Michael Jordan Was Asked By Craig Hodges To Boycott Game 1 Of 1991 Finals As Way Of Calling Out Racism And Economic Inequality In NBA: ‘He Was Like Man, That’s Kind Of Extreme’

Craig Hodges asked Michael Jordan to boycott Game 1 of the 1991 Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers as a way of calling out racism and economic inequality in the NBA. 

Jordan told Hodges, “Man, that’s kind of extreme.”

“Where I was, in the pecking order of the NBA, I didn’t carry that type of weight,” Hodges told Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype. “We were considered ‘Michael and the Jordanaires.’ When I brought it to Michael, he was like, ‘Man, that’s kind of extreme, Hodge.’ And that was basically it. Same thing with Magic Johnson.

“For me, I’m looking back at 1963 and the history of the NBA and what Jerry West and Elgin Baylor were able to do during that All-Star Weekend; they said they weren’t going to play and our Players’ Union was formed out of that. So, there was precedent of us sitting down and being able to make some type of progress… But they felt that it was a bit too extreme to the point where it was just a cursory look over, not even really a conversation on the critical standpoints. And I understand where they were coming from because they were the two icons in the game at the time and neither one of them, at that point, was really politically active. Well, I’m not going to say ‘politically active,’ I think oftentimes we get that term involved and the politics of it. But I think it’s just the human spirit of it and the human rights spirit of it.”

The Bulls defeated the Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals for their first of six championships. 

Jordan and Hodges were teammates for four seasons. They won two titles together in 1991 and 1992. 

“Well, you come to practice, do your thing people and go home,” Hodges said about playing with Jordan and the Bulls. “I had two young sons at the time and a wife, so I have family issues to take care of after games and after practices. A lot of times, because we spend so much concentrated time together, people on the outside looking in at teams think people hang out all the time together. But we’re together all the time within our work space – whether it be on the road, whether it be traveling – [so] you want to get away from people. From that standpoint, everybody was cool.

“We had great chemistry as a team. Everybody understood the pecking order on the public side of things, but everybody understood the pecking order within the context of our privacy within the team and within practice sessions and within the locker room. So there was a big difference in what went on privately when we were in sessions as opposed to what people saw publicly.”

The Bulls went 6-0 in the NBA Finals and three-peated twice during the Jordan era. Jordan won five MVPs and six Finals MVPs with Chicago. 

Jordan finished his NBA career with averages of 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.3 steals and 0.8 blocks with the Bulls and Washington Wizards. He’s first in NBA history in points per game, fourth in steals, fifth in field goals and second in player efficiency rating.