Michael Jordan stepped away from basketball twice during his career before announcing returns. He ultimately retired in 2003 after his time with the Washington Wizards.
According to Antoine Walker, MJ actually delayed the press conference announcing his return to basketball in 2001 for a wild reason.
Walker joined Patrick Peterson and Bryant McFadden on CBS Sports’ “All Things Covered” for an episode published on Thursday. In the episode, Walker talked about a time he and MJ teamed up for a game of spades against two others.
Walker says that he and Jordan were down $900,000 at one point. He says they made back nearly all of the money during the gambling session, but they ended up losing six figures.
The crazy part about the story is Walker says the game lasted 36 hours and Jordan even sent out for $500,000 at one point. He says the game went so long that Jordan had to cancel the press conference announcing his return to the NBA.
“What made it even more interesting, it was the day he actually was supposed to make his announcement he was officially coming back. He canceled the press conference, everything. We played for 36 hours, man,” Walker recalled.
Jordan eventually announced his second return to the NBA on Sept. 25, 2001. He played two seasons for the Wizards before retiring for good.
As for Walker, stories about his gambling are all too common, which is how he ended up in such a tough spot later in life.
