One play was all it took for Elliott to realize MJ’s competitive drive was insanely intense.
Sean Elliott would never forget the time he almost owned Michael Jordan in a pickup game. According to “Ninja,” it happened during one of MJ’s summer camps at the University of North Carolina in the late 80s. Elliott said there were kids camping inside the campus that day, and he put a simple move on the Chicago Bulls star in one play.
It’s still vivid in Elliot’s mind how the kids watching the game reacted after he got Jordan lost with a ball fake. But just when Sean thought he was about to finish the play with a nice layup, “His Airness” came flying to block the ball in midair with vengeance.
“I made a move on him. I gave him a ball fake… And he went for it,” Elliot recalled on San Antonio Spurs’ “Sundays with Sean” in 2020. “I took two dribbles towards the middle of the key, and I beat him, when I made that ball fake, the kids were like, ‘Oooh!’ You could hear that… And I was going for a little layup, a casual layup… And he just came along my left side, he recovered, and he swatted the shot so hard like he sent a message. The message was, ‘Don’t mess with me in front of my campers.’ Like, he was serious.”
Sean learned about MJ’s insane competitive drive
At the time, Elliott was still a college standout at Arizona. He learned right there and then, that Jordan’s competitive drive was on another level. True to form, “Ninja” saw the same exact insane competitiveness from MJ when they faced each other again in the NBA.
“His drive was psychotic. That’s why he was so great,” the two-time All-Star concluded of Jordan.
MJ disrespected another Spurs star
Elliott wasn’t the only Spurs star who has an unforgettable story about Jordan. Apparently, David Robinson echoed the same sentiment.
According to “The Admiral,” Jordan kept on swearing to posterize him since the day they first met in the flesh. Eventually, MJ did dunk on Robinson. Like Elliott, David also realized how competitive Jordan really was.
“Eventually [he dunked on me],” Robinson once recalled. “It was a two-on-one with him and Scottie. Michael took the shot, and I went up to block it, but I didn’t get there, and he dunked it, and the crowd went crazy. ‘Told you I was going to get you one day,’ he said. Man, what a competitor. He never forgot anything, never let you get away with anything.”
What Elliott and Robinson shared only goes to show that prime Jordan always pushed himself to the limit just to prove that he was better than everybody. And that’s regardless of whether they pose a challenge or not.
