Michael Jordan Threatened Bulls Staff Member for Excluding Him from All-Time Starting Five
It’s hard to picture an all-time basketball dream team without Michael Jordan.
The Chicago Bulls legend was a five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and won six championships during his storied career.
Whether you rank MJ or LeBron James as the greatest NBA player, Jordan should undoubtedly be part of any fantasy starting lineup.
Jordan himself once picked an all-time lineup during a 1992 interview with Playboy. Without hesitation, he included himself among other basketball legends.
Jordan’s All-Time Team Picks
“Me and Magic [Johnson], [Larry] Bird, [James] Worthy, [Kevin] McHale or [Moses] Malone, David Robinson or [Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar,” Jordan said.
His selections featured contemporaries known for their skill, size, creativity, and scoring, though he couldn’t narrow it down to just five players.
However, when asked how his team would match up against past greats, Jordan reportedly became annoyed, recalling that then-Bulls GM Jerry Krause once compiled his own all-time team featuring players from the 1960s, excluding Jordan and his peers.
This omission did not sit well with Jordan.
Jordan’s Reaction to Krause’s Team
“I did this with Jerry Krause once,” Jordan recalled. “He chose Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Jerry West. At small forward, he had Dr. J. The power forward was Gus Johnson. I told him I’d kill him.
“Of all the players, he left out Magic and Bird. He excluded me, putting West at shooting guard.”
Jordan and Krause had a famously tense relationship during their time in Chicago.
Tension Between Jordan and Krause
As highlighted in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Last Dance, Jordan had little respect for Krause, often mocking him in group settings.When Krause, who passed away in 2017, was honored posthumously in the Bulls’ ‘Ring of Honour’ earlier this year, some fans booed as his family accepted the recognition on his behalf.