Just about everybody was a Michael Jordan fan in the '80s and '90s.
He was a champion on the court and he got lots of good publicity, including funny ads
and a role in Space Jam!
But he could be pretty unbearable to play with.
Here are players who couldn't stand Michael Jordan.
In the early '90s, NBA superstars Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley were just as likely
to frequent a fancy golf course as they were to be on the court.
Just before Game 4 of the 1993 NBA Finals between Jordan's Bulls and Barkley's Suns,
the two supposed friends met up for a few rounds of golf.
According to late Bulls assistant coach Johnny Bach, Jordan then presented Barkley with a
$20,000 diamond earring.
It wasn't a friendly gesture, though, but rather a cold, strategic move.
Jordan figured it would fill Barkley with so much warmth and affection that he'd back
off on the court.
And indeed, in Game 4, Jordan scorched the Suns by dropping 55 points.
Barkley later struck back, publicly and effectively.
He's now a broadcaster on TNT's Inside the NBA.
In 2012, he used that pulpit to criticize Jordan for hiring too many unqualified cronies
for jobs in the front office in his role as the primary owner of the Charlotte Bobcats.
As a result of those comments, Barkley says that Jordan ended their friendship.
"They know when you're being dishonest and disingenuous.
I’m gonna do my job.
Plain and simple.”
“You think the rift’s able to be repaired?”
“Always."
Hall of Famer Robert Parish never seemed to have beef with anybody, or if he did, he kept
it to himself.
After all, he was so serious and stoic that he was nicknamed "The Chief" after the similarly
quiet character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
So if a player bothered him, he must've really been bothered.
After a long and legendary stint with the Boston Celtics in the '80s, Parish finished
his career in the 1996-97 season with the Bulls.
The good news was that he won an NBA championship that year, but the bad news was that he had
to play with Michael Jordan.
In 2012, Parish told ESPN that after he messed up a play during one of his first practices
with the Bulls, Jordan got up in his face and sassed him hard.
Parish wouldn't hear it, though, explaining,
"I told him, 'I'm not as enamored with you as these other guys.
I've got some rings, too.’
At that point he told me, 'I'm going to kick your ass.'"
But Parish called Jordan's bluff, as he continued,
"I took one step closer and said, 'No, you really aren't.'
After that he didn't bother me."
Upon returning to the NBA in 1995 after pursuing a baseball career, Jordan was looking to make
up for lost time.
He directed a lot of that psychic energy at one player in particular during the Bulls'
first-round playoff series against the Charlotte Hornets.
With the score tied late in Game 4, 5'3" Hornets point guard Muggsy Bogues had the ball.
Bogues claims that while Jordan was guarding him, he quipped,
"Shoot it, you f---ing midget."
An unnerved Bogues missed that shot, and the Hornets lost.
Bogues later told Bulls assistant coach Johnny Bach that Jordan's trash talk permanently
ruined his game, and his stats faltered as a result.
Most of the players on this list endured Jordan's cold and cruel competitive nature firsthand.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, however, wrapped up his career around the time Jordan's was just beginning,
and their teams didn't face each other that often.
But he's still got a reason for his distaste of His Airness, specifically his Air Jordan
shoes.
In 2015, at a National Public Radio event, Abdul-Jabbar explained that he was disappointed
that the categorically apolitical Jordan blew his chance to affect real change as a highly
influential public figure.
He was also specifically disappointed that he actively chose making money over making
a difference.
As he explained,
"You can't be afraid of losing shoe sales if you're worried about your civil and human
rights.
He took commerce over conscience."
Jordan apparently had a nasty habit of roughing up the bench players on his team.
One of his Bulls teammates, Horace Grant, told New York radio station Hot 97 in 2015
about the time that Jordan got extra violent with another teammate, Will Perdue, during
a scrimmage.
"You know running this play, and Will set an illegal pick on MJ.
MJ said, ‘Will, don't do that again.’”
So a crisis was averted… momentarily.
But then coach Phil Jackson ordered the squad to try the play again.
This led to another illegal screen from Perdue, but that one didn't end with just a polite
warning.
"MJ walks up to Will.
BOOM!
Lit him up.
It was over."
Grant and other players held back Perdue from escalating the situation and attacking the
team's star player.
The following day, Perdue boarded the team plane with a "huge shiner" on his face.
Steve Kerr is now one of the best coaches in the NBA, having led the Golden State Warriors
to three titles.
He also earned some championship rings in his playing days: three with the Bulls in
the '90s, and then two more with the San Antonio Spurs.
Perhaps the toughest opponent he ever faced was his own teammate, Michael Jordan.
At one instance during Bulls training camp, things were getting physical and out of control.
Jordan got even more aggressive and launched into the trash talk.
At some point, his unrelenting smart mouth and hard fouls became too much for Kerr to
bear.
He started talking back and fouling Jordan.
After trading elbows, Jordan exploded.
Speaking to Vice Sports, Kerr joked,
"I was like the kid in Jurassic Park who got attacked by the velociraptor."
Fists were raised, and Kerr got himself a black eye.
But the two eventually made up.
Jordan apologized via answering machine message, and Kerr claimed that things were fine from
then on, saying,
"Getting into that fight, I think I proved that I was tough, that I would stand up to
him and I think he respected that."