Michael Jordan Alienated New Bulls Teammates Before They Won A Championship With Him: ‘Unless You Won A Championship With Him, You Weren’t Part Of The Club’

NBA legend Michael Jordan alienated new Chicago Bulls teammates before they won a championship with him. 

Jordan led the Bulls to titles in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998. 

“There was always that lingering thing with Michael, where unless you won a championship with him you weren’t part of the club,” Steve Kerr told Hall of Fame Bulls writer Sam Smith, via Chicago Sports historian Jack M. Silverstein. “We needed to win that title first before we all felt like we had his seal of approval.”

Jordan didn’t care if his teammates liked him. He understood that winning and leadership had a price. 

“I pulled people along when they didn’t wanna be pulled,” Jordan said in The Last Dance doc. “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.”

Jordan got emotional while saying that last line in “The Last Dance.” He cried and asked the camera crew for a “break.”

The Bulls won six championships, three-peated twice and went undefeated in the Jordan era.

Sure, Jordan may have been harsh on his teammates when they made mistakes, but his leadership style worked. 

With the Bulls, Jordan won six rings, 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. 

In 930 games with Chicago, Jordan averaged 31.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.5 steals and 0.9 blocks. He never missed the playoffs or played in a Game 7 in the NBA Finals.