We all had seen the shot in North Carolina.

We've seen the player of the year in college.

We've seen the NBA's stuff, but young Michael Jordan was still sort of an enigma even to people that obsess over him like us.

Tell me a little bit more about this character of Larry Jordan, who used his brother in the back yard, because I want to know what happened to Larry Brothers.

Tell Mary rest in peace, Bill.

I don't have a lot in common with Michael Jordan, but, um, I was the youngest of three boys and he was, too.

He's got two sisters as well, but, um, and I did have a lot of was on the losing end of a lot of games in the backyard.

Um, it didn't forge me into the maniacal competitor and forge Michael into, but Larry was the best athlete early on in that family.

And, um, he had Maurin common with Michael's dad than Michael had with Michael's dad.

And that was hard for Michael.

So he did whatever he could to vie for his dad's attention, and he saw Larry is blocking that, and that was the roots of that competitive fire that you see even to this day was that before he even had a basketball on his hand in his life, he was competing with his brother and he says, You know, he credits Larry with being the most ferocious competitor he's ever faced, and he said It made Larry and Magic and all those guys look easy compared to our Larry Bird and Magic and all those guys look easy.

Uh, Larry now works for the Hornets as there's Ronnie, Michael's older brother.

Um, but it's crazy.

When you look at the family picture of that family, it's it's There's a dozen reasons why I think Michael Mont might not be from this planet, and one of them is that when you see that family, they all look alike.

I mean, Michael's definitely his parents child, biologically, but that family it goes for 5658575858 665852 But it doesn't make sense, but they all look exactly alike.

I mean, Larry is the picture of his father.

Um, so yeah, they to this day, there still, I mean, you can see there's there's still that same car kind of brotherly sibling rivalry between them.

So I'm glad you brought up a Larry.

I want to talk about another one.

His middle name is Joe.

His last name is Burke and M J.

Late in the season, when nowadays teams air tanking for draft peace force, the team that basically Plame after an injury went to Carolina rehab, they brought him back.

He's plants seven minutes for half.

Paxon makes a shot.

Ultimately, a 30 win team makes it to the playoffs.

Play against the Celtics.

This is his coming out party.

How was it to discuss with him these games versus those Celtics?

It was a dream for me because I'm from Boston.

I grew up a Celtics fan, and, um, and I was at the game that we're about to discuss in a second with my dad.

So and this was right around the time that Michael's posters were on my walls and my brothers and I were fighting over who gets which poster when they were at the poster store.

And, um, who gets which T shirt who's gonna wear which T shirt?

So it was a thrill to discuss that I want to discuss a little bit, though.

You mentioned Michael insisting on coming back when management didn't want him to just think of the dichotomy between where the league went and where it was back then, and where his head, waas Scotty, was going to get surgery late to punish the front office by costing them wins and costing them success in the short run.

I don't think that Scotty was deliberately sabotaging this season, but this was his way of punishing the front office for this.

His treatment, Michael's way of punishing the front office was to come back sooner and win more very easy for him to say, All right, I'll take the rest of the year off.

I'll go down a U.

N.

C and rehab.

I'm sure he would have liked to hang out with his family and will meet in this friends in Chapel Hill.

He says No, I want to come back and I want to make the playoffs to punish you.

I've said I'm gonna make the playoffs every year.

We have a chance to do it.

Let's go.

So I just wanted to point that out.

Um, but yeah, talking to Michael about those games.

I was glad to see him light up because he understood, after all these years of significance of that coming out party jailing, as you called it, um, against a Celtics team that some argue still is the best of all time.

And I think anyone who knows the MBA would argue It's certainly in the top 10 and probably the top five of all time.

I'm about a 49 point Game, one loss in Boston and a 63 point Game two loss in Boston.

Jalen and Jason were both discussing anomaly in the box score from those games.

Jalen, what exactly were you guys talking about?

He didn't attempt a three point shot.

Just think about that.

You know, a perimeter player in today's game, not attempting a three point shot yet having 49 points against multiple Hall of Famers and arguably one of the greatest teams of all times and in 63 in the next game.

That's why Larry Bird called him Jesus and gym shoes and also for a 23 year old kid at that point against one of the best teams of all time to go into their floor at the Garden, 13 of 15 from the line in the first game, 19 of 21 in a double overtime game in the second game from the line.

You wouldn't see that today from some of the best follow shooters in the league, let alone the 23 year old kid walking into Boston Garden after taking the entire year off for the welcome sort.

Well, I mean what?

There has been a theme throughout these 1st 2 episodes of sort of like the different sources of Michael Jordan's greatness.

A lot of that is sort of motivation and perceived slights and his competitive nature.

How much do you think that plant performance after the restrictions the minute restrictions were lifted was sort of, in a way, not just a coming out party to him in the rest of leading the fans, but also sort of look at the front office in the minute restrictions and saying, I could have been doing this the whole time.

Look at what I do when you take this sort of the leash off my performance.

I think it was absolutely that I think it was all right.

Once, once you take that stopwatch out of your hand and you just put it on the side and you let me go and you release this.

This this cage, wild animal onto the floor.

This is what I can do.

This is what I'm capable of doing.

So put the right pieces around me so that we can actually win some games.

Because if I'm capable of doing this and taking the best team on the planet at the moment to double overtime with no supporting cast, imagine what I could do if you put the right pieces around me.

So it was clearly a message to them.

No, Jason, I'm glad you mentioned putting the right pieces around him because also covered in this episode was a very important trade.

And that was a trade of Michael Jordan's close, confident and, frankly protector on the floor.

Charles Oakley, his bodyguard with Knicks for you know, it's other pieces for basically Bill Cartwright, a center who is obviously much taller and a better rim protector and more traditional center in the league at that time, and Jerry Cross obviously engineered this and end up being a trade that really helped that team get better.

So with cross being that, as you mentioned, the picks up some of the villain to Michael Jordan's hero, do you feel like he deserves more credit for the move that he made in terms of the roster building around Michael Jordan for the team's success?

Yes, because Jerry Krause loved Charles Oakley.

He drafted Charles Oakley and was very proud of finding these kind of diamonds in the rough.

Uh, and Charles Oakley was one of those, so he brought him to the team, and Charles was.

Charles was the second best player you could argue with the advent of the Doug Collins era.

But Jerry recognized back in those days you needed a big man.

You had to have someone in the middle who could actually be formidable against the other teams, especially in the East.

Bill Cartwright, One of the teams in the East, was, was the Knicks that they needed to go up against Patrick Ewing.

Bill Cartwright played alongside Patrick Ewing.

Jerry was savvy enough to know that he played against Patrick Ewing every day in practice, and he would know how to defend him as well as anybody else in the league.

So Why not bring this guy and we need a five.

Let's go get a veteran who can provide some leadership in the locker room and has a better insight into Patrick Ewing than anybody else on the planet.

It was a savvy move, and I had I also give Michael credit for this was one of his notes.

We discussed off camera that that Michael is an active notes giver in this, in the best possible sense.

He hasn't policed us once.

He hasn't told me once.

You cannot include that.

You can't ask me this.

You have to take this out.

But he did say after watching a rough cut of Episode two, you should add in that trade because that is one of the things that turn that team around.

And at the time, he's honest in our interview about resenting it because Charles was his enforcer, as Yellen said on the floor on his best friend off the floor.

But even Michael now will acknowledge that that was the right time to make that move, and it needed to be made, and it was the right move.

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