Michael Jordan’s legacy includes many things, but being a great teammate isn’t always one of them.
His Airness often got into it with his own teammates, and even cried and stopped an interview over the notion they saw him as a tyrant.
Jordan faced off with his future teammate Russell many times before joining the WizardsGetty Images - GettyBryon Russell, who was briefly teammates with the six-time NBA champion with the Washington Wizards, still holds a slight grudge against Jordan.
Before Michael Jordan and Russell became colleagues in Washington , the pair had already enjoyed one of the most iconic moments in NBA history.
Russell became one of the most recognizable figures in basketball after he was the Utah Jazz player Jordan seemingly pushed off in his game-winning shot in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals.
Jordan dribbled and drove right towards Russell to throw him off balance, before a slight nudge saw him fall. MJ then banked the shot that put the Bulls 87-86 up with five seconds left in what turned out to be his final moment in a Chicago uniform.
“When he made that shot,” former Bulls guard Steve Kerr remarked, “you could feel the energy being sucked out of the building.”
“He’s going to shoot this (expletive),” Bulls forward Dennis Rodman said of Jordan. “He’s not going to (expletive) pass this ball.”
That moment is etched in NBA history and is one Russell was constantly reminded about when Jordan and he became teammates between 2002-2003.
Reports claim that when the pair were with the Wizards, Jordan constantly trolled Russell over how the Jazz lost in two consecutive NBA championship series against him, and that he couldn’t do anything to stop him.
Then, in 2009, during Jordan’s iconic Hall of Fame speech which saw him cry, Russell was trolled by the five-time MVP once again.
“From this day forward, if I ever see [Bryon] in shorts, I’m coming at him,” Jordan said, referring to his championship-winning shot.
Russell didn’t take the joke too well, and publicly challenged MJ to a game of 1-on-1, saying there were no Jordan rules this time.
Jordan joined the Wizards in 2001 where he was teammates with RussellGETTY Jordan spent two years at the WizardsGetty“I’ll play his a** right now,” Russell said in 2009.
“This is a call-out for him to come play me. He can come out here in his private jet and come play. He’s got millions of dollars. He can pay for the jet. He can meet me at the Recreation Center in Calabasas.
“We can have Mark Jackson do the commentating. We can have Mitch Richmond do the officiating. We can put it on TV and see if Michael’s still got it. I keep my basketball shorts on.”
Russell later revealed that he refused to be in hit documentary series The Last Dance after being told he couldn’t say certain things.
“I said no,” Russell said in 2024 with a laugh in a press conference in Utah.
“I didn’t want to bust his bubble. It’s his documentary, his story to tell. So, let him tell the story.”
It should be remembered that Jordan himself once said that he didn’t push off Russell for that iconic shot.
“Everybody says I pushed off — bull****,” Jordan said in the final episode of The Last Dance.
“His energy was going that way. I didn’t have to push him that way.”
Nevertheless, Russell will forever have that tag of being the man Jordan bested to clinch his sixth world championship.
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