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Just how deep does the rivalry between Reggie Miller and Michael Jordan still run? Deep enough that the former Indiana Pacers great and current TNT analyst claims he’d actually physically attack MJ if he saw him on the street today — something that would be a sight for sore eyes if it ever happened.
As we know, Miller and Jordan have never been fans of one another, with the latter once saying during a 1998 ESPN The Magazine feature that the sharpshooting Reggie was the one player in the league he hated going up against. Why? Not because Reggie Miller would make you chase him around the floor to various spots for jumpers, but because it, in MJ’s words, was “like chicken-fighting with a woman,” with the Pacers guard always flopping around. Take a look below at what Jordan said in ’98 about Miller.
“I don’t really dislike anybody in the league, but playing Reggie Miller drives me nuts. It’s like chicken-fighting with a woman. His game is all this flopping-type thing. He weighs only 185 pounds, so you have to be careful, don’t touch him, or it’s a foul. On offense I use all my 215 pounds and just move him out. But he has his hands on you all the time, like a woman holding your waist. I just want to beat his hands off because it’s illegal. It irritates me.”
Although that quote from Jordan took place some 22 years ago, in the words of Seth from Superbad:
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So here we are in 2020 and Reggie Miller’s still looking to compete against Michael Jordan, telling Dan Patrick on Tuesday that he’d punch Jordan in the face. Just a reminder, Miller’s 54 years old and MJ’s 57 years old, so this would be the lamest fight on the planet, but, hey, Reggie would still throw down if he could — as discussed with Patrick.
“I might punch him,” Miller said.
“Are you being serious?” Patrick asked.
“Man, there was a lot of stuff being thrown back and forth,” Miller replied.
Look, I get it, during their playing days, Reggie Miller couldn’t get the best of Michael Jordan, and only reached the NBA Finals after the six-time champ retired from the Chicago Bulls in ’98. So it makes sense that he still wants to duke it out — but who seriously believes Miller would try to hook his longtime rival?
Regardless, this is the type of cold-blooded attitude that made the NBA so FANNNNN-TASSSSTIC in the ’80s and ’90s — the legit hatred between two of the best in the game. Instead of decades-long trash-talk, we’ve got guys like LeBron James inviting opposing players over for dinner and sipping some rare Cabernet that’s from the south of France. That’s some B.S., because the player feuds added to the drama and made the games that much more intense.
You can see the full interview between Miller and Dan Patrick below.