Colin Cowherd Podcast Prime Cuts - NCAA Tournament + NIL with Jay Bilas, Sam Smith on Jordan Criticism Pushback, Myth vs. Reality

This is Prime Cuts! The best of The Colin Cowherd Podcast. First, Colin’s top take of the week on  how the legendary ‘Air Jordan’ marketing campaign still shields Michael Jordan from criticism that all other athletes face.

Then, ESPN College Basketball Analyst Jay Bilas on the numerous hall of fame level college hoops coaches leaving the sport,  why so many blue bloods programs are getting upset by relative unknowns, if John Calipari’s time at Kentucky has been a disappointment despite winning a national championship, if the current NIL system needs to be reigned in, what makes his relationship with Coach K so unique.

Then, longtime Bulls writer - and author of The Jordan Rules - Sam Smith the wave of criticism he received after releasing The Jordan Rules, how The Last Dance has only enhanced Jordan’s mythology, why Jordan has been largely out of the public spotlight in retirement, why he didn’t succeed as an NBA owner, and the MJ/LeBron G.O.A.T debate.

Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates, and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! #Volume #Herd

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Episode Transcript

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(01:49):
is Prime Cuts, the best of the Colin Coward Podcast.
Apparently I created quite a kerfuffle with my Michael Jordan
opinion one last week, and where I said, you know,
there's a lot of mythology about Michael Jordan because a
lot of people thirty five and under who love him
never watched him actually play. It's just YouTube highlights something

(02:10):
to remember about Michael Jordan, and it's very unique in
the history of basketball. No other player has this, and
Michael is certainly as good as anybody I've ever seen, relentless,
great in crisis, laser focused, super competitive, loved watching him play.
I'm still a huge fan of Michael Jordan. But you
can criticize Magic Johnson who ended up in thirty percent

(02:32):
More finals. And you can certainly criticize Lebron James, who
has smashed every Michael Jordan record, which you can't criticize Michael. Why, well,
think about it in these terms. Think about how powerful
just ads are on TV or radio. My career has
been a series of reading ads or ads elevating all
my platforms. They can sell us soda, they can sell

(02:54):
us cars, they can sell us jewelry just by a
thirty second add Now, imagine how powerful an ad campaign
devoted entirely to you can be. The Air Jordan campaign
is the greatest marketing campaign in the history of our
domestic sports ever any athlete. Nothing's close. Michael made two

(03:18):
hundred and twenty five million last year, still on his shoes.
Just understand how powerful commercials are. And now an Air
Jordan campaign for twenty years, devoted to one human. It's
created a Teflon shield around Michael so that when he
punches Steve Kerr, well you know, He's just very competitive.

(03:41):
If Draymond Greene punches Jordan Poole, a cocky, trash talking reserve,
throw him out of the league. Draymond doesn't have the
protective shield, the power of Nike. Michael Jordan best friend,
Charles Barkley fifteen years Barkley goes on the air, does
his job is critical, He ghosts him, no longer talks

(04:04):
to him. Who does that protective shield? Baseball Wizard's mess,
failing as an owner, struggling with teammates, early pre Phil Jackson,
it's all protected. Nobody's saying. You can criticize Lebron, You
can criticize Kareem, you can criticize anybody, magic, Kobe Duncan.

(04:28):
You can't criticize Michael Jordan. That's why I call it mythology.
It's as if he never missed a shop. He had
lots of bad finals games, a couple against the Sonics,
a couple against the Utah Jazz. He's human. Michael's always
been great at elevating Michael. I said this last week
and I'll say it again, the two pills. Phil Jackson, Michael,

(04:50):
you're a selfish player. Do you want to win championships?
Or be a scoring champ. Trust your teammates more. Phil Jackson,
the smartest basketball coach at my entire lifetime, perhaps ever,
probably ever. Michael understood that that was the first Phil.
The other Phil was Phil Knight, the number one visionary

(05:11):
in American sports marketing in the history of my life.
The two pills now give Jordan credit. He was glamorous,
he was great, he was focused. He was capable of
being coached if he respected you. So he deserved a
lot of credit for that. I mean, people all over
this country try to help people and they just won't listen.
Michael listened and became probably the greatest basketball player ever

(05:33):
when he started trusting teammates and winning championships. But just
think of the power of the Air Jordan marketing brand.
It has created a shield around Michael that any criticism.
But Colin, he won at North Carolina. A lot of
people have won championships at Carolina. In Kansas and Yukon

(05:53):
and Duke, college basketball has always been lobsided. Six programs
have most of the talent. Where he won in the Olympics. Yes,
that team was pretty loaded. He had help beating Tunisia.
Nobody's discounting how great of a college player, how great
of an olympian, How great of a player, how great
of a marketer. But what I'm saying is there's a

(06:14):
lot of mythology as if he wasn't difficult early pre Pippin.
He's won exactly one playoff series pre Pippin, is that
he didn't need coaching, or that baseball wasn't a failure.
May I appreciate the effort, or that the Wizards wasn't
a disaster even as an owner. It was classic Michael.
He made a fortune owning the Hornets, but he could

(06:37):
control the narrative as a player. He couldn't as an owner.
People take things that happened to Michael real things like
he punched a teammate. That's a cheap shot. Well, Draymond
punched the teammate. Is that a cheap shot? All of
the issues are oas well. It was just very competitive.
Draymond's not competitive, but Colin Draymond works at the volume.

(07:00):
The point being is think of the power of the
Air Jordan marketing campaign, probably the most brilliant campaign ever.
And for the record, there's a reason it works. Michael's
great looking, Michael's got glamour Michael. The dress, the earring,
the smile, the game, the penash. Michael had it all right.
He's an easy guy to market. But take a deep breath.

(07:23):
You can criticize every basketball player ever except Michael. He
was human two. He had floss two. With the NFL
season over all, eyes in the sporting world turned everything
from the NBA to college hoops to the NHL. Plenty
of games to watch are even better, plenty of games

(07:43):
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lowest price guaranteed. Well, we wish we had him on

(08:31):
more often. He's a busy guy. I'm not sure he's
got a law degree. I'm not sure if he's practicing law.
But it's college basketball, it's law, it's I'm sure a
lot of public speaking he is. Jay billis probably the
most area day college basketball analyst of my lifetime. And
my only complaint about Jay billis is I don't see
enough of Jay billis. So he comes on our podcast
and we feel lucky today. First of all, how are you?

(08:53):
How are things? Do you still practice? Still with my
law firm? I've been with the same law firm for
coming up on thirty years now, but I don't really
practice anymore. I'm still license to practice, and I do
my continuing legal education every year to keep my license up.
But if you need a name change or a divorce
or a ticket taken care of, I can handle that.
Other than that, I don't. I don't practice much. Okay,

(09:15):
I got about twelve parking tickets. I'll get back down that, Jay.
I think college basketball, if you take our domestic sports,
college in pro, is the toughest sport to coach. I
think it's really really difficult when you ask coaches. You know,
in college football, Nick Saban gets a kid for three
or four years John Calipari gets him for you know,
like a semester. I think it's really hard. That's why

(09:37):
Jay Wright, Roy Williams, Mike Shashevsky. I could see guys
saying this is this is insane. Then you add the
transfer portal. It's just this really difficult Jumbalaya. I think
to coach Am I wrong on that? Or do you
sense we're asking a lot now of college basketball coaches
and it's not realistic to think we're going to see
some burnout with these top coaches. Maybe, I mean I

(10:00):
agree with you maybe on Jay Wright that the job
has changed and he is at the tail end. He
could probably go another you know, five or six years
at great health and youth. I mean, I think Roy
Williams and Coach k quit because they were older. If
they were in their forties or fifties, I think they'd

(10:22):
adjust to this in no time and they wouldn't have
a problem with it. You know, these guys make a
ton of money now, so they can quit when they
feel like it. If But you know, when I was younger, Colin,
I don't know exactly how old you are, but I
grew up in Los Angeles and when John Wooden retired.
I was probably in sixth grade and he was sixty
five years old, and I thought he was the oldest

(10:42):
man that had ever lived. And now these guys, you know,
Jim Babbs like seventy eight, and Coach K's seventy six,
and Roy Williams is in his early seventies, and you know,
you got Jim Larenegas in his mid seventies and Leonard Hamilton.
All these guys are coaching way later than ever. And
you've got a lot of old school guys. And that's okay.

(11:03):
But one thing that's easier about college now is you
can get a good team overnight. You know, you can
lose a good team overnight too with the transfer portal.
But you know, the NC DOABLEA was the one to
put that rule in, and they put it in because
they were fighting over money and the transfer restriction was
making them look really bad. It was the equivalent of

(11:25):
a non compete provision and an employment contract and they
want to say, well, they're not employees, and they were
restricting them on where they'd go to school and make
them sit out like a like a non compete. It
is just kind of crazy. So I went back this morning,
knowing you were on and I went back and looked
at some of your teams, and I went back and
looked at I covered two Duke final fours, the Denver

(11:50):
game where they lost to the Rebels and then the
following year when they upset them. Grant Hill was the freshman.
But one of the things I looked at was scores.
And if you're twenty years old on a campus, you're saying,
right now, look at this defense. And my takeaway is, well,
the defense was good back in eighty eight ninety. The
differences you had juniors and seniors who were going to
play in the NBA on rosters is that does feel

(12:12):
like this has been a two or three year trend
where it's becoming more of a defensive tournament. By the
way I've watched every game, I've loved it. I don't
think it's quite as gifted offensive leak is the great
offensive players often pivot to professional basketball. Is that it
feels like, to me, Jay, this has been a defensive tournament.
Like I watched Tennessee Duke and I thought Tennessee's defense

(12:34):
is just closing down on Duke. I saw Michigan State today.
They shot twelve vercent on threes and they won, so
that it might take away the tournament. It feels good
defensive tournament. Am I wrong? No, you're right. But the
reason in my view that it feels different, like I
think the players now are more skilled than they were
thirty years ago. I don't even think it's close now.

(12:55):
Do we have the four year superstars that we had
back then? No, because the true superstars leave early. But
these guys are way more skilled, um than back in
the day. They can shoot it better, they can do everything.
The game is way more physical now. I mean, it's
ridiculous on cuts that that Tennessee Duke game that you're referencing,

(13:17):
that was not a basketball game. That was a hockey game,
and it was officiated like a hockey game. Um, there
were there were fouls that were flagrant, fouls that were
not called flagrant, and I can't understand why. I've talked
to several officials about it, and all of them seem
to agree that that that was that should not have
happened that way. But we're seeing that more and more

(13:37):
that the game has become more physical. And when I
say physical, I'm not talking about physical on blockouts like
when when when I was playing back in the eighties,
you know that people thought about the Big East. Oh,
the Big East so physical, and it was less physical
than this. Now. The difference is they didn't have flagrant
fouls back then, so when you fouled somebody, you put

(13:59):
them in the wood and then a fight started. Now
if you do that, you get tossed out of the game.
And now a foul that would have been a normal
subway push back in the eighties is called the flagrant
more often. So we've cleaned a lot of that stuff up,
but the general contact now on drives, on screening, on

(14:23):
cuts is way more than it used to be. Those
would have been fouls in a heartbeat back in the
eighties and nineties, and now they're they're called incidental contact.
It's very rare on a number one loses early, But
to have three number ones lose early, is it coincidental?
Are the margins smaller between great teams and good teams?

(14:44):
What do you make of all the number one sees
getting bounced? Well, we've had this year there's not been
as much separation from sort of great to very good.
So the top seven or eight teams, I think remained
in the top ten and throughout the year, not because
they were that much better than everybody else. They were

(15:04):
just more consistent. And whether it was Perdue or Arizona,
you name it, they were more consistent at a high level.
But we expected there to be kind of a turbulent
ride through the tournament. I didn't. I didn't anticipate, uh,
you know, Perdue losing to Fairley Dickinson. Um that that
that should never have happened. And and not to take

(15:26):
anything away from Fairley Dickinson, I was trying to explain,
like at one point, you know how in our job,
after a game, if you say, you know, wait a minute,
like Perdue was horrible, that shouldn't happened, They're going to
give some credit to Fairley Dickinson. No, Fairlely Diket, Fairly
Dickinson did everything they needed to do to win. All
credit to them for winning the game. But let's not
let's not gloss over the Purdue sucked. And and it's

(15:50):
kind of like when when Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson,
we weren't saying there's one of the great heavyweights of
all time. He just beat one of the great, Like
come on, my Tyson sucked and it didn't make Buster
Douglas great and that that was sort of the discussion
of that. So we've had some we've had some teams

(16:11):
stepping a big pile of it early on. Arizona did
it with Princeton, but Princeton is pretty good. Like that
was that Princeton played really well and Arizona played really poorly,
and so that was a combination of things. But Princeton
dominated Missouri. They're actually just as good as Missouri. You
know that if they played ten times, it would probably

(16:32):
be five and five. Um. But I will see what
happens when they move on. But it's just not been
one of those years where there's been great, you know,
great teams that have separated, like Baylor and get Zaga
did a couple of years ago. I want to talk
Calipari for a second, so you know, obviously the Anthony

(16:53):
Davis championship year, he's I think if he got a
second people would back off a little. There's a huge
gap between one and two. But I also think John
does care about the players. I've asked friends of mine
in coaching, Mark Few and other coaches, and they're like, listen,
John can coach. I watched today. Kansas State had real players.
They got a couple of all conference guys. So let's
not pretend that you know Kentucky's players are here in

(17:14):
Kansas State down there, they got Wildcats have real good players.
Is it fair though, to say for the talent, sometimes
they've underachieved. How do you how do you view Calipari's
Kentucky run because it was wobbly a bit this year. Well,
cal shocked me when he went to Kentucky. You know,
I was still and I've had periods of my life

(17:36):
and career where I get stuck in old school thinking.
And when he got to Kentucky and recruited that John Wall,
Eric Bledsoe, DeMarcus Cousins group, and he was going to
go with all freshmen, sort of the one and done thing,
I thought, can't win that way, Like you might be
able to win regular season game, I'm not going to
win a championship that way. And I was so wrong

(17:58):
like like that. He championed that and it was incredibly successful,
and I think he's an unbelievable coach, and I agree
with you. I think he does care about the players
at the at the highest level. Now you know, Cal
can come off publicly like a used car salesman of

(18:20):
times trying to explain stuff to people, but he's an
unbelievably good guy, Like he's a really good person and
a good guy. I do think, and I've not talked
to him about this, and I should if, especially if
I'm going to say what I'm about to say, but
I think he over estimated the transfer portal and where

(18:40):
the game was headed, Like he was ahead on the
one and done thing. He was first, and then coach
k kind of followed him in that and realized, Hey,
we're playing against these guys and someone want to come here,
you might as well. We need to start taking them.
And you know, Cal went into the transfer portal last
year and his teams aren't as talented. Um they're they're good,

(19:04):
but they're not as talented as they've been. That team
he had in twenty fifteen, that was thirty eight no
before they lost to Wisconsin. I really believe this Wisconsin
was the only team that could have beaten him that year,
the only team because of the way they played and
how old they were and the type of team they had.
But you know, how do you how do you have
a program like that, that's that's consistently you know, great,

(19:27):
and then if you have a down year, people are
losing their minds because it's not like the guys that
are recruiting, the four year guys are outpacing outpacing Cow.
They're not. But the last two years, you know, they
just haven't been Kentucky because I don't think they've been
as talented. Like They've brought in really good players that

(19:49):
came from somewhere else, but they're not They're not lottery
picks like he's had. I'm a believer in nil and
I'm a believer in transper portalum. One of the things
I did say in ball, I said, I think I
can be pro something and there has to be guardrails.
I can be pro sports gambling, but think there need
to be certain guardrails. I said in football, I think

(20:10):
you should the first game starts and the last game ends.
You can't transfer. Then I don't want a Wolverine transferring
to Ohio State before the game and taking like trade secrets.
That was my thing. It's just just put some guardrails up.
I'm good with all of it. But then again, we've
had coaches you know leave you know before the season's over.

(20:33):
You've been a big proponent of NIL transfer portal. Take
on my guardrail comment. Should we just have no guardrails?
Are there anything? Is there anything about either basketball or
college football transferring or nil that that does worry you?
It doesn't worry me. But I think there can and
should be reasonable regulation to everything. And and your point,

(20:55):
your example, and I know was taken to the extreme
to make a point of you know, a player transferring,
you know, before a bowl game to their art tribal.
We don't have to worry about that. That's not an issue.
That's not going to happen. And you know, nobody's going
to do that, just like you wouldn't have an assistant
coach take a job before a game. I mean, they're
the ones that have more trade secrets than the players,

(21:18):
and they move around like crazy, including to their art tribals.
So that's not an issue. The biggest issue that the
NCAA has with all of this is on the legal side.
You know, when they act in concert, it's a cartel
and and they're running a foul of federal anti trust
law and all this stuff that the NC is talking

(21:40):
about about, Well, we can't make the players employees. Yes
you can. These schools employ thousands of students annually, Like
there's a school in my home my home state that
employs six thousand of their own students a year. Of
course they can do it. They don't want to, and
they want Congress to bail them out. The problem we

(22:01):
have now is is because they wanted to just do
the nil thing, they can't. They can't control any of it.
And if they just paid the players and made them employees,
they'd be able to control it like they controlled their coaches,
like they control their staff members, like they controlled their
administ administrators. It's not that hard, but we're making it

(22:23):
really hard because they just don't want to do it,
and we get all these excuses about will you start
paying players, then goodbide all these other sports. No, no, no,
none of that's true. They're not going to cancel all
these sports. You know, they always ask where's the money
going to come from? They asked that when I was planning,
where's the money going to come from? And then they
signed these megamedia deals and the you know, so much

(22:46):
of the money that the athletic department that runs through
there goes back to the school. They'll say, well, the
scholarships are so expensive. Really, well, where are you paying
that money. They're paying it to the school. So they
have an athletic department account and they pay it to
the school. They're not out of nickel. That school's not
out of a nickel for a scholarship. And years ago,

(23:08):
what the NCAA schools did was they they basically said,
all right, the athletic departments have to be self sustaining.
But I don't think they imagined that they were going
to make this much money. So the schools are charging
these crazy rates for food service and you know, rent
and maintenance and all this stuff. It's going back to
the school, so they're taking a huge chunk of that

(23:30):
and huge, huge salaries are being paid. Gigantic staffs are
being put together. You know, you mentioned Colin when you
were covering Duke in ninety ninety one, I was a
graduate assistant. I was out of the staff that I
was an assistant coach, a grad assistant. When we went
on a road trip, we flew commercial and took one
bus when we got there. So it's one bus. They

(23:51):
have to have two now to carry all the staff.
You know, so the staff and the players are now
two of these gigantic coach bus is that you take
in Europe, you know, and these things. These athletic departments
are bigger than the Pentagon. Now. They got plenty of money,
and it's a it's not a concern paying the players.
They just don't want to and we're gonna do it

(24:13):
at some point, whether it's five years, three years, whatever,
they're going to decide it is cleaner and easier to
sign these players to contracts. They'll retain them better, and
then they'll they'll have control over what an il deals
they can have. Then if they're paying them, just like
our companies pay us, they can tell us what we

(24:33):
can and can't do. They buy that right through the
employment contract. It's really as simple. It works for the
rest of the free world. The idea that it won't
work for college athletes is kind of absurd. So Mike Shashevsky, Um,
maybe it's because I covered him. I've I've said this
the other day on my show. I said, Duke is
the greatest team sport success story of my sportscasting career.

(24:59):
In forty years, they've had one losing season and that
was the back surgery season or coach k couldn't walk.
They went nine and three and then he just literally
couldn't walk. There's nothing else like it. That's double the
Patriots dynasty, which in itself is absurd considering it's a
regulated violence, players get hurt. Makes no sense at all
to have a football dynasty for twenty years. But I

(25:21):
read the Ian O'Connor book. I love. I think Ian's
just stupendous, and you know, it's funny. I read it
and the criticisms of Mike, and I have a lot
of respect for Ian. He's not out there to just
throw out haymakers. I found them almost likable that you know,
Mike is a fighter, you know, the army background, his size, personally,

(25:44):
it made me dislike Bob Knight more and like Mike
Zhevsky more, just because the battle and he wanted to
carve his own way and he didn't want to be
seen in the shadow of Bobby after a while, which
is I completely understand that when you hear that and
the hair have been critics of Mike's offense, wasn't very creative,

(26:06):
or he coached the Olympic team. It's just none of
it lands for me. Maybe I'm just, maybe I'm not,
Maybe I have a confirmation bias that I just I've
always liked him. Was there ever a criticism of coach
k and you went, that's on target, that's a fair,
because I when I read books and articles, I'm always like,
it just doesn't land to me. I think he's authentic.

(26:26):
I think he's a fighter. I think he's tough. I
think he's super smart. As you noted earlier in the
One and Done, he's flexible, he acknowledges when he's wrong.
Was there ever any criticism you heard of him and thought,
maybe that's fair? I'm sure there has been. I can't
think of an example, because he's like I love him.
You know, I've known him since I was seventeen years old.

(26:49):
There's probably I don't think this is an overstatement. I
wouldn't be doing anything i'm doing now if it weren't
for him. I might be doing something like it. But
I wouldn't have gone to law school if not for him.
I wouldn't have I don't think I would have been
in broadcasting if not for him. I certainly wouldn't have
had the basketball life i've had if not for him.

(27:11):
You know, he made it possible for me to go
to law school. He offered me a spot on his staff,
and then he was very helpful in getting me into
law school and convincing the law school that I could
I could work as a coach and go to school
at the same time. Nobody wanted that to happen at Duke,
and he made it happen. And he told me at
the time, he goes, if this doesn't work out, you

(27:32):
can always quit. And I didn't know whether you meant
quit law school or quit coaching. But I still never
asked him that. But when I was coming out of
high school, you know, I was one of these players
where you know, when you know, when you're in high
school you become a good player. You know, local paper
or the LA Times or something does a story on
you and they ask you, what do you want to
do after basketball? And I didn't have an answer. I

(27:54):
didn't know. And so at that time, like Frank Gifford
was in broadcasting, on Drysdale was in broadcasting. So I said, well,
maybe broadcasting. And all the coaches that were recruiting me
read that, and Coach Ka did something about it, like
others would Introduce you to somebody at the school that
was in the communications department, give you a tour of it.

(28:15):
Coach K introduced me to Chuck Howard, who was a
big time producer at ABC Sports, and I got a
job working for ABC Sports as a production assistant. During
the summertime. I was a runner basically, so I did
the I did. I did the Olympics and eighty four
in LA. I did Monday night baseball. Um I did.

(28:37):
I used to do bowling. I did bowling events with
Chris Schenkel and Nelson Burton Junior, and um I got.
I got all this. It was awesome. I got all this.
I met all these people, some of whom I still
worked with today. And that got me. That got me
in the door. And he was very thoughtful about, Okay,
this is what you want to do. Here's how we

(28:58):
will make it happen. And he was like some Svengali
doing it. He was trying to help you. And and
he thought, hey, maybe I wanted to get into coaching,
offered me a spot on his staff or but he
knew I wanted to go to law school, so he
greased the skins for that to happen, and Uh, you know,
without him doing that, I don't I don't know what
I where I would have been. I don't think I

(29:18):
would have been selling pencils on the street somewhere. I
think I would have been okay, But but my life
would have looked a lot different if I hadn't said,
you know, I want to play for you, and when
I when I did, When I committed to him out
of high school, he was the least well known and
least accomplished coach that was recruiting me. I had no
idea who he was when he called me the first time,

(29:39):
no clue, never heard of him, and I just really
liked him and throughout the four years I played and
after that. Um, he's not like, he is not perfect.
He makes mistakes like everybody else. UM, and he's ultra competitive,
but off the like one thing he never did. He
may he may jump you in prac this and you

(30:00):
feel like you're the worst player it's ever played. He
does not carried off the floor as soon as practice
is over. He may still be pissed off for a while,
but as soon as practice is over he likes you again,
like he's good. Now back on the floor, you better
do what you're supposed to do. The next day, he'll
jump you again, but he never like a lot of

(30:21):
guys carried off the floor, and he doesn't do that.
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I did watch the movie The Air movie about the

(32:34):
early version of Nike Sonny Vacaro and Michael Jordan, and
Michael's mom plays a key figure in this movie. She's
really the star of the movie. And I thought, as
I watched the movie, I've been very critical of Michael
through the years, saying that Nike's Air Jordan commercial is

(32:55):
the greatest domestic ad campaign of my life, and it
is created almost a reaganlike shield, a Teflon shield around Michael,
when if you simply acknowledge previous failings, you're considered a hater. Well,
Sam Smith, who what's the original critic of Michael? The
only one? Back in nineteen ninety one, The Jordan Rules,

(33:17):
a magnificent book on the turbulent season with Michael Jordan
and the Bulls New York Times bestseller. It was the
talk of the literary sports world for several years. He
got a Lifetime Achievement Award, Pro Basketball Writers Association, Kurt
Goudy Media Award Hall of Fame. Currently writes for Bulls
dot Com. And whenever I'm critical of Jordan, as I

(33:38):
watched that movie, I always get major pushback. And I've
said this before that. You know, Michael would punch a
player and they would say, well, he's just very competitive.
Draymond Green punches a guy should be thrown out of
the league. And I think, you know, it's part of
that smile and charisma. When you released the book, you
obviously knew you were Michael was wildly popular. Did you

(33:59):
expect the avalanche criticism? Did you know it was coming? Colin?
Let me say first, if Michael punched somebody and his
knuckles were bruised, that was on the other guy. And
I think that's what we have to mention now. I was,
you know, probably talked about that, and I'm frankly pleased
that you're still on the air being critical of Jordan Um.

(34:21):
You know, there's a thought police about that these days. Yeah,
I was probably pretty naive about it, being a reporter,
having been an investigative reporter over the years, I figured, well,
if I just write what's true, you know, what's the
problem with that? And so it was. It was an

(34:42):
incredible you know, it was over thirty years ago, and
you know, one thing I was kind of pleased about
and pleased about a lot of things, you know, with
the last dance documentary. But one is that Michael sort
of copped all this finally took thirty years, but said, yeah, yeah,
I could be a jerk, but you know what a
reason for it. And so back then it was saying, yeah,
you know, the guy's tough to live with and people,

(35:05):
because as you refer to those commercials, he was really
I mean marketed as kind of you know, the cliche
all American kai. I remember one of the Coca Cola sponsors,
he he like leaped up into a treehouse to deliver
the Coca Cola and he I mean, and they made
a point of this. They were doing you know, Chevrolet

(35:27):
apple Pie. They were doing those conniversials to make it
as American as you know, patriotic and could be. And
then so you know, I sort of write a book
about behind the scenes in basketball. He said, well, this
is not Michael Jordan. I saw him in the commercials.
He's nothing like that, right. You know. It's not that
I'll defend him, but I was talking about this with

(35:49):
somebody the other day. A lot of us resent or
regret what we did in our twenties, but we did
it for a reason. We were immature. I mean, I
grew up, divorced, kid on my own own, not a
lot of money in the family, and I was a
pretty relentless workaholic in my twenties, and that's what I
thought I needed and was mature enough to handle it

(36:10):
that time. And I look at Michael and I say,
people say, oh, he was rough on teammates, but the
Pistons were tackling him. The Celtics were doing about the same.
The East was loaded and physical, and it was all
allowed by the league. And I say to myself, relentless
was the only way for Michael to get through it.
He was being attacked defensively. And could I argue that

(36:31):
we do things out throughout the course of our life
because it gets us to a better place. And the
East was bullyball, Nicks, Celtics, Pistons, and Michael was the
target for almost all of it. And he was just
he was building up a medal and a toughness in
that Chicago bull team that was necessary. I mean, that's

(36:54):
exactly right, because you know what gets overlooked because it
Michael Jordan came into the NBA out of the eighty
four Olympics game winning shot in North Carolina. You know,
with such fanfare to Dunking and the Sports Illustrated covers
and all that. The notion was, well, he's going to
succeed right away. But at the same time, simultaneously, what

(37:15):
Jerry Kross is doing with the Bulls is it's rebuilding basically.
You know, it has Jordan out front, but he's basically
they had a lot of high draft picks, so what
decent players on Land to Woolrich and Sydney Green and
players who could have developed or did develop in other places,
and he traded all of them off essentially for draft picks.

(37:36):
Draft picks, like you know, they got Pipping and they
got hors Grant and he was sort of it wasn't
called that then, you know, because teams didn't really dump
for the draft back then because they have infectly needed
the tendence. And really Jordan should have been with the Pacers.
One of the great overlooked stories is the reason Portland
had the pick was the Pacers had lost James Edwards

(37:59):
and for a tendence needed a center, so they traded
to pick to Portland and that's how Portland ended up.
You know, I'm using for Sambooie and all. But anyway,
so Jordan comes in and the notion as well. He's
his great figure. He's got to compete against bird Magic
Isaiah and they've got Bill Teems and he's looking around
but on his roster and goes, well, you know, I've

(38:21):
got I don't what have I got here? I got
Kyle Macy and I as you know, and so you
know that was sort of a joke about. You know,
they said, well, Jordan couldn't make guys better, and he
used to say, well, yeah, if I had James Worthy
and Kareem I could make him better. You know, I
got Brown and said, they all three, I can't make
them better. Um the MJ documentary, I thought, I remember

(38:47):
when they made um the movie Wall Street about Gordon
Gecko and Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone said, I didn't
try to glamorize him and make him popular, but everybody,
oh every stockbro wanted to be Gordon Gecko, and the
faults of Gecko became sort of romanticized and Sam when

(39:07):
I watched the MJ documentary, Now, obviously MJ had some
say it, but even the warts and uh, you know
Will Purdue saying things about it. Yeah, I found it.
Maybe it's because the league is, you know, it's it's
more of a three point shooting league. It's more skilled,
but more finesse. I found it incredibly likable. I'm like,

(39:28):
I missed the layering, I missed the toughness. I missed
I missed guys not all being best friends. I was.
I fell into it, Sam, I I that documentary. I
made me, like Michael Moore. What was your takeaway on it? Well,
a couple of things. The one takeaway that I like,
and it's sort of one of the things I was

(39:49):
criticized was his Hall of Fame speech where he pointed,
you know, the guy who beat him, you know, got
on them, you know, got on the varsity ahead of him,
and he brought in different guys over the years that
he you know, he had these um challenges by and
people said, well, this is this is horrible. You know,
at the Call of Fame he was sort of blaming

(40:09):
guys for this time, and no, this is this is
great because he showed you exactly who he is and
who he's always been. And you know that that's the
attraction of it. You know what you said the Jordan
rules when I wrote it, and one of the reasons
why I was surprised, is because I saw it as
as a sympathetic portrait, you know, if you you know,

(40:34):
and I know, you know, our version of Twitter back
then was headlines and things taken out of you know,
contacts or whatever. What people would complain it to us about.
You took it out of context. The headline didn't represent
the story and all. And so there was a lot
of that with the Jordan rules, you know, just like now.
People didn't always read back then either. Uh. When I depicted,

(40:55):
you know, my depiction because I'd like Jordan, I've been
around them a long time. I really appreciated his competitiveness
and his zeal and you know, his willingness to try
to pull this group along, you know, kind of with him, uh,
and what he went through, how the Pistons attacked him,
you know, but not only that, you know, I remember

(41:16):
the one year at the MVP boat. Uh. You know,
Magic was very close with Isaiah. We were sitting in
a locker room and it came down, Uh Magic had
won the MVP and all that reported, and he was
very gracious and for the book. We had a good
relations on sitting with him in the locker room and
it happened to be in Detroit and every all reporters
when he turns to me and he goes anybody but

(41:38):
that guy meaning magic, meaning they held up Magic all
the time, and saying he's the guy who made everybody better,
not me. Yeah, and so that you know that sort
of saying. So I sort of viewed it sympathetically, but
you know the notion of the fights, and you know
the taking hars his grand dinner and you know you
don't deserve to eat because you played there. It sort

(42:00):
of looked both ways. Sam Smith, joining us writer for
the Bulls dot Com. It is one of the things
that is attractive about Michael. I couldn't watch a ten
part Brady or Lebron documentary, and that social media has
shown me all I ever need to see about any player,

(42:24):
what they eat, their family. I get now, their opinions
on vaccines, their political opinions. You know Michael. As we
peel the layers back on Michael and the Air movie,
I didn't know that much about him because we didn't
know that much about anybody. And I think what makes
Michael appealing to me the journey for basketball, Sam was

(42:47):
not as grooved as it is today through Au it's
just not it's just groove. Now they're all friends. Nobody's
battling for a piece of the pie. Otto porter can
make two hundred million dollars. It's a different world. And
I do think the struw goal, although Michael's struggle is
less than others. Hell, the Jerry Kraus stuff, it is fascinating.
I'm watching the sonny of a Cao stuff and you

(43:09):
know the toughness of his mother. There's parts of the
privacy of Michael. You were on an inner circle for
a long time, but I view him now it's a
bit of a private figure. How would you describe that?
Even as an owner of the Bobcats, he never really
talked much, right, And actually that was what was great

(43:33):
about the documentary The Last Stance, because it really was
the first time he sat down and showed you who
he was kind of relaxed. Didn't kind of do it
through a commercial, because you know, he was always he
always felt it wasn't so much he was wanted to
promote himself, but he felt an obligation. I mean, I mean,

(43:55):
he really had a good upbringing. And I didn't see
the Sneaker movie yet, but his mother, I know, had
a huge part. He was very close with his father.
They were really best friends more than father's son. Um.
You know, an at loss was tremendous, but he always
felt as a responsibility and obligation to his sponsors. So

(44:17):
to remember him talking about that to act in a
certain way as a result of that. And so you know,
he finally now he saw over the years and I
credited him for that. I actually I remember he wasn't
selling himself. I remember one time, and he'd become tremendously popular,
and he was popular all over the world. I mean

(44:41):
the I remember the North Korean the dad who who
who gone? Had a crazy son's there, but they were
sending foot bulls memorabilia back then from North Korea, um,
you know. And and when David Stern went to China, uh,
he always he always talked about you know, China didn't

(45:04):
know anything about the NBA. They hadn't heard of anybody.
But they had asked him about the red Oxen and
the bowl. That's all they knew, you know. And so
but as a result, you know, he understood that. But
at the same time, and we see why he's made
fortune billionaire whatever. I remember a Japanese company had contacted
him and said they would pay him a million dollars

(45:26):
for an appearance, and he and he and this was
like nineteen eighty eight, eighty nine something like that, and
he said, I'm not just going to sell myself like that.
I'm not going to do that because so so you
know this sort of uh, I'm not surprised that he's
he's he's that way now and that's why the documentary
was great, because you're not going to see him otherwise,

(45:46):
he's not going to be around. He you know, the
NBA has brought out everybody, Bill Russell and Oscar robertson
All Star Games and finals and they named the awards.
He's the one who never showed up anywhere. You know,
you never see him anywhere. He's at all these All
Star games, you know, for Nike, but you've never seen

(46:07):
him in public. And you know, I wish he would
a little more, but you know, he he doesn't want
to sell himself and cheap in it. Really and it's
really been smart. Yeah, I mean privacy and not knowing
everything about you. I remember Jack Nicholson, the Great Owner,
saying he wouldn't go on these shows. When he was

(46:31):
promoting a movie and he's like, why would I give
me away for free? I want that theater experience to
be really special. And I think about that all the time.
I you know, I see everybody putting their meals and
their vacations on Instagram, and I think, you know, it's
okay to have some private stuff in your life. I
don't need to market my every time I go walk

(46:52):
on the beach in Florida. The ownership in Charlotte Sam,
I've said this, and it may be unfair that Michael
was Ohays. First of all, he was a very good
decision maker. David Falk, Phil Knight, Phil Jackson. He tended
to have excellent judgment and be pretty picky on the

(47:14):
people that he would choose to guide his journey. So
he had and by the way, I'm watching Lamar Jackson.
Now he has his mom as an agent. Now he
got an agent to day that's not registered. Some guys
don't make great decisions Michael made and Lebron's done this.
Michael made very solid decisions Sonny Vacaro on the people
that pitched him and he listened to. I didn't expect

(47:37):
the ownership with Charlotte to be great, because I always
thought Michael was great at elevating Michael. But to be
an executive, a coach, or an owner, it's a lot
of giving. It is, to some degree elevating others. Is
it unfair characteristic to say Michael was better at elevating Michael,
his brand and his net worth than sometimes elevating those

(47:58):
around him. He didn't have the pay shians for it.
I don't know about that. That's a hard one. First
of all. You know, ownership management is an awful lot
of luck. You know, the Bulls lucked in the Jordans
in eighty four. Had they not, they probably they wouldn't
have had any titles they would have had, you know,
twenty five fifty years, the Phoenix Suns have never won

(48:20):
a title despite whatever, and so you know, you got
to get lucky. Charlotte has never gotten lucky. I remember, Uh,
you know, people like to think fans, media, whatever, that
just because you've succeeded in something that you'll succeed uh,
you know, because of what you did and your specialty,
you know. And it's sort of like all these coaches

(48:41):
who sort of stood next to uh Bill Parcels uh
you know, just because you're you're you're around somebody who's successful,
doesn't mean you're going to be successful. And so you know,
it's difficult to sort of pick guys. Michael, you know,
you know, had difficulty. You know, who exactly could he
trust in our situations? And so I remember when the Bulls,

(49:05):
you know, ninety eight they broke up and you know
which in the last dance, and so the fans in
the media, the notion was, well, let Michael run the team.
You know, he's a winner, you know, And so we
don't hear that much anymore anymore since the Charlott's situation.
And I don't think it's a case of Michael being
concerned about celebrating himself. I don't think that what he

(49:28):
was about. It's just, you know, you don't go to
school for management of a sports team. There's no there's
no degree, you know, there's no tests like to be
a CPA or a lawyer or something like that. So
you know, who does these things? How do you do it? Um?
You know, it's it's a lot of luck, and he
just hasn't gotten lucky. I mean, that's sort of a

(49:50):
simplified version of it. Um he's been in the lottery.
You know, you get your bad you don't get Lebron,
you get you know, you get, you get the second
guy makes tremendous differences. And so you know, now now
I see he's going to cash out. You know, in
the league wanted him in. David Stern wanted him in
and basically almost gave him that franchise, you know, to

(50:11):
have him involved in the game. Basically, I think he
just paid off the debts. And so one thing Michael
has always done. He used to joke about OPM, you know,
the way to operate a businesses with other people's money.
So he was always he was always bright about that,
and he always always understood equity and he always understood value.

(50:31):
And he's tried, but you can see in the last
couple of years he's lost the enthusiasm for it, just
because it's so hard. The irony is now, you know,
you know, on the ownership, the governors whatever they call themselves.
Now Michael got was put in charge of the labor
committee of the owners and he was appalled at these

(50:54):
salaries that they started paying, you know, because you know,
he made at the time when he made the thirty
million it was, you know, ten million more. Patrick Ewing
I think made eighteen or nineteen, and next highest were
like ten or twelve. You know, so he's making double
or triple whatever anyone is, and you know, now it's
sort of, you know, on the bottom side of next steeling.

(51:14):
He was just sort of appalled that the salaries that
were becoming right of that. But I don't think it
was an ego thing as much as it's really a
hard thing to do. When you look back at covering Michael,
did you instantly know because the first couple of years

(51:37):
I can remember Orlando Woolridge, if I recall Quentin Daily,
it was guys that needed the ball, and Michael, you know,
it was not going to suffer those guys gladly like
he wanted the ball and he was better, and he
was I imagine at practice was letting them know on
a daily basis he was better. But when did you know,

(51:58):
because he did an average a ton of points in college.
When did you have this sense and talk to other
people or maybe you just it was your personal insight
that you thought, boy, this is different. This may be
the bost gifted basketball player I've ever seen. I mean,
you're in my generation, Sam I I grew up and
there I saw the old Wilt and the young Kareem.

(52:21):
Michael didn't Doctor Jay, but Doctor Jay didn't have the
mid range, dependable game. He was spectacular, but he wasn't
as relentless nightly every possession like Michael was. There a
moment that kind of crystallized it for you when you
really felt going back sitting on that press table and
you thought, boy, this may be the greatest basketball player

(52:44):
we're ever going to see. Well, you know, I don't
know if we went to the greatest ever early, but
we went on pretty spectacular early. You know. The old
Joke of course, was the only one who could hold
him under twenty points a game with Dean Smith. So
this is the first and Rod Thurner is the Bulls
GM had been the GM for like seven or eight years,
had lottery picks almost every year, and the team has

(53:08):
winning twenty five twenty eight games. And so Jordan is
the first practice. Kevin Lockery's the coach, and this is
the first practice of Jordan's first season. And Bill Blair,
as I remember as the assistant then, and Rod missus.
Rod can't go to the first practice to something business
then came up, and so Rod miss is the first practice.

(53:30):
Bill Blair calls him at the end of the first practice.
Rod's telling me this story and Bill Blair says, you
finally didn't screw up a draft. He said, we have
never seen anything like this guy. He came in with
all the and you mentioned Woolrich was a top ten pick,
wenton Daly's, the top ten picks in the Green, Ronnie

(53:52):
Lester all top ten picks, and he just blew out everybody.
The first couple of practices, he's lowened by everybody. He's
dunking on everybody. You know, as that famous story when
he came in as a freshman at North Carolina and
the first thing he did he went to the board
and he started writing the Times listing the names of Worthy, Perkins,

(54:14):
all these all Americans, saying how many times he dunked
on them. So that's the way he started in North Carolina,
and that's the way he came into the Bulls. Okay,
So I hear these stories that coming out of training camp,
and we go see him and sits still training camp
and walks into the season. I think third game in
he hits a winner in Milwaukee like six games in

(54:36):
forty nine points against I think what's Portland or something,
and they were bringing in Portland. Media is all saying,
we got a center. This guy's not specially got Clyde Drexler.
And I remember the Chicago guys watch this. Where do
you see this? So we didn't exactly know, say, okay,
this is guy's going to be you know, betted an
Oscar and you know, or Bird or Man, magic or

(55:00):
Will or whatever. But this was different. This was different
than than anything we've seen because of the combination, you know,
of the athleticism, the drive, and the incredible competitiveness and
this will to win, win everything, you know, which sort
of evolved and we saw more from year to year. Uh.

(55:20):
You know, there's always this debate the greatest and who's
the great you know, and it's arbitrary. Lebron's got the
most points now, you know, in my year are going back.
You know, the two greatest things I remember back basketball
is willth coming to the NBA and Kareem coming to
the NBA. You know, went in basically everything out of college.
And so they said, well, how can Jordan You know,

(55:41):
Bill Russell's got the most championships, Gareem and now Lebron's
got the most points? How could this boy be the
greatest ever? And one thing I always point to with
me is that nobody in sports, and certainly in American sports,
and I can't imagine worldwide sports has crossed over and
had the influence on society that he has. Because of

(56:03):
the basketball, the shoes become fashion. Bill Walton likes to
tell the story. You know, he's the MVPs and Portland's
Phil Knights there. Phil Knight comes to him saying, you know,
we're gonna put your name on sneakers. We're gonna do
this whole thing about you know, air bail or whatever.
He said, Who's gonna buy sneakers with my name on?

(56:23):
What a stupid idea that is, you know? And so
baldness is okay, Now I can I can start shaving
my head men and wearing jewelry, you know, long short fashion,
all on these things that transcend the game. Attached to him,
that's what makes you the greatest. That's a Babe Ruth
kind of thing. That's an Ali kind of thing where

(56:47):
you can't measure them only in the sport, but you
can measure their effect on the world and society, and
and his has been to me more than anybody that
we've ever experienced. Bulls dot com Sam Smith. Does Michael
visit Chicago a lot, golf tournaments, bulls games. His mother
does some charity work, some fairly substantial charity work I heard,

(57:11):
But does Michael ever visit Chicago? Now Never? As far
as I can tell, he has never been here. I
think his house is still for sale up in Highland Park.
But he built this mansion kind of thing which is
well overvalued, and I mean not in a bad neighborhood,
but it's just near a highway's and it's been for

(57:32):
sale like ten twelve years or some nobody, you know, buy.
It's got twenty threes all over the gate and stuff
like that. But as far as I know, I've never
heard him being here. Wow. You know, it's interesting. You know,
a passionate relationship with Chicago leaves very close relationship with Barkley.

(57:53):
It ends. It is an interesting personality. It's not a tech,
it's just who he is. I don't know, how do
you explain that though those are both unique, you know,
I don't know of another player. Maybe Brady won't go
back to New England. I don't know it. I find
it just an interesting personality behavioral personality elements. But what

(58:18):
do you make of that? Well, again, because of the
sort of the Howard Us sort of element to him
over the years that he wasn't going to make himself
public and you know, he's as I you know, I
mentioned before, he doesn't want to be uh, you know,
a public figure. He always used to talk way early,

(58:39):
way early, and actually he would tell us, he said,
you know, once I'm gone, you'll never see me again.
And you know, there was an element of that. I
remember him talking about that in the eighties that I'm
going to finish my career and when I'm my career
is over, you will never see me. It's sort of
been true. But he always the other thing. He used
to say too, I'm never going to be a show pony.

(59:00):
And I think that's why it doesn't go at the
All Star Game or at least come out publicly. You
don't see him in public much, doesn't you know, you know.
I mean, can you imagine the amount of money more?
I mean, you know what rich people enough never seems enough.
They're always doing something. Can you imagine the amount of
money Michael Jordan could make in appearances or things other

(59:20):
things he did in public, millions people who would pay
just you know, probably he's probably the most famous person
in the world, maybe the most most he loved, but
he's never you know, he doesn't take advantage of that,
and he never has any any And for whatever the
reason was, at a young age in his twenties, he

(59:40):
talked about that that this is something I'll never do,
that's something I'll never be a part of. I'm not
going to sell myself as as a commodity, as a product.
You know, I'm going to show what I can do.
And then obviously, you know, he was secure with what
they was making. But you know, and I don't know
how to depict the in that movie, but you know,

(01:00:02):
he didn't he didn't go seek out the shoe contracts
and the Nike. He was very reluctant. And I remembered
early on, you know, his mother kind of drags him
out there, and that's what the movie said. Yeah, but
also after the first deal, it was like a three
or four or five year I don't know what the
first contract was. He didn't want to re up with Nike.

(01:00:23):
I remember Craig Hodges talked to him about maybe starting
a local brand or something, and Nike had done something
I'm sure that's not in the movie that he was
upset with and he didn't want to go. He was
thinking about going with another company. I think he said,
he said, I wored Converse or stottm in college. Maybe
I'll go with that, So, you know, he he was

(01:00:44):
kind of it wasn't so much he was saying, I'm
Michael Jordan. I can do what I want. Is that,
you know, it's not my life to sell myself as
a sneaker salesman. Now he's obviously, you know, turned it in,
but he's turned it the other thing that he's turned
it into a quality product. And I think that's what
he's proud about that things are so seated with Michael

(01:01:05):
about quality and they're not cheap and it's not a
show pony just for the money. The volume, make sure

(01:01:27):
to check out The Draymon Green Show. I brought Draymond
Green into the volume because one of the more entertaining
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