Last week former Chicago Bulls forward Horace Grant shared a story about the time Michael Jordan punched teammate Will Perdue in the face during practice and left him with a black eye. The story checks out.
While hosting the Bulls pregame show on CSN Chicago Wednesday, Perdue provided some more details. He claims Grant left the part out about MJ being frustrated because the second unit was whooping the first unit during the practice.
“First of all, the second unit was kicking the first unit’s butt, and Michael wasn’t too happy about it,” Perdue explained, as transcribed by Dan Feldman of Pro Basketball Talk. “And we used to do that actually quite often in practice.”
Perdue then explained how assistant coach Johnny Bach had instructed him to keep setting hard screens on Jordan, as Phil Jackson and the Bulls coaches wanted to see if MJ was willing to fight through them for four quarters.
“So, we kept running this play, and sometimes my screens were illegal. Sometimes they were not,” Perdue said. “But my job was to make sure I hit him. Well one time he said, ‘If you do that again I’m going to make you pay for it.’ Well Johnny Bach just stood there and goes, ‘Run it again.’
“So we ran it again, and this time I figured if I’m going to get my money’s worth. I nailed him, knocked him to the ground, kind of stood over him a little bit. He stood up, popped me and before I could get him they got us and that was the end of it.”
Jordan later apologized to Perdue, and Perdue admitted he was rocking a shiner for a few days. The story sounds awfully similar to the one that Steve Kerr told a couple of years back about Chicago’s glory days.
As LB mentioned, these types of stories would be massive if the incidents took place during the social media era. Kobe Bryant can’t even yell at his teammates during practice without making headlines. Imagine how much Twitter buzz Jordan’s antics would have created?
