“You give me respect by giving me none,” Michael Jordan reportedly taught Shaquille O’Neal an invaluable lesson about brutal 90s NBA
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Michael Jordan
Shaquille O’Neal will always be remembered as one of the most dominating players the league has ever seen. However back in the 90s, Shaq was still a kid, and Michael Jordan ruled the league back then. Shaq revealed that he had only been dunked on by 3 times in 20 years and one of them was Michael Jordan. So the next time they played Shaq said “I had to lay him out… I laid him out and went to help him up“. Michael Jordan believed that you showed him respect by showing him none which is a statement that exudes confidence. Shaq said, “I went to help him up and he said ‘don’t ever help nobody up‘”.
Michael Jordan was known for being aggressive and hostile towards his opponents but when it was dished back at him, it just fueled him more. He was known for taking things personally and probably used that same fuel to sweep Shaq’s Orlando Magic in the playoffs in 1996. Michael Jordan was at his peak back then and one can only wonder about the matchup between Air Jordan and The Diesel in his prime.
Michael Jordan and Shaq were two of the best to ever play the game. It is no surprise that Shaq took Jordan’s advice as Jordan had ‘god-like’ status back then. This advice must have helped Shaq throughout his career as he was certainly never seen helping someone up after dunking on them. Shaq was known for his powerful and at times disrespectful dunks which irked opposition players, but not Michael Jordan.
LeBron might have the scoring record, but Michael Jordan is still the best scorer of all time
LeBron James has the most points in NBA history but Michael Jordan scored at a greater rate. Michael Jordan has the most points per game of all time at 30.01 and is the only player along with Wilt Chamberlain to average 30 in their career. Jordan won 10 scoring titles in his career which is by far the most ever. What makes that stat even more shocking is the fact he won 7 in a row. Jordan had as many scoring titles in a row as the second-highest number of scoring titles ever (6).
The only reason Michael Jordan did not win more than 7 is that he retired. Michael Jordan famously retired from basketball following the 1993 NBA championship and went to play baseball. In those two years, Shaq and David Robinson picked up the scoring titles. However, once Jordan was back from retirement in 1995, there was no stopping him. He went on to win the scoring title for the next 3 years before retiring again.
Michael Jordan did come back from retirement a third time as he played 2 years for the Wizards at age of 40 but did not put up scoring title numbers then. He did have multiple 40-point games however and showed the league he still got it, just not every game. Michael Jordan finally retired for good in 2003 and has been a GM since 2010. However, Jordan will always be known as the most dominating scorer of all time.
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Anuj Shrikanth Iyer
(290 Articles Published)