If you’re among the millions who are all caught up on the first two episodes of The Last Dance docuseries, you were probably a bit surprised to hear Michael Jordan’s recollection of his walking into a hotel room and finding his Chicago Bulls teammates engaged in a number of lewd activities.
If you haven’t watched yet, then you’re in for a shocker.
When Jordan entered the NBA, the league was seeking to distance itself from a reputation of widespread drug use, with the number of total players thought to be using cocaine ranging from 40-75% in 1980, per estimates from that year. The NBA implemented a new drug policy four years later but the Bulls, though not exempt, were still going hard in Jordan’s rookie year.
An interviewer recalled the team was dubbed “traveling cocaine circus” by an article at the time, prompting a very hearty laugh from MJ, who said he’d never read the piece but went on to describe the events of his first exposure to the practices going on behind the scenes in Chicago.
“Preseason, I think we were in Peoria. I was in the hotel,” he said. “So I’m trying to find my teammates. So, I started knocking on doors. I get to this one door, and I knock on the door, and I can hear someone says, “Sh, sh, sh, some’s outside.” And then you hear this deep voice says, “Who is it?” I says, “MJ.” And then they all say, “Ah, f—, he’s just a rookie. Don’t worry about it. ” So, they open up the door. I walk in, and practically the whole team was in there.
“And it was like, things I’ve never seen in my life, you know, as a young kid. You got your lines over here. You got your weed smokers over here. You got your women over here. So, the first thing I said, “Look, man. I’m out.” Because all I could think about is, if they come and raid this place right about now, I am just as guilty as everybody else that’s in this room. And from that point on, I was more or less on my own.
“I enjoyed just hanging out, playing cards, watching movies. You know, I wasn’t going to the clubs. I don’t smoke. I don’t do lines. I didn’t drink at the time. I was looking just to get some rest, get up and go play.”
Fortunately, a 21-year-old MJ did not get caught up in that kind of lifestyle and most of his then-teammates were gone by the next couple of seasons.
Transcription Credit: Yahoo Sports
