode, which dives into how Michael Jordan's greatest
ability has been misrepresented by an Internet meme. But first
we have to talk about Nelson Mandela. Cue the music, No, no, no,
(01:37):
the other one. Sorry, everyone, it's been a while. Let's
try that again. Cue the music. In nineteen sixty two,
(02:04):
anti apartheid activist and South African politician Nelson Mandela was
sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the government.
Some twenty seven years later, Mandela was released by then
President F. W. De Clerk in nineteen ninety and the
two began negotiating an end to the apartheid. Four years later,
(02:27):
Nelson Mandela won a multi racial general election and was
elected President of South Africa, a position he would occupy
until nineteen ninety nine. According to paranormal researcher Fiona Broom, however,
Mandela had died in prison during the eighties. She had
vivid memories of the news coverage surrounding his death, and
(02:50):
even remembered listening to his widow's televised speech you see
in two thousand and nine, Broom had learned that Mendela
was still alive. At first, she cast aside her false
memories as an odd phenomenon, well until she attended a
science fiction and fantasy convention that same year and found
(03:10):
out that other attendees had similar memories of Mandela dying
one prisoned in the eighties. Not long after, Broom created
a website for people to share instances where their own
memories of events did not fit with what actually happened,
an occurrence she called the Mandella effect. The term became
immensely popular, and it's no surprise the rise in popularity
(03:34):
coincided with the massive growth of social media and Internet
use across the globe. One of the most popular examples
of the Mandela effect has to do with Fruit of
the Loom, specifically its fruit based logo. The clothing brand
has existed since eighteen fifty one, so it shouldn't be
surprising to learn that its logo has undergone a number
(03:54):
of changes over that time period. The logo has also, unsurprisingly,
always depicted a bunch of different fruits, with an apple
in the center and two different colored bunches of grapes
on either side. One thing the logo has never depicted
is a cornicopia, also called a horn of plenty, which
looks like a horn filled with flowers and fruit. Yet,
(04:18):
according to the sworn statements of tens of thousands of
Internet users, Fruit of the Loom's logo absolutely definitely positively
included a cornicopia. The issue is that there's no proof
to verify these claims the only proof available is proof
that there never was a cornucopia. The most famous Mandel
(04:41):
effect is also one of the most misquoted movie lines
in history. If you haven't watched Star Wars, plug your
ears and maybe just watch the movies to avoid these situations.
In the future, during a pivotal lightsaber duel between Darth
Vader and Luke Skywalker, Vader, who is Anakin Skywalker, reveals
(05:01):
that he is Luke's father. You might have already said
the line to yourself by now, but if it starts
off with Luke, as in Luke, I am your father,
I have some unfortunate news for you. Because Darth Vader
actually says, no, I am your father, unlike the mysterious
(05:22):
Fruit of the Loom cornucopia. We can actually go back
and listen to the line, proving without a doubt that
he did say, no, I am your father, which sort
of makes it even more baffling that so many people
misremember that iconic phrase. This type of Mandela effect, one
where a quoter saying is slightly altered, happens all the time.
(05:45):
Changing one word here or putting one phrase there might
seem unimportant, and it largely is or is it. Sometimes
these light changes can compound over time, and suddenly the
meaning of the original quote or saying is changed or
even worse, completely forgotten. Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, for example,
(06:09):
is often attributed with the saying winning is in everything.
It's the only thing in actuality. He was repeating the
words of a UCLA coach named Red Sanders. Lombardy later
told a reporter quote, I wish to hell I'd never
said the damned thing. I meant the effort, I meant
having a goal. I sure as hell didn't mean for
(06:31):
people to crush human values and morality. End quote. It
seems like what he really meant to say was that
winning is in everything, making the effort to win is,
but we don't remember that. While many of these misremembered
events and quotes are inconsequential, others are more significant, especially
(06:51):
in the modern era of memes, and by memes, I
mean photos or screenshots of someone, usually making an odd
facial expression, and often with text that person may have said,
like a picture of Alan Iverson with the phrase we're
talking about practice. Athletes are some of the most memed
people on the planet, and my personal hypothesis is that
(07:12):
these seemingly innocuous memes often end up as representations of
athletes themselves, representations that tend to unfairly paint a one
dimensional aspect of that player. That might seem like a stretch,
but it's certainly the case for Michael Jordan. If you
(07:44):
pold sports fans on which player epitomizes having a killer mentality,
I bet whatever money I have on Michael Jordan being
the number one reply. His willpower and will to win
are legendary, and there are dozens, no hundreds of stories
that stress his otherworldly competitive nature. Kobe Bryant, who would
(08:05):
be my second guest after Jordan, for whose sports fans
would answer the most, is famous for his Mamba mentality
and guess who he modeled his game after, yep, Jordan.
Perhaps the most infamous example of Michael Jordan's mentality hit
the mainstream masses at the peak of the COVID pandemic
when everyone was watching The Last Dance, Netflix's hit docuseries
(08:29):
recounting the rise and fall of the Chicago Bulls dynasty
in the nineteen nineties. While talking about a playoff series
against the Indiana Pacers, Jordan mentions that he was being
scratched by the Pacers every time he came into the
game and says, quote, it became personal with me. End quote.
(08:51):
The quote is massively misquoted to the point where it's
very frustrating because it's literally like five words, he said
it became personal with me, not I took that personally.
So boom, there you go. You're now allowed to swiftly
and confidently correct anyone online or in person you see
(09:13):
using that line wrong. You're welcome. It crushes at parties,
trust me. The reason for that slight difference, as you
might have guessed, was because the viral meme that spawned
from it displays texts saying I took that personally. The
phrase just plays better in the meme format. In this instance,
at least for now, the two slightly different sayings actually
(09:36):
have basically the same meaning. The major fundamental flaw with
this meme is not due to the Mandela effect. Its
flaw lies in the fact that the entire narrative is wrong.
That people wrongly point to Jordan taking things personally as
evidence of his killer mentality, the thing that made him great,
the thing they claim separates him from more team oriented greats.
(10:01):
Why are they so wrong? Well, as it turns out,
Michael Jordan, the man who ballhogs and me first mentality
players idolize, was a team player. He wouldn't have won
six championships if he wasn't. I know, I know that
sounds like a wild take, and I will explain it's
kind of the whole purpose of the podcast. First, however,
(10:24):
I'll quote Michael Jordan himself. Talent wins games, but teamwork
and intelligence win championships. Michael Jordan was selected by the
(10:47):
Chicago Bulls with the third overall pick in the nineteen
eighty four NBA draft, and describing his rookie season as
taking the league by storm would be an understatement. When
the eighty two game regular season came to a close,
only two players had averaged more points per game than
the rookies twenty eight point two, the Knicks Bernard King
(11:10):
and Celtics Larry Bird. Jordan was also voted an All
Star starter for the Eastern Conference by fans and named
the NBA Rookie of the Year. The playoffs were a
different story for the Bulls in their star rookie the
team lost their first round matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks
in four games. Then Jordan missed sixty four games due
(11:32):
to a broken foot the following season, which miraculously saw
the thirty win fifty two loss Bowls enter the playoffs
against the juggernaut Celtics. In a fitting theme for his
early years in the league, Jordan averaged an absurd forty
three point seven points per game, including a still standing
(11:53):
single game playoff record of sixty three points, and the
Bulls lost all three games. It's almost inconceivable to imagine
the Bulls winning that series against the Celtics. No matter
what Jordan did or how he played, it wouldn't matter
if he decided to pass the ball more, because sometimes
the other team is simply that much better than yours.
(12:14):
It's a team sport, and having the best player on
the court is pretty meaningless when the second, third, fourth, fifth,
and sixth best players are all on the other team.
Plus it's not like Jordan wasn't passing the ball at all.
He led the Bulls and assists his rookie year and
was second on the team from nineteen eighty six through
nineteen eighty nine. As a self admitted lebron James Truther
(12:38):
I have certain biases against Jordan, and while I would
love to use these examples as evidence of Jordan's inherently
ball hog centric nature, that would be unfair. The truth
is that, given the roster around him, Jordan squeezed every
last ounce of effort ability and will power within him
to try and beat the Celtics, and the best way
(13:00):
he knew how to do that was by scoring something
he was exceptionally gifted at. Is it really inherently selfish
for Jordan to do the thing he believed gave the
Bulls the best chance at winning? Sure, him believing that
the thing that maximized those chances was him taking the
most shots might be a bit self confident, but at
the time it was also probably true. Jordan's next season,
(13:25):
his third in the league, would take the concept to
its logical extreme. The shooting guard averaged a league leading
thirty seven point one points per game. For comparison, Dominique Wilkins,
the second leading scorer that year, averaged eight point one
points per game, less than Jordan, and the Bulls three
(13:46):
leading scorers after Jordan averaged a combined thirty five point
five points per game, still less than Jordan. Sticking with
the theme, the playoffs would mirror the previous year and
conclude with a first round sweep courtesy of the Celtics.
The following three seasons would be different. They would end
(14:06):
all at the behest of the Bad Boys, a Detroit
Pistons team built around brute force and hard nosed defense. So,
just for reference, six years into his NBA career, the
player long associated with winning it all costs, the shooting
guard many called the greatest of all time, had twenty
four playoff wins, twenty nine losses, and never made the finals.
(14:31):
The next eight years would be a lot different, as
in ninety five playoff wins, thirty seven losses, and six
NBA championships formed by two separate three peats. What caused
this tectonic shift and outcomes? For one, the bulls Ross
had accumulated a crop of more talented players to surround
(14:52):
Jordan with this time, but that wasn't enough. The real
instigator wasn't a what. It was a who who by
the name of Phil Jackson, the man who recognized that
Jordan's greatest trait had nothing to do with his scoring
ability or how insanely high he could leap. The man
who saw the inner workings of what made Jordan's special
(15:14):
an unceasing will to win at all costs, no matter
the consequences. If I had to name Jordan's career before
(15:35):
Phil Jackson took over as head coach, I'd call it
Michael Jordan Versus the World, and his career with Phil
Jackson at the Helm, I'd call the Chicago Bulls Versus
the World. Jackson was named head coach of the Bulls
at the start of the nineteen ninety season, which would
end with the Detroit Pistons knocking them out of the
(15:55):
playoffs for the third consecutive time. As the team geared
up for the nineteen ninety one season, Jackson knew he
had to do something to get past the Pistons, and
that something was implementing the Triangle offense, a change that
would require the Bulls star player, the best scorer in
league history, to give up some control of the offense.
(16:18):
In an exerpt from his book titled Eleven Rings, Phil
Jackson spoke about the change, quote, this was not going
to be an easy conversation. Basically, I was planning to
ask Michael, who had won his third scoring title in
a row the previous season, to reduce the number of
shots he took so that other members of the team
could get more involved in the offense. I knew this
(16:41):
would be a challenge for him. Michael was only the
second player to win both a scoring title and the
league MVP Award in the same year, the first being
Kareem Abdul Jabbar in nineteen seventy one. I told him
that I was planning to implement the triangle, and as
a result, he probably wouldn't be able to win another
scoring title. You've got to share the spotlight with your teammates,
(17:05):
I said, because if you don't, they won't grow. Okay,
I guess I could average thirty two points, he said.
That's eight points a quarter. Nobody else is going to
do that. Well, when you put it that way, maybe
we can win the title, I said, But how about
scoring a few more of those points at the end
of the game. In general, I tried to give Michael
(17:28):
room to figure out how to integrate his personal ambitions
with those of the team. Phil knew that winning the
scoring title was important to me, Michael says, now, but
I wanted to do it in a way that didn't
take away from what the team was doing. End quote.
There's a lot to take away from that excerpt, including
(17:49):
how casually Jordan talks about dropping his scoring average to
thirty two points per game, which would still lead the league.
The main takeaway isn't something explicitly said in Their Strange though,
it's the very idea itself that Phil Jackson believed he
could convince Jordan to adapt to the team first triangle offense.
(18:09):
One would think the man most linked with a killer
mentality to be an immutable, stubborn, selfish player, incapable of
sharing the ball more with his teammates to quote help
them grow, and Jordan could have ignored Jackson and continued
to score at an unfathomable rate. The thing about Jordan, though,
is that he wanted to win, wanted it badly enough
(18:31):
that he was willing to listen to Phil Jackson, willing
to give up the reigns of the offense in the
hope that the team would win more. And that's the
essence of Jordan. Small slides did end up becoming personal
to him. He did want to score more than anyone else,
and he did believe in his innate talent, but none
(18:51):
of those things could surpass his desire to win, and
that's what Phil Jackson recognized too. Jordan fans and haters
alike seemed to focus too much on his arrogance or
his do it myself mentality, losing sight of his true
greatness and letting that blind them. It's the same way
people equate Steve Jobs and its tendency to be a
(19:12):
bit of a jerk with his genius. His genius was
born from his innate skill in understanding what customers want
and delivering that to them, no matter how impossible it seemed.
It was in spite of his disagreeableness that he became
what he was not because of it. When we think
of Michael Jordan, we think of the shot, his game
(19:34):
winning jump shot that clinched a best of five playoff
series against the Cleveland Cavaliers. We ignore that the Bulls
lost the next series against the Pistons. We remember Jordan's
scoring sixty three points in a loss to the Celtics,
and somehow forget that Jordan won his first NBA championship
because he chose to trust Phil Jackson's team first vision
(19:56):
and chose to pass the ball to John Paxson, who
scored ten points in the final four minutes of the
first championship Jordan and the Bulls ever won. Minor slightes
(20:20):
did become personal with Michael Jordan. There's no doubt about that.
His ability to turn that adversity into motivational fuel and
elevate his game is an undeniable part of what made
him so good. He was also a vicious perfectionist, one
who punched fellow teammates, cussed out his co stars, and
wanted the ball in his hands for the final shot.
(20:44):
I took it personally. Meme Spawn from the Last Dance
offers a truthful glimpse into his stunning intensity and competitive nature,
but it's just that a glimpse. It doesn't paint the
full picture. The meme falsely implies that Jordan's killer mentality,
his me versus everyone else's attitude, was what made him
(21:05):
so special. Reality is more complicated than that, and above
all else, the trait that truly made Jordan one of
the greats was his unceasing, unending, unflappable desire to win,
no matter what, even if it meant sacrificing His own
statistics were personal achievements for that goal. Yes, Jordan wanted
(21:28):
the ball in his hands. For the final shot, but
he didn't need it, not if passing to someone else
gave the bowls a better chance at winning, because more
than anything, Jordan wanted to win win when. Thank you
(22:11):
so much for listening to this episode of Sports Dot
MP three, the sports podcast your non sports friends might
actually like or at least tolerate. If you enjoyed today's episode,
please remember to share it with everyone in your life
who might enjoy it. Lastly, make sure to follow at
Sports Underscore MP three that's spo r TS Underscore MP
(22:36):
three on socials to never miss an episode or update.
As a reminder, I'll be back next Thursday with a
new episode. Thank you again for listening to this episode
of Sports Dot MP three. I'm Will Gatchell and I'll
see you next week.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Peace at about the
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Do
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