After taking a year and a half break to play baseball, Michael Jordan returned to the Chicago Bulls in 1995. But even then, his return couldn’t help push the Bulls past the Orlando Magic in the NBA Playoffs as he needed some time to adjust.
But for that 1995-1996 season, Jordan and the Bulls were dominant winning 72 games and cruising in the playoffs.
They would matchup against the Seattle Supersonics who were coached by North Carolina alum George Karl and Jordan’s former teammate in college, Sam Perkins. While Jordan has respect for both Karl and Perkins, one of them managed to fuel Jordan before Game 1 of the series and is something they regret.
During episode 8 of ESPN’s “The Last Dance”, Jordan told a story prior to Game 1 where he and Ahmad Rashad were out to dinner and Karl was at the same restaurant. Karl then walked out past the duo but didn’t say a word to Jordan. Here’s how he told the story in the episode:
““He walks right past me,” Jordan said in the show. “And I look at Ahmad [Rashad] and I said, ‘Really? Oh, so that’s how you’re gonna play it?’””
That’s all the GOAT needed.
Jordan would end up dropping
Following the episode, Karl shared his reasoning as to why he didn’t stop to talk to Jordan while appearing on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt. Here is that reasoning:
““It is true. I had Brendan Malone on my staff from the Detroit Pistons, and he said, ‘Michael plays head games with you all the time,’ and he said ‘you don’t want to mess with him in the series,” Karl said. “Say hello at the beginning of the series, shake his hand at the end of the series, but during the series don’t let him use anything to motivate himself to be a better player than the greatest player in NBA basketball.””
While listening to the story, you had to wonder how Karl could make such a big mistake to motivate Jordan. But listening to his side of it, no matter what he did either talking to Jordan or not, he was screwed.
Jordan was going to get his way and that’s just the story of how the 90’s went for the GOAT.
For more on Jordan and other former UNC Basketball players, please check back with Keeping It Heel.
