This is not your usual guy from the streets that had to fight his way through the gangs to the NBA. He was raised in a fine middle class family, got good education. His main motivation has always been competition, beating someone, bad. 4th child of 5 kids, his first crush was baseball. Then his father nailed a rim to their garden. And he started going against his brother Larry every day. It started from those days, that this man was obsessed with competition.
This man made his restaurant reservations with the name Leroy Smith to avoid celebrity attention. Smith was the player picked to High School instead of him. Imagine the mindset of this person.
He was invited to North Carolina's summer camp when he grew up 12 cm's. Roy Williams, one of Dean Smith's assistants back then said "I think we are watching the best 1.95 player of all time here".
Bobby Knight, the coach of the olympic USA team already called him possibly the GOAT in the time when he was picked. He was a product of the golden era of basketball. Always had to go against the best. Proven himself. Made Larry Legend say it was God disguised as Jordan. Crashed the Bad Boys Jordan Rules wall. Always fought back to come better after each struggle. He was selected DPOY one season after getting called as not good defensively. He was obsessed about competing and winning so bad that it is historically monumental.
He made Magic say there is a new Sherrif in town after the infamous scrimmage of the original Dream Team. He rejected staying on bench when he was injured.
Durability:
He never lost 3 straight games since 0-3 start in 1991.Never missed a playoff game, played in all of the 179 games. 119-60 record.
Played 82 games when he was 40 years old.
He missed only a total of 7 games during his time with the Chicago Bulls (1988-1998), excluding 1993-1995 season where he announced his first retirement.
He led the league in scoring between 87-98 and it would start from 85 if he did not break his foot in 86.
None of the 179 playoff games he had included a single-digit scoring game.
He is one of the 3 players in history to win both DPOY and Finals MVP.
He made the game on many levels what it is today.
