NBA legend Michael Jordan made Will Perdue cry during a Chicago Bulls practice by punching him.
Perdue cried and didn’t fight back.
“In practice, when Jordan sucker punched Will Perdue, Will was practically crying and didn’t fight back; Horace was the one who went to fight back,” Hall of Fame Bulls writer Sam Smith told Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype.
Some people thought Jordan punching Perdue was a rumor, but Perdue confirmed the story was true.
“He did and I wasn’t the only one,” Perdue told CBS Sports. “That’s how competitive our practices were. That wasn’t the only fight, that was one of numerous, but because it involved Michael Jordan and it leaked out, that it became a big deal. And the funny thing was, in that practice that it happened, we basically separated, regrouped and kept practicing. It wasn’t like that was the end of practice. Stuff like that was common because that’s how competitive our practices were.”
Perdue wasn’t the only teammate Jordan punched.
MJ also punched Steve Kerr before the 1995-96 NBA season.
“I’m in the shower and I’m saying, ‘I just beat up the littlest guy on the fu**ing court.’ And I felt about this small,” Jordan said in The Last Dance documentary. “So when I get in the car, I called back to the Berto Center and said please give me Steve Kerr’s number. I called Steve and I apologized.”
Kerr said standing up to Jordan was the best thing he ever did.
Kerr also revealed that his relationship with Jordan dramatically improved after the punch.
“We talked it out, and it was probably, in a weird way, the best thing that I ever did, was stand up for myself with him because he tested everybody he played with, and I stood up to him,” Kerr said in The Last Dance. “From that point on, our relationship dramatically improved and our trust in each other, everything. It was like, ‘All right, we got that out of the way. We’re going to war together.’”
After “The Last Dance” came out in 2020, everyone saw that Jordan wasn’t a nice guy or the best teammate.
Jordan did what he had to do to win.
“I pulled people along when they didn’t wanna be pulled,” Jordan said. “I challenged people when they didn’t wanna be challenged and I earned that right because my teammates came after me. They didn’t endure all the things that I endured. Once you join the team, you live at a certain standard that I play the game and I wasn’t gonna take anything less.
“Now, if that means I had to go in and get in your ass a little bit, then I did that. You ask all my teammates, the one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn’t f—ing do. When people see this, they gonna say, ‘Well, he wasn’t really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant.’ Well, that’s you because you never won anything. I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well. Look, I don’t have to do this. I’m only doing it because it is who I am. That’s how I played the game. That was my mentality. If you don’t wanna play that way, don’t play that way.”
The Bulls won six championships, three-peated twice and went undefeated in the Jordan era.
With the Bulls, Jordan won six Finals MVPs, five regular-season MVPs, 10 scoring titles, three steals titles and one Defensive Player of the Year Award. He’s arguably the greatest player in NBA history.
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Attacking Jordan’s character, what does it do for you?
Seems kind of lopsided, skewed, one sided. Every day trying to get people to not like him. It says more about you than him. Jordan would never stoop this low.
You know he played 40 years ago, right? You obviously weren’t there, and don’t understand the culture, the game, the way you make it all so personal. Basketball was a physical and competitive game back then. A level of competitiveness you can’t imagine, if you watch today’s NBA. They got the best out of each other. These were tough dudes, and it wasn’t really all that personal. You just don’t get the context. For instance the thing you shared about telling a guy he can’t eat on the plane. You think he was serious? It’s a comment. It makes a point. You may it sound like he really didn’t want the guy to eat. You just don’t get it.
Your age is showing. You’re getting your info through writers, and a guy who didn’t get enough credit for his NBA contributions, and holds a grudge against Jordan for that. You don’t understand who Jordan was, is, and don’t want to. It’s pretty pathetic, doing daily hit jobs on a guy who retired 25 years ago. Your agenda is so transparent. Your topics are a sad commentary on the media of today. Pure jealousy of the elite athlete. Must attack his character.
Maybe you don’t like or understand the game of basketball. More of a soap opera guy? Nothing from you really talks about basketball, except when you’re forwarding us another guy’s article or news. Why are you here?