The 1995-96 Chicago Bulls are perhaps the greatest team in basketball history. Michael Jordan’s first full season back in the NBA following his hiatus in Major League Baseball saw Chicago win a then-record 72 games and a championship, kicking off the franchise’s second three-peat. Having said that, while the team won a bunch, there were some major bumps in the road, like the time Michael Jordan punched Steve Kerr during practice.
The story is fairly well-documented right now, but in episode eight of The Last Dance, Kerr and Jordan discussed went into their infamous scrap. As Kerr tells it, Jordan — who spent the previous year working off the rust from his time playing baseball — came into camp in fantastic shape, but he was “frothing at the mouth” following the team’s loss to the Orlando Magic in the postseason the previous year.
Jordan, meanwhile, believed he needed to make his team psychologically tougher, as everyone outside of Scottie Pippen had not spent a full season alongside MJ.
“Steve and Luc [Longley], all those guys, they come in riding high on the three championships we won in ’91 ’92, and they had no f*cking anything to do with it,” Jordan said. “But now they play for the Bulls, but naw dude, we were sh*t when I got there and we elevate to being a championship quality team. There’s certain standards you got to live by. You don’t come pussyfootin’ around. You don’t come in joking and kidding around, you gotta come ready to play.”
In an attempt to control Jordan’s rage a little, Bulls coach Phil Jackson would call touch fouls during practice, hoping it would calm him down. Instead, there was one instance where Jordan snapped, making it a point to foul Kerr hard, to which he turned to Jackson and said “now that’s a f*ckin’ foul.”
Kerr, as one might imagine, wasn’t particularly happy with this. He got up and confronted Jordan by hitting him in the chest, which led to MJ punching Kerr in the face. He stormed off after this, and while he was in the shower, Jordan admits to having remorse because he “just beat up the littlest guy on the f*cking court.”
The two ended up talking afterward, and while this seems counterintuitive, they agree in retrospect that this was something of a bonding moment.
“We talked it out, and in a weird way, it was probably the best thing I ever did was to stand up for myself with him,” Kerr said. “Because he tested everyone he played with and I stood up for myself.”
“He earned my respect,” Jordan said. “He wasn’t willing to back down to be a pawn in this whole process.”
Now, to be 100 percent clear here, Michael Jordan should not have punched Steve Kerr in the eye, because that is extremely not cool. But the pair were able to use it as a way to strengthen their relationship ahead of an historic NBA campaign, so at least they were able to get something positive out of the whole ordeal.
