The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast Prime Cuts -  NCAA Tournament + NIL with Jay Bilas, Sam Smith on  Jordan Criticism Pushback, Myth vs. Reality

Episode Date: March 25, 2023

This is Prime Cuts! The best of The Colin Cowherd Podcast. First, Colin’s top take of the week on  how the legendary ‘Air Jordan’ marketing campaign still shields Michael Jordan from criticism that all other athletes face. Then, ESPN College Basketball Analyst Jay Bilas on the numerous hall of fame level college hoops coaches leaving the sport,  why so many blue bloods programs are getting upset by relative unknowns, if John Calipari’s time at Kentucky has been a disappointment despite winning a national championship, if the current NIL system needs to be reigned in, what makes his relationship with Coach K so unique. Then, longtime Bulls writer - and author of The Jordan Rules - Sam Smith the wave of criticism he received after releasing The Jordan Rules, how The Last Dance has only enhanced Jordan’s mythology, why Jordan has been largely out of the public spotlight in retirement, why he didn’t succeed as an NBA owner, and the MJ/LeBron G.O.A.T debate. Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates, and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. It's the Colin Coward podcast presented by Fandul. The sports calendar is packed.

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Call 1-800-3-2-750-50-50 or visit www-W-Hpline. org slash problem gambling. Visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org, Maryland, 1-8778, Hope, New York, or text Hope, New York, 467369, New York, 1,800, 522, 4,700, Wyoming, or visit www.1,800 gambler dot net west Virginia. This is Prime Cuts, the best of the Colin Coward podcast. Apparently, I created quite a kerfuffle with my Michael Jordan opinion one day last week, and where I said, you know, There's a lot of mythology about Michael Jordan because a lot of people, 35 and under who love him, never watched him actually play. It's just YouTube highlights. Something to remember about Michael Jordan.

And it's very unique in the history of basketball. No other player has this. And Michael is certainly as good as anybody I've ever seen. Relentless, great in crisis, laser-focused, super competitive, loved watching him play. I'm still a huge fan of Michael Jordan. But you can criticize Magic Johnson, who ended up in 30% more finals. And you can certainly criticize LeBron James, who has smashed every Michael Jordan record. You can't criticize Michael.

Why? Well, think about it in these terms. Think about how powerful just ads are on TV or radio. My career has been a series of reading ads or ads elevating all my platforms. They can sell us soda. They can sell us cars. They can sell us. jewelry just by a 30-second ad.

Now imagine how powerful an ad campaign devoted entirely to you can be. The Air Jordan campaign is the greatest marketing campaign in the history of our domestic sports. Ever, any athlete. Nothing's close. Michael made $225 million last year still on his shoes. Just understand how powerful commercials are. and now an Air Jordan campaign for 20 years devoted to one human. It's created a teflon shield around Michael.

So that when he punches Steve Kerr, well, you know, he's just very competitive. If Draymond Green punches Jordan Poole a cocky trash talking reserve, throw him out of the league. Draymond doesn't have the protective shield, the power of Nike. Michael Jordan, best friend Charles Barkley, 15 years. Barclay goes on the ear, does his job, is critical. He ghosts him, no longer talks to him. Who does that? Protective Shield.

Baseball. Wizards mess. Failing as an owner. Struggling with teammates early pre-Phil Jackson. It's all protected. Nobody's saying, you can criticize LeBron. You can criticize Kareem. You can criticize.

Anybody. Magic. Kobe Duncan. You can't criticize Michael Jordan. That's why I call it mythology. It's as if he never missed a shot. He had lots of bad finals games. A couple against the Sonics. A couple against the Utah Jazz. He's human. Michael's always been great at elevating Michael. I said this last week and I'll say it again, the two Phil's. Phil Jackson. Michael, you're a selfish player. Do you want to win championships or be a scoring? champ. Trust your teammates more. Phil Jackson, the smartest basketball coach of my entire lifetime, perhaps ever, probably ever. Michael understood that. That was the first Phil. The other Phil was Phil Knight, the number one visionary in American sports marketing in the history of my life. The two fills. Now, give Jordan credit. He was glamorous. He was great. He was focused. He was capable of being coached if he respected you. So he deserves a lot of credit for that. I mean, people all over this country try to help people and they just won't listen. Michael listened and became probably the greatest basketball player ever when he started trusting teammates and winning championships.

But just think of the power of the Air Jordan marketing brand. It has created a shield around Michael that any criticism, but Colin, he won at North Carolina. A lot of people who won championships at Carolina, in Kansas, and Yukon, and Duke. College basketball has always been lobsided. Six programs have most of the talent. Well, he won in the Olympics. Yes, that team

was pretty loaded. He had help beating Tunisia. Nobody's discounting how great of a college player, how great of an Olympian, how great of a player, how great of a marketer. But what I'm saying is there's a lot of mythology as if he wasn't difficult early pre-pippin.

He's won exactly one playoff series pre-pippen. Pippin, is that he didn't need coaching or that baseball wasn't a failure. I appreciate the effort or that the Wizards wasn't a disaster. Even as an owner, it was classic Michael. He made a fortune owning the Hornets. But he could control the narrative as a player. He couldn't as an owner. People take things that happen to Michael, real things like he punched a teammate.

That's a cheap shot. Well, Draymond punched the teammate. Is that a cheap shot? All of the issues are always, well, it was just very competitive. Draymond's not competitive. But Colin, Draymond works at the volume. The point being is, think of the power of the Air Jordan Marketing Campaign, probably the most brilliant campaign ever.

And for the record, there's a reason it works. Michael's great looking. Michael's got glamour. Michael, the dress, the earring, the smile, the game, the panache. Michael had it all. Right? He's an easy guy to market. but take a deep breath.

You can criticize every basketball player ever. Except Michael. He was human too. He had flaws too. With the NFL season over, all eyes in the sporting world turned everything from the NBA to college hoops to the NHL. Plenty of games to watch are even better.

Plenty of games to get out of the house and actually go to. That's why the best way to get your hands on tickets, when you want to go to one of these games, check out game time. Fastest growing ticket app in the U.S. Game time. Offer amazing last minute deals on tickets to your best favorite NBA hockey NCAA teams. Top of that, they sell last minute concert and comedy show tickets too. Download the game time app. Download it. Redeem code is Colin 20 bucks off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, download the app. Enter the code Colin C-O-L-L-I-N, 20 bucks off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, we wish we had him on more often. He's a busy guy.

I'm not sure. He's got a law degree. I'm not sure if he's practicing law, but it's college basketball. It's law. It's, I'm sure, a lot of public speaking. He is Jay Billis, probably the most area-day college basketball analyst of my lifetime. And my only complaint about Jay Billis is I don't see enough of Jay Billis. So he comes on our podcast and we feel lucky today.

First of all, how are you? How are things? Do you still practice law? I'm still with my law firm. I've been with the same law firm for coming up on 30 years now, but I don't really practice anymore. I'm still licensed to practice and I do my continuing legal education every year to keep my license up. But if you need a name change or a divorce or a ticket taken care of, I can handle that. Other than that, I don't practice much. Okay. I got about 12 parking tickets. I'll get back to you on that. Jay, my, I think college basketball, if you take our domestic sports, college, and pro is the toughest sport to coach.

I think it's really, really difficult when you ask coaches, you know, in college football, Nick Saban gets a kid for three or four years. John Calapari gets him for, you know, like a semester. I think it's really hard. That's why Jay Wright, Roy Williams, Mike Shishowski, I could see guys saying, this is insane. Then you add the transfer portal. It's just this really difficult jumbalia, I think, to coach. Am I wrong on that or do you sense?

We're asking a lot now of college basketball coaches, and it's not realistic to think we're going to see some burnout with these top coaches. Well, maybe. I mean, I agree with you, maybe on Jay Wright, that the job has changed and he is at the tail end. He could probably go another, you know, five or six years at great health and youth. I mean, I think Roy Williams and Coach Kay quit because they were older. If they were in their 40s or 50s, I think they to adjust to this in no time and they wouldn't have a problem with it. You know, these guys make a ton of money now so they can quit when they feel like it. But, you know, when I was younger, Colin, I don't know exactly how old you are, but I grew up in Los Angeles and when John Wooden retired, I was probably in sixth grade. And he was 65 years old and I thought he was the oldest man that had ever lived.

And now these guys, you know, Jim Bands like 78 and Coach K is 76 and Roy Williams is in his early 70s. You know, you got Jim Laronagas in his mid-70s and Leonard Hamilton. All these guys are coaching way later than ever. And you've got a lot of old school guys. And that's okay. But one thing that's easier about college now is you can get a good team overnight. You know, you can lose a good team overnight too with the transfer portal. But, you know, the NCAA was the one to put that rule in and they put it in because they were fighting over money. And the transfer restriction was making them look really bad. It was the equivalent of a non-compete provision and an employment contract.

And they want to say, well, they're not employees. And they were restricting them on where they go to school and make them sit out like a non-compete. It was just kind of crazy. So I went back this morning knowing you were on. And I went back and looked at some of your teams. And I went back and looked at, I covered two Duke final fours, the Denver game where they lost. to the rebels and then the following year when they upset them. Grant Hill was the freshman.

But one of the things I looked at was scores. And if you're 20 years old on a college campus, you're saying right now, look at this defense. And my takeaway is, well, the defense was good back in 88 and 90. The difference says you had the juniors and seniors who were going to play on the NBA on rosters is that it does feel like this has been a two or three year trend where it's becoming more of a defensive tournament. By the way, I've watched every game. I've loved it.

I don't think it's quite as gifted offensively because the great offensive players often pivot to professional basketball. It feels like to me, Jay, this has been a defensive tournament. Like I watched Tennessee Duke and I thought Tennessee's defense is just closing down on Duke. I saw Michigan State today. They shot 12% on threes and they won. So my takeaway in the tournament, it feels like a defensive tournament. Am I wrong? No, you're right.

But the reason in my view that it feels different, like I think the play. players now are more skilled than they were 30 years ago. I don't even think is close. Now, do we have the four-year superstars that we had back then? No, because the true superstars leave early. But these guys are way more skilled than back in the day. They could shoot it better. They can do everything.

The game is way more physical now. I mean, it's ridiculous on cuts. That Tennessee Duke game that you're referencing, that was not a basketball game. That was a hockey game. And it was officiated like a hockey game. There were fouls that were flagrant fowls that were not called flagrant. And I can't understand why. I've talked to several officials about it.

And all of them seem to agree that that should not have happened that way. But we're seeing that more and more that the game has become more physical. And when I say physical, I'm not talking about physical on blockouts. Like when I was playing back in the 80s, you know, people thought, thought about the Big East. Oh, the Big East is so physical. And it was less physical than this now. The difference is they didn't have flagrant fouls back then. So when you fouled somebody, you put them in the wood and then a fight started. Now, if you do that, you get tossed out of the game. And now a foul that would have been a normal subway push back in the 80s is called a flagrant more

often. So we've cleaned a lot of that stuff up. But the general contact now, on drives, on screening, on cuts is way more than it used to be. Those would have been fouls in a heartbeat back in the 80s and 90s, and now they're called incidental contact. It's very rare when a number one loses early, but to have three number ones lose early, is it coincidental? Are the margins smaller between great teams and good teams? What do you make of all the number one Cs getting bounced?

Well, we've had this year, there's not been as much separation from sort of great to very good. So the top seven or eight teams, I think remained in the top 10 throughout the year, not because they were that much better than everybody else. They were just more consistent. And whether it was Purdue or Arizona, you name it. They were more consistent at a high level. But we expected there to be kind of a turbulent ride through. the tournament. I didn't, I didn't anticipate, you know, Purdue losing to Fairleigh Dickinson.

That, that should never have happened. And, and, and not to take anything away from Fairly Dickinson. I was trying to explain, like, at one point, you know how in our job after a game, if you say, you know, wait a minute, like Purdue was horrible. That shouldn't happen. They're going, give some credit to Fairley Dickinson. No, Fairly Dickinson did everything they needed to do to win. All credit to them for winning the game. But let's not. Let's not gloss over that Purdue sucked. And it's kind of like when Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson, we weren't saying, there's one of the great heavyweights of all time.

He just beat one of the great. Like, come on. Mike Tyson sucked. And it didn't make Buster Douglas great. And that was sort of the discussion of that. So we've had some teams step in a big pile of it early on. Arizona did it with Princeton. Princeton is pretty good.

Like that was that would, Princeton played really well and Arizona played really poorly. And so that was a combination of things. But Princeton dominated Missouri. They're, they're actually just as good as Missouri. You know, if they played 10 times, it would probably be five and five. But I will see what happens when they move on. But it's just not been one of those years where there's been, you know, great teams that have separated like Baylor and Getsaggot did a couple years ago.

I want to talk Calipari for a second. So, you know, obviously the Anthony Davis championship year, I think if he got a second, people would back off a little. There's a huge gap between one and two. But I also think John does care about the players. I've asked friends of mine in coaching, Mark Few and other coaches, and they're like, listen, John can coach. I watched today, Kansas State had real players.

They got a couple all-conference guys. So let's not pretend that, you know, Kentucky's players are here and Kansas State down there. They got wild cats have real good players. Is it fair, though, to say for the talent, sometimes they've underachieved? How do you view Calipari's Kentucky run? Because it was wobbly a bit this year. Well, Cal shocked me. When he went to Kentucky, you know, I was still, and I've had periods of my life and career

where I get stuck in old school thinking. And when he got to Kentucky and recruited that John Wall, Eric Bledso, DeMarcus Cousins group. And he was going to go with all freshmen, sort of the one and done thing. I thought, can't win that way. Like, you might be able to win regular season games. I'm not going to win a championship that way. And I was so wrong.

Like, like that, he championed that and it was incredibly successful. And I think he's an unbelievable coach. And I agree with you. I think he does care about the players at the highest level. Now, Cal can come off publicly like a used car salesman of times trying to explain stuff to people, but he's an unbelievably good guy. Like, he's a really good person and a good guy. I do think, and I'm not talked to him about this, and I should, especially if I'm going to say what I'm about to say. But I think he overestimated the transfer portal and where the game was headed.

Like he was ahead on the one and done thing. He was first. And then Coach Kay kind of followed him in that and realized, hey, we're playing against these guys and someone want to come here. You might as well, we need to start taking up. And, you know, Cal went into the transfer portal last year and his teams aren't as talented. They're good, but they're not as talented as they've been. That team he had in 2015, that was 38 and O before they lost to Wisconsin.

I really believe this. Wisconsin was the only team that could have beaten them that year, the only team because of the way they played and how old they were and the type of team they had. But, you know, how do you have a program like that that's consistently, you know, great? And then if you have a down year, people are losing their minds because it's not like the guys that are recruiting the four-year guys

are outpacing Cal. They're not. But the last two years, you know, they just, just haven't been Kentucky because I don't think they've been as talented. Like they brought in really good players that came from somewhere else, but they're not they're not lottery picks like he's had. I'm a believer in NIL and I'm a believer in transfer portal. One of the things I did say in football, I said, I think I can be pro something and there

has to be guardrails. I can be pro sports gambling, but think there need to be certain guardrails. I said in football, I think you should. the first game starts and the last game ends, you can't transfer then. I don't want a Wolverine transferring to Ohio State before the game and taking like trade secrets. That was my thing. Just put some guardrails up. I'm good with all of it.

But then again, we've had coaches, you know, leave, you know, before the season's over. You've been a big proponent of NIL transfer portal. Take on my guardrail comment. should we just have no guardrails? Are there anything, is there anything about either basketball or college football transferring or NIL that you that does worry you? It doesn't worry me, but I think there can and should be reasonable regulation to everything. And your point, your example, and I know it was taken to the extreme to make a point

of, you know, a player transferring, you know, before a bowl game to their arch rival. We don't have to worry about that. That's not an issue. That's not going to happen. and, you know, nobody's going to do that. Just like you wouldn't have an assistant coach take a job before a game. I mean, they're the ones that have more trade secrets than the players, and they move around like crazy, including to their archivals.

So that's not an issue. The biggest issue that the NCAA has with all of this is on the legal side. You know, when they act in concert, it's a cartel. And they're running a foul of federal antitrust law. And all this stuff that the NCAA is talking about about, well, we can't make the players employees. Yes, you can. These schools employ thousands of students annually. Like there's a school in my home state that employs 6,000 of their own students a year.

Of course they can do it. They don't want to and they want Congress to bail them out. The problem we have now is because they wanted to just do the NIL thing, they can't control any of them. it. And if they just paid the players and made them employees, they'd be able to control it like they control their coaches, like they control their staff members, like they control their administrator. It's not that hard. But we're making it really hard because they just don't want to do it. And we get all these excuses about, well, you start paying players, then goodbye to all these other sports. No, no, no. None of that's true. They're not going to cancel all these sports. They always ask,

where's the money going to come from? They asked that when I was playing. Where's the money going to come from? And then they signed these mega media deals. And so much of the money that the athletic department that runs through there goes back to the school, they'll say, well, the scholarships are so expensive. Really? Well, where are you paying that money? They're paying it to the school. So they have an athletic department account and they pay it to the school. They're not out of nickel. That school's not out of a nickel for a scholarship. And years ago, what the NCAA schools did was they, they basically said, all right, the athletic departments have to be self-sustaining. But I don't think they imagined that they were going to make this much money. So the schools are charging

these crazy rates for food service and, you know, rent and maintenance and all this stuff. It's going back to the school. So they're taking a huge chunk of that. And huge, huge salaries are being paid, gigantic staffs are being put together. You know, you mentioned, Colin, when you were covering Duke in 9091, I was a graduate assistant. I was on a staff that I was an assistant coach, a grad assistant. When we went on a road trip, we flew commercial and took one bus to when we got there. So it was one bus. They have to have two now to carry all the staff. You know, so the staff and the players are now two of these gigantic coach buses that you take in Europe, you know. And the, you These things, these athletic departments are bigger than the Pentagon now.

They got plenty of money. And it's not a concern paying the players. They just don't want to. And we're going to do it at some point, whether it's five years, three years, whatever. They're going to decide it is cleaner and easier to sign these players to contracts. They'll retain them better. And then they'll have control over what NIL deals they can have then. If they're paying them, just like our companies pay us, they can.

tell us what we can and can't do they buy that right through the employment contract it's really a simple it works for the rest of the free world the idea that it won't work for college athletes is kind of absurd so mike sheshefsky um maybe it's because i covered him i've i've said this the other day on my show i said duke is the greatest um team sport success story of my sports casting career in 40 years they've had one losing season and that was the back surgery season where Coach K. couldn't walk. They went nine and three and they just literally couldn't walk. There's nothing else like it. That's double the Patriots dynasty, which in itself is absurd considering it's a regulated violence, players get hurt. It makes no sense at all to have a football dynasty for 20 years. But I read the Ian O'Connor book.

I love, I think Ian's just stupendous. And you know, it's funny. I read it. And the criticisms of Mike, and I have a lot of respect for Ian. He's not out there to just throw out haymakers. I found them almost likable that, you know, Mike is a fighter. You know, the army background, his size personally. It made me dislike Bob Knight more and like Mike Shoshchewski more just because the battle and he wanted to carve his own way and he didn't want to be seen in the shadow of Bobby after a while, which is I completely understand that.

When you hear and the hair I've been critics of Mike's offense wasn't very creative or he coached the Olympic team, just none of it lands for me. Maybe I'm just, maybe I'm not. Maybe I have a confirmation bias that I just, I've always liked him. Was there ever a criticism of Coach K and you went, eh, that's on target. That's a fair. Because when I read books and articles, I'm always like, it just doesn't land to me.

I think he's authentic. I think he's a fighter. I think he's tough. I think he's super smart. as you noted earlier in the one and done, he's flexible. He acknowledges when he's wrong. Was there ever any criticism you heard of him and thought,

maybe that's fair? I'm sure there has been. I can't think of an example because he's like, I love him. You know, I've known him since I was 17 years old. There's probably, I don't think this is an overstatement.

I wouldn't be doing anything I'm doing now if it weren't for him. I might be doing something like it, but I wouldn't have gone to law. school if not for him. I don't think I would have been in broadcasting if not for him. I certainly would have had the basketball life I've had if not for him. He made it possible for me to go to law school. He offered me a spot on his staff. And then he he was very helpful in getting me into law school and convincing the law school that I could I could work as a coach and go to school at the same time. Nobody wanted that to happen at Duke and he made it happen. And

And he told me at the time, he goes, if this doesn't work out, you can always quit. And I didn't know whether you meant quit law school or quit coaching. But I still never asked him that. But when I was coming out of high school, you know, I was one of these players where, you know, when you're in high school, you become a good player, you know, local paper or the LA Times or something does a story on you. And they ask you, what do you want to do after basketball? And I didn't have an answer. I didn't know. And so at that time, like Frank Gifford was in broadcasting.

and Don Drysdale was in broadcasting. So I said, well, maybe broadcasting. And all the coaches that were recruiting me read that. And Coach K did something about it. Like others would introduce you to somebody at the school that was in the communications department, give you a tour of it. Coach K introduced me to Chuck Howard, who was a big time producer at ABC Sports. And I got a job working for ABC Sports as a production assistant during the summertime. I was a runner, basically.

So I did the I did the Olympics in 84 in L.A. I did Monday night baseball. I did I used to do bowling. I did bowling events with Chris Schenkel and Nelson Burton Jr. And I got I got all this. It was awesome. I got all this. I met all these people, some of whom I still work with today.

And that got me in the door. And he was very thoughtful about, okay, this is what you want to do. here's how we'll make it happen. And he wasn't like some Spengali doing it. He was trying to help you. And he thought, hey, maybe I wanted to get into coaching. Offer me a spot on a staff. But he knew I wanted to go to law school.

So he greased his skids for that to happen. And without him doing that, I don't know where I would have been. I don't think I would have been selling pencils on the street somewhere. I think I would have been okay. But my life would have looked a lot different if I hadn't said, you know, I want to play for you. And when I did, when I committed to him out of high school, he was the least well-known and least accomplished coach that was recruiting me. I had no idea who he was when he called me the first time. No clue. Never heard of him. And I just really liked him. And throughout the four years

I played and after that, he's not like he is not perfect. He makes mistakes like everybody else. And he's ultra competitive. But off the, like one thing he never. never did. He may jump you in practice and you feel like you're the worst player it's ever played. He does not carry it off the floor. As soon as practice is over, he may still be pissed off for a while. But as soon as practice is over, he's, he likes you again. Like, he's good. Now, back on the floor, you better do what you're supposed to do the next day or he'll jump you again. But he never, like a lot of guys carried off the floor and he doesn't do that.

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Fandul's offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star casino LLC. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia. 1-800 next step, or text next step to 533342, Arizona. 1-88-78-9-777-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat, Connecticut. 1-800-9 with it, Indiana.

1-800, 522, 4,700 to visit KSgambling, help.com, Kansas. 770 stop, Louisiana, call 1,800, 327, 50, 50, or visit www. MAA underscore helpline.org slash problem gambling, gambling, help, morgue. 1, 8778, 8, Hope, New York, or text, Hope, New York, 467, 369, New York, 1,800, 522, 4,700, Wyoming, or visit www, 1,800 gambler.net, west Virginia. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, I did watch the movie, The Air Movie,

about the early version of Nike, Sunny Vaccaro, and Michael Jordan. And Michael's mom plays a key figure in this movie. She's really the star of the movie. And I thought as I watched the movie, I've been very critical of Michael through the years saying that Nike's Air Jordan commercials, the greatest domestic ad campaign of my life. and it has created almost a Reagan-like shield, a Teflon shield around Michael, when if you simply acknowledge previous failings,

you're considered a hater. Well, Sam Smith was the original critic of Michael, the only one. Back in 1991, the Jordan rules, a magnificent book on the turbulent season with Michael Jordan and the Bulls, New York Times best seller. It was the talk of the literary sports world for several years.

He got a Lifetime Achievement Award Pro Basketball Writers Association, Kurt Gowdy Media Award, Hall of Fame, currently writes for Bulls.com. And whenever I'm critical of Jordan as I watch that movie, I always get major pushback. And I've said this before

that Michael would punch a player and they would say, well, he's just very competitive. Draymond Green punches a guy he should be thrown out of the league. And I think, you know, it's part of that smile and charisma. When you released a book, you obviously knew you were, Michael was wildly popular.

Did you expect the avalanche criticism? Did you know it was coming? Colin, let me say first, if Michael punched somebody and his knuckles were bruised, that was on the other guy. And I think that's what we have to mention. No, I was, you know, we probably talked about that. And I'm frankly pleased that you're still on the air being critical of Jordan. You know, there's a thought police about that these days.

Yeah. I was probably pretty naive about it being a reporter, having been an investigative reporter over the years. I figured, well, if I just write what's true, you know, what's the problem with that? And so it was an incredible, you know, it was over 30 years ago. And, you know, one thing I was kind of pleased about and pleased about a lot of things, you know, with the last dance documentary. But one is that Michael sort of copped all.

this finally took 30 years, but he said, yeah, yeah, it could be a jerk, but you know, I had a reason for it. And so back then it was say, yeah, you know, the guy's tough to live with. And people's, because of, as you refer to those commercials, he was really, I mean, marketed as kind of, you know, the cliche, all-American Kai. I remember one of the Coca-Cola sponsors, he, he like leaped up into a tree house to deliver the Coca-Cola. And he, I mean, and they, made a point of this. They were doing, you know, Chevrolet apple pie. They were doing those commercials to make it as American as, you know, patriotic and could be. And then so, you know, I sort of write a book about behind the scenes in basketball. He said, well, this is not Michael Jordan. I saw

him in the commercials. He's nothing like that. Right. You know, it's not that I'll defend him, but I was talking about this with somebody the other day. A lot of us resent or regret what we did in our 20s. But we did it for a reason. We were immature. I mean, I grew up divorced kid on my own, not a lot of money in the family. And I was a pretty relentless workaholic in my 20s. And that's what I thought I needed and was mature enough to handle it that time. And I look at Michael and I say, people say, oh, he was rough on teammates, but the pistons were tackling him. The Celtics were doing about the same. The East was loaded and physical. And it was all allowed by the league. And I say to myself, relentless was the only way for Michael to get through it.

He was being attacked defensively. And could I argue that we do things throughout the course of our life because it gets us to a better place? And the East was bully ball, Knicks, Celtics, Pistons. And Michael was the target for almost all of it. And he was just, he was building up a metal and a toughness in that Chicago Bull team that was necessary. I mean, that's exactly right because, you know, what gets overlooked because Michael Jordan came into the NBA out of the 84 Olympics, game winning shot in North Carolina, you know, with such fanfare to dunking in the Sports Illustrated covers and all that. The notion was, well, he's going to succeed right away. But at the same time, simultaneously, what Jerry Krause is doing with the Bulls is rebuilding, basically.

You know, it has Jordan out front, but he's basically. they had a lot of high draft picks who would be some players, Orlando Woolrich and Sydney Green and players who could have developed or did develop in other places. And he traded all of them off essentially for draft picks. Draft picks like, you know, they got Pippin and they got Horace Grant. And he would sort of, it wasn't called that then, you know,

because teams didn't really dump to the draft back then because they effectively needed the attendance. And really, Jordan should have been with the pace. One of the great overlooked stories is the reason Portland had the pick was the Pacers had lost James Edwards and for attendance needed a center. So they traded the pick to Portland. And that's how Portland ended up. I'm using for San Buoy and all. But anyway. So Jordan comes in and the notion is, well, he's this great figure. He's got to compete against Bird, Magic, Isaiah. And they've got built teams. And he's looking around on his roster and go, well, you know, I've got, I don't. What have I got? I got Kyle Macy and I got all these, you know, and so, you know, that was sort of the joke about, you know, they said, well, Jordan couldn't make guys better. And he used to say, well, yeah, if I had James Worthy and Kareem, I could make them better. You know, I got Mike Brown and Sadale Threat. I can't make them better.

The MJ documentary, I thought, I remember when they made the movie Wall Street about Gordon Gecko and, and, and. Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone said, I didn't try to glamorize him and make him popular, but every stockbroker wanted to be Gordon Gecko. And the faults of Gecko became sort of romanticized. And Sam, when I watched the MJ documentary, now obviously MJ had some say in it, but even the warts and, you know, Will Purdue saying things about it,

yeah, I found it. Maybe it's because the league is, you know, it's more of a three-point shooting league. It's more skilled but more finesse. I found it incredibly likable. I'm like, I miss the layering. I miss the toughness. I miss guys not all being best friends.

I was, I fell into it, Sam. I, that documentary, I made me like Michael Moore. What was your takeaway on it? Well, a couple of takes. The one takeaway that I like in a sort of,

one of the things that was criticized was this Hall of Fame speech, where he pointed the guy who beat him, you know, got on the, you know, got on the varsity ahead of him. And he brought in different guys over the years that he, you know, he had these challenges by. And people said, well, this is horrible. You know, the call of fame, he was sort of, you know, blaming guys for the Senate. I said, no, this is great because he showed you exactly who he is and who he's always been. And, you know, that's the attraction of it. You know, what you said, the Jordan rules when I wrote it, and one of the reasons why I was surprised is because I saw it as a sympathetic portrait.

You know, and I know, you know, our version of Twitter back then was headlines and things taken out of, you know, context or whatever, where people would complain it to us about. You took it out of context. The headline didn't represent the story and all. And so there was a lot of that with the Jordan rules. You know, just like now, people didn't always read back then either. But my depiction, you know, my depiction, because I'd like Jordan, I'd been around them a long time, I really appreciated his competitiveness and his zeal and, you know, his willingness to try to pull this group along, you know, kind of with him. And what he went through, how to Pistons attacked him.

You know, but not only that, you know, I remember the one year or the end. MVP boat. You know, Magic was very close with Isaiah. We were sitting in a locker room and it came down. Magic had won the MVP and all that reported. And he was very gracious. And before the book, we had a good relationship. I'm sitting with him in the locker room. It happened to be in Detroit. And every, all the reporters, when he turns to me and he goes, anybody but that guy, meaning magic, meaning they held up magic all the time and saying, he's the guy who made everybody better, not me. Yeah. And so that, you know, that's sort of So I sort of viewed it sympathetically, but, you know, the notion of the fights and, you know, the taking Horace's grand dinner and, you know, you don't deserve it to eat because you play then.

You know, it sort of looked both ways. Sam Smith joining us, writer for the Bulls.com. It is one of the things that is attractive about Michael. I couldn't watch a 10-part Brady or LeBron documentary. and that social media has shown me all I ever need to see about any player, what they eat, their family. I get now their opinions on vaccines, their political opinions. You know, Michael, as we peel the layers back on Michael in the air movie, I didn't know that much about him because we didn't know that much about anybody. And that I think what makes Michael appealing to me, the journey for basketball, Sam, was not as good.

grooved as it is today through AAU. It's just not. It's just grooved. Now, they're all friends. Nobody's battling for a piece of the pie. Otto Porter can make $200 million. It's a different world. And I do think the struggle, although Michael's struggle is less than others, hell, the Jerry Krause stuff, it is fascinating.

I'm watching the Sonny Bakaro stuff and, you know, the toughness of his mother. There's parts of the privacy of Michael. you were on an inner circle for a long time. But I view him now is a bit of a private figure. How would you describe that? Even as an owner of the bomb cats, he never really talked much. Right.

And actually, that was what was great about the documentary of the last stance, because it really was the first time he sat down and showed you who he was, kind of relaxed, didn't kind of do it through a commercial, because, you know,

He always felt it wasn't so much he was wanted to promote himself, but he felt an obligation. I mean, he really had a good upbringing. I didn't see the sneaker movie yet, but his mother, I know, had a huge part. He was very close with his father. They were really best friends more than father's son. And that loss was tremendous. But he always felt as a responsibility and obligation. to his sponsors. So I remember him talking about that, to act in a certain way as a result of that.

And so, you know, he finally, now, he saw over the years, and I credit him for that. Actually, I remember he wasn't selling himself. I remember one time, and he'd become tremendously popular, and he was popular all over the world. I mean, the, I remember the North Korean the dad who gone, now the crazy sons there, but they were sending for bulls memorabilia back then from North Korea. And when David Stern went to China, he always talked about, you know, China didn't know anything about the NBA. They hadn't heard of anybody, but they had asked him about the red oxen, the bull.

That's all they knew. But as a result, he understood. stood that, but at the same time, and we see why he's made fortunes, billionaire, whatever, I remember a Japanese company had contacted him and said they would pay him a million dollars for an appearance. And this was like 1988, 89, something like that. And he said, I'm not just going to sell myself like that. I'm not going to do that kind of stuff. So, you know, this sort of, I'm not surprised that he's, he's that way now. And that's why the documentation was great, because you're not going to see him otherwise.

He's not going to be around. You know, the NBA has brought out everybody. Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson, all-star games and finals, and they named the awards. He's the one who never shows up anywhere. You know, you never see him anywhere. He's at all these all-star games, you know, for Nike, but you've never seen him in public. And, you know, I wish he would a little more. But, you know, he doesn't want to sell himself and cheapen it, really.

And it's really been smart. Yeah, I mean, privacy and not knowing everything about you, I remember Jack Nicholson, the great owner saying he wouldn't go on these shows when he was promoting a movie. And he's like, why would I give me away for free? I want that theater experience to be really special. And I think about that all the time. I see everybody putting their meals and their vacations on Instagram. And I think, you know, it's okay to have some private stuff in your life. I don't need to market my every time I go walk on the beach in Florida.

The ownership in Charlotte, Sam, I've said this, and it may be unfair that Michael was always, first of all, he was a very good decision maker. David Falk, Phil Knight, Phil Jackson. he tended to have excellent judgment and be pretty picky on the people that he would choose to guide his journey. And by the way, I'm watching Lamar Jackson now. He has his mom as an agent. Now he got an agent the day that's not registered. Some guys don't make great decisions. Michael made, and LeBron's done this.

Michael made very solid decisions, Sonny Vaccaro, on the people that pitched him and he listened to. I didn't expect the ownership with Charlotte to be great. because I always felt Michael was great at elevating Michael, but to be an executive, a coach, or an owner, it's a lot of giving. It is, to some degree, elevating others. Is it an unfair characteristic to say Michael was better at elevating Michael, his brand, than his net worth than sometimes elevating those around him?

He didn't have the patience for it? I don't know about that. That's a hard one. First of all, ownership, management is an awful lot of luck. You know, the Bulls lucked in the Jordan in 84. Had they not, they probably wouldn't have had any titles. They would have had, you know, 25, 50 years. The Phoenix Suns have never won a title despite whatever.

And so, you know, you got to get lucky. Charlotte has never gotten lucky. I remember, you know, people like to think fans, media, whatever, that just because you've succeeded in something, that you'll succeed, you know, because of what you did in your specialty. You know, and it's sort of like all these coaches who sort of stood next to Bill Parcells, you know, just because you're around somebody who's successful doesn't mean you're going to be successful. And so, you know, it's difficult to sort of pick guys.

Michael, you know, had difficulty. You know, who exactly could he trust in our situations? And so I remember when the Bulls, you know, 98, they broke up. and, you know, in the last stance. And so the fans in the media, the notion was, well, let Michael run the team. You know, he's a winner, you know. And so we don't hear that much anymore since the Charlotte situation. And I don't think it's a case of Michael being concerned about celebrating himself.

I don't think that what he was about. It's just, you know, you don't go to school for management of a sports team. There's no, there's no degree, you know. There's no test. like to be a CPA or a lawyer or something like that. So, you know, who does these things? How do you do it? You know, it's a lot of luck. And he just hasn't gotten lucky. I mean, that's sort of a simplified version of it. He's been in the lottery. You know, you get your bad, you don't get LeBron. You get, you know, you get the second guy. It makes tremendous differences. And so, you know, now,

now I see he's going to cash out. You know, in the league wanting him in. David's Stern wanted him in and basically almost gave him that franchise, you know, to have him involved in the game. Basically, I think he just paid off the debts. And so one thing Michael has always done, he used to joke about OPM, you know, the way to operate a business is with other people's money. So he was always, he was always bright about that. And he always understood equity and he always understood value. And he's tried, but you can see in the last couple of years, he's lost the enthusiasm for it. Just because it's so hard. The irony is, you know, on the ownership, the governors, whatever they call themselves now, Michael got, was put in charge of the labor

committee of the owners. And he was appalled at the salaries that they started paying, you know, because, you know, he made, at the time when he made the 30 million, it was, you know, 10 million more. Patrick Ewing, I think, made 18 or 19. The next highest were like, 10 or 12, you know, so he's making double or triple whatever anyone is. And, you know, now it's sort of, you know, on the bottom side of a neck stealing. He was just sort of appalled at the salaries that were becoming the irony of that. But I don't think it was an ego thing as much as it's really a hard thing to do. When you look back at covering Michael, did you instantly know because the first couple years I can remember Orlando Warridge, if I recall, Quentin

Daly. It was guys that needed the ball. And Michael, you know, was not going to suffer those guys gladly. Like, he wanted the ball and he was better. And he was, I imagine at practice was letting them know on a daily basis he was better. But when did you know? Because he didn't average a ton of points in college. When did you have this sense and talk to other people?

or maybe you just, it was your personal insight that you thought, boy, this is different. This, this may be the most gifted basketball player I've ever seen. I mean, you're in my generation, Sam. I grew up and there I saw the old wilt and the young Kareem. Michael didn't, Dr. J, but Dr. J didn't have the mid-range dependable game. He was spectacular, but he wasn't as relentless nightly, every possession like. Michael. Was there a moment that kind of crystallized it for you when you really felt going back sitting

on that press table and you thought, boy, this may be the greatest basketball player we're ever going to see. Well, you know, I don't know if we went to greatest ever early, but we went pretty spectacular early. You know, the old joke, of course, was the only one who could hold him under 20 points of game with Dean Smith. So this is the first practice. And Rod Thorne is the Bulls' GM, had been the GM for like seven or eight years.

lottery picks almost every year. And the team has winning 25, 28 games. And so Jordan is the first practice. Kevin Lockery's the coach. And this is the first practice of Jordan's first season. And Bill Blair, as I remember as the assistant then. And Rod misses, Rob can't go to the first practice. Something business thing came up. And so Rod misses the first practice. Bill Blair calls them at the end of the first practice. Rod's telegram.

his story. And Bill Blair says, you finally didn't screw up a draft. He said, we have never seen anything like this guy. He came in with all the, and you mentioned Woolrich was a top 10 pick. Quentin Daly's the top 10 picks, Sidney Green, Ronnie Lester, all top 10 picks. And he just blew out everybody, the first couple of practices. He's blowing by everybody. He's dunking on everybody. You know, there's that famous story when he came. came in as a freshman at North Carolina. And the first thing he did, he went to the board, and he started writing the times, listing the names of Worthy, Perkins, all these All-Americans saying how many times he dunked on them. So that's the way he started at North Carolina.

And that's the way came into the Bulls. Okay. So I hear these stories that are coming out of training camp and we go see him and still training camp and walks into the season. I think third game in, he hits a winner in Milwaukee, like six games in, 49 points against, and then was Portland or something. You know, we're bringing in Portland media is all saying, we got a center, this guy's not special. We got Clyde Drexler. And I remember the Chicago guys are saying, watch this.

Where do you see this? So we didn't exactly know, say, okay, this guy's going to be, you know, better than Oscar, you know, or bird or magic or will, whatever. But this was different. This was different than anything we'd seen because of the combination, you know, of the athleticism, the drive and the incredible competitiveness and this will to win, win everything, you know, which sort of evolved and we saw more from year to year. You know, there's always this debate, the greatest and who's the great.

You know, and it's arbitrary. LeBron's got the most points now. You know, in my era going back, you know, the two greatest things, I remember basketball is wealth coming to the NBA and Kareem coming to the NBA, you know, went in basically everything out of college. And so they said, well, how can George, you know, Bill Russell's got the most championships, Karim and now LeBron's got the most points. How could this guy be the greatest ever?

And one thing I always point to with me is that nobody in sports and certainly in American sports, and I can't imagine worldwide sports, has crossed over and had the influence on society that he has because of his basketball. The shoes become fashion. Bill Walton likes to tell the story. He's the MVP's in Portland. Phil Knight's there. Phil Knight comes to him, say, you know,

we're going to put your name on sneakers. We're going to do this whole thing about, you know, Air Bill or whatever. He says, who's going to buy sneakers with my name on it? What a stupid idea that is? You know, and so baldness is okay now. I can start shaving my head. Men are wearing jewelry, long short, fashion, all these things that transcend the game attached to him.

That's what makes you the greatest. That's a Babe Ruth kind of thing. That's an Ali kind of thing where you can't measure them only in the sport, but you can measure their effect on the world and society. And his has been, to me, more than anybody that we've ever experienced. Bulls.com, Sam Smith. Does Michael visit Chicago a lot, golf tournaments, Bulls games? His mother does some charity work, some fairly substantial charity work, I heard. But does Michael ever visit Chicago now?

Never. As far as I can tell, he has never been here. I think his house is still for sale up in Highland Park. He built this mansion kind of thing, which is well overvalued. I mean, not in a bad neighborhood, but it's just near the highway. And it's been for sale like 10, 12 years or something. Nobody, you know, buy it's got 23s all over the gate and stuff like that. But as far as I know, I've never heard him being here.

Wow. You know, it's interesting. You know, a passionate relationship with Chicago leaves. Very close relationship with Barclay. It ends. It is an interesting personality. not a tick, it's just who he is. I don't know, how do you explain that?

Those are both unique. You know, I don't know of another player. Maybe Brady won't go back to New England. I don't know. I find it just an interesting personality, behavioral personality element. What do you make of that? Well, again, because of the sort of the Howard Hughes sort of element to him over the years that he wasn't going to make him.

self public. And, you know, he's, as I mentioned before, he doesn't want to be, you know, a public figure. He always used to talk way early, way early. And actually, he would tell us, he said, you know, once I'm gone, you'll never see me again. And, you know, there was an element of that. I remember him talking about that in the 80s, that I'm going to finish my career. And when my career is over, you will never see me. It's sort of been true. But he always, the other thing he used to say, too, I'm never going to be a show pony. And I think that's why he doesn't go at the All-Star game or at least come out publicly. You don't see him in public much.

Doesn't, you know, I mean, can you imagine the amount of money more? I mean, you know, with rich people, enough never seems enough. They're always doing something. Can you imagine the amount of money Michael Jordan could make in appearances or things, other things he did in public? Millions people would pay just, you know, he's probably the most famous person in the world. maybe the most beloved. But he's never, you know, he doesn't take advantage of that.

And he never has. And for whatever the reason was, at a young age in his 20s, he talked about that. That this is something I'll never do. That's something I'll never be a part of. I'm not going to sell myself as a commodity as a product. You know, I'm going to show what I can do. And then obviously, you know, he was secure with what they was made. making, but, you know, and I don't know how they depicted it in that movie. But, you know,

he didn't go seek out the shoe contracts and the Nike. He was very reluctant. And I remember early on, you know, his mother kind of drags them out there. And that's what the movie said, yeah. But also after the first deal, it was like a three or four or five, I don't know what the first contract was. He didn't want to re-up with Nike. I remember Craig Hodges talked to him about maybe starting a local brand or something. Nike had done something. I'm sure that's not in the movie that he was upset with and he didn't want to go. He was thinking about going with another company.

I think he said I wore converse or something in college. Maybe I'll go with that. So, you know, he was kind of, it wasn't so much he was saying, I'm Michael Jordan. I can do what I want is that, you know, it's not my life to sell myself as a sneaker salesman. Now, he's obviously, you know, he's. know, turned it in. But he's turned it, the other thing, he's turned it into a quality product. And I think that's what he's proud about, that things associated with Michael about quality.

And they're not cheap and it's not a show pony just for the money. The volume. Make sure to check out the Dremont Green Show. I brought Dramon Green into the volume because one of the more entertaining voices in sports, unique perspective, understands behind the rope. Also chops up with guests like Gary Payton, Zach Levine, Tracy McGrady, make sure download the Draymond Green Show wherever you get your podcast only on the volume podcast network.

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