Michael Jordan Screamed At Bill Cartwright So Much That Cartwright Wanted To Fight Him: ‘I’m Gonna Rip Your Damn Head Off’

Michael Jordan and Bill Cartwright won three NBA championships together on the Chicago Bulls in 1991, 1992 and 1993.

The Bulls beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals, the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1992 Finals and the Phoenix Suns in the 1993 Finals. 

If you watched “The Last Dance” docuseries, you know that Jordan was very hard on his teammates. The NBA legend screamed and cursed at teammates if they messed up or didn’t meet his standards. 

During a recent episode of his podcast, former Bulls big man Stacey King revealed that Cartwright wanted to fight Jordan because MJ was yelling at him too much. 

King won three rings with Jordan and Cartwright. 

“So he’s walking off to the side,” King said. “He’s yelling at him, screaming, ‘Catch the damn ball. I’m not gonna throw you a ball again.’ And then it got a little bit more intense. And then finally, Bill just snapped and he says, ‘Hey, let me tell you something. You ever talk to me like that again, I’m gonna rip your damn head off. No one talks to me like that.’

“And then Michael’s face looked like you thought he saw a ghost because he did not expect that reaction from Bill because Bill is such a mild-mannered guy.”

According to Scottie Pippen, Jordan told his Bulls teammates not to pass the ball to Cartwright in the last few minutes of games due to his bad hands. 

When Cartwright found out, he was “ready to kill” Jordan. 

“Bill, to put it mildly, didn’t appear to be the answer to our problems in the post,” Pippen wrote in his book. “He had bad hands, couldn’t spot open teammates when he was double-teamed, and was unable to keep up with our speed, the best in the league. 

“Michael wasn’t pleased. That also is putting it mildly. He told the rest of us to stop passing the ball to Bill in the last few minutes of a game. Bill was a smart guy. He saw what was going on. He was ready to kill Michael, and I didn’t blame him. ‘That motherf–ker,’ Bill said one day when Michael wasn’t around. ‘I don’t care what that f**ker says. Just get me the f–king ball.'”