There are a lot of interesting characters who have made it to the NBA over the years, and if he’s not at the top of the list, it’s safe to say Vernon Maxwell is somewhere near the top. Nicknamed “Mad Max,” the former guard was constantly doing all sorts of crazy things on and off the court throughout his career.
Unsurprisingly, that included trying to find ways to get in his opponent’s heads on a nightly basis. For Michael Jordan, though, Maxwell revealed that he had unique tactics to intimidate the Chicago Bulls legend.
Vernon would stare at Michael instead of warming up
Maxwell was never the greatest player on the floor during his time in the NBA, but he was a solid supporting piece who always made you earn it on both ends of the floor. Jordan knew that, given his stature, he would get everyone’s best shot on a nightly basis.
Of course, Vernon had special treatment for Michael that he would pull out in an attempt to rattle him before the game even began. That involved skipping his warmups to stare at MJ while he was partaking in his own.
“When I’m out there, motherf***er, it’s gonna be a little different. What I used to do with him, I used to do s**t to this motherf***er that nobody else would never do to him. I sat and watched that motherf***er in the layup line. I wasn’t even laying up the ball. We’d be out there in Chicago Stadium; I’d be sitting down there at half-court just watching him. And he’d come back to the line; I’d be watching him…Rudy T telling me ‘Max, come on man, don’t start this s**t. Don’t start this s**t tonight,'” Vernon said on the Pound 4 Pound Podcast.
Maxwell took the challenge of guarding Jordan very seriously
This is undoubtedly a unique strategy to throw Michael off of his game. Still, given how much attention MJ constantly received throughout his career, it probably didn’t make much of a difference to him. Regardless, this shows how dedicated Vernon was to doing whatever he could to slow down Jordan, even if it didn’t actually involve playing the game of basketball.
Maxwell previously said he would endure sleepless nights before matching up with MJ simply because he wanted to be as prepared as possible and ensure #23 didn’t embarrass him.
“It’s sleepless nights, man, that s**t be rough. I mean, think about the s**t what you got to do tomorrow, and you don’t wanna get embarrassed, and you know this motherf***er don’t know how to stop coming at you,” Vernon once said.
Jordan always found a way to get his buckets, and while he averaged 30.6 points per game in contests where he played against Maxwell, that wasn’t all coming directly against the man known as “Mad Max.” Typically, when you devote as much time to trying to rattle Michael as Vernon did, you will have decent results occasionally.
While it may not have resulted in the rousing success he hoped for, it’s safe to say that Maxwell held his own against Jordan throughout his career.