Michael Jordan is widely considered the greatest basketball player of all-time but he also has a reputation for being insanely competitive and pushing his teammates to their limits.
Before the release of the “The Last Dance” Jordan worried that the doc was going to make him look like a “horrible guy”.
Via The Athletic
When people see this footage I’m not sure they’re going to be able to understand why I was so intense, why I did the things I did, why I acted the way I acted, and why I said the things I said
”When you see the footage of [me riding with Scotty Burrell], you’re going to think that I’m a horrible guy,” Hehir remembers His Airness telling him before defending his aggressive approach. “But you have to realize that the reason why I was treating him like that is because I needed him to be tough in the playoffs and we’re facing the Indiana’s and Miami’s and New York’s in the Eastern Conference. He needed to be tough and I needed to know that I could count on him.”
In just the very first episode of ESPN’s doc, we got to see some interesting moments of Jordan being a bit of an asshole behind the scenes.
Here’s Jordan giving a French reporter who asked him for an autograph the stink eye.
https://twitter.com/cjzero/status/1252045556014342145
We also saw MJ go at his teammates in that first episode.
https://twitter.com/gifdsports/status/1252060681186217985
https://twitter.com/gifdsports/status/1252053242474827777
Jordan would also mock Bulls GM Jerry Krause to his face.
https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1252054707834548225
https://twitter.com/TheHoopCentral/status/1252044305289510914
Hopefully, the rest of the “Last Dance” shows us more of this raw uncut MJ considering we’ve seen the cookie-cutter version of him throughout the years.