Michael Jordan‘s competitiveness has no limit. Whether it was against his opponents or his teammates, the 6x champion would try his best to always come out on top. Aside from this, Jordan also made people put money on the line. So, it didn’t come as a surprise when a former Portland Trail Blazers star revealed that he witnessed the Chicago Bulls legend taking money from his own employees after defeating them in cards.
In a recent episode of Broken Play, Damon Stoudamire talked about his experience meeting Michael Jordan for the first time. According to Stoudamire, back in the 1990s, Michael Jordan and other members of Nike went to Japan for an event held by the brand. While they were on the flight, Stoudamire saw Jordan and others playing cards.
“Mike was talking so bad to those dudes. Listen, Mike was playing cards with the dudes that work for him. Beating them and telling them, ‘It’s cool, I don’t have to pay you this week’. That’s how he was,” said the 1996 ROTY.
Since he was still a rookie at the time, Stoudamire didn’t have a lot of money. So, he decided that it was not wise for him to place money on the table. This turned out to be a good decision as Jordan would have definitely made him pay if Stoudamire had lost against him.
But he was still shocked to see Jordan say that he would not be paying his employees. Although he had millions to his name, Jordan did not make things easy on his people. But looking back at all the stories of Jordan’s competitive nature, it is not far-fetched to imagine that he would stand by his words.
Michael Jordan once scammed money from his teammates
Along with being extremely competitive, Michael Jordan was always betting with his teammates on almost everything. In one such case, Jordan bet his teammates on whose bags would come out first from the tunnel at the airport.
After everyone had placed their bets, they were shocked to see that it was Jordan’s that came out first. But little did they know that Jordan had already set it all up. Before placing the bet, Jordan had given 50 dollars to the baggage handler to make his luggage come out first.