Here’s something you didn’t hear about on “The Last Dance.”
Before Michael Jordan made his celebrated return to basketball in 1995, he secretly worked out with the Golden State Warriors as sort of a litmus test to see if he was NBA-ready.
The outcome? After engaging in a little trash talk with Warriors stars Tim Hardaway and Latrell Sprewell, Jordan basically went out and dominated.
“We knew he was coming back then,” Hardaway says in a new podcast. “He just took over our practice. … It was like he never left.”
This relatively unknown chapter in Jordan’s comeback story is addressed in “Sports Uncovered,” a six-week podcast series produced by NBC Sports Regional Networks that debuts on Thursday, May 28. The series is devoted to examining some of “the most memorable and compelling storylines and events in sports history.”
The opening installment, titled “I’m Back,” explores Jordan’s return to the NBA after a 13-month hiatus to play baseball. Jordan is an ex-teammate and good friend of Rod Higgins, who was a Warriors assistant coach at the time. With head coach Don Nelson’s permission, Higgins invited MJ to drop by the Warriors practice facility.
Higgins, along with Hardaway and Chris Mullin, all are interviewed on the podcast as they recall how Jordan came in and had his way with the Warriors’ guards, despite not being in top NBA condition.
“We were basically the same size,” recalls Mullin, who was injured at the time. “… We had Tim Hardaway and Latrell Sprewell at that point (and) they might have been popping off a little bit. And Michael said, ‘Mully, let’s go. Gimme your gear.’”
What ensued is classic Jordan — showing everyone the fire that made him the ultimate competitor during a scrimmage in which he teamed up with Warriors scrubs and took on the starters.
That season, a young Sprewell was an all-star, dominating the league’s shooting guards — the position that Jordan happened to play. He was the “new it,” as Higgins recalls, and Jordan wanted to go at him especially hard.
“Once Michael got warmed up, you could tell his objective was to basically kick Spree and Tim’s behind, and talk trash to them,” Higgins says in the podcast. “… I think it showed Latrell what greatness was. …”
Mullin concurs. “He wanted to go after the best, youngest player he thought could be better than him, and he put that to rest that day.”
Tim Grover, who was Jordan’s personal trainer, is also interviewed on the podcast. He said the workout with the Warriors was a sign that Jordan, who eventually would lead the Chicago Bulls to a second NBA Finals three-peat, was still the top dog.
“Latrell was one of the more explosive, more athletic and probably one of the better players (at the time),” he says. “So what Michael needed to know — even though I took the time off — can I still come back and kick his ass? In his mind, it’s like, ‘I’ve been gone from this game for how long? And he’s (Sprewell) supposed to be the top player? All right.’ He wasn’t testing himself against Sprewell. He was testing himself against himself.”
Full disclosure: I was a Warriors beat writer that season and I recall there being a buzz around the team about Jordan coming in. Of course, we weren’t allowed to watch the practice and in this pre-Twitter age we wrote little, or nothing, about it. My, have times changed! If that workout went down today, it would be trending all over social media before MJ stepped off the court.
The “Sports Uncovered” podcasts, introduced by Mike Tirico, are available on all major podcast platforms, including NBCSports.com/podcasts. The sixth and final installment — dropping on July 2 — will carry some dismal memories for Raiders’ fans. It deals with former lineman (and now prison inmate) Barret Robbins, who mysteriously disappeared and missed playing in Oakland’s loss in Super Bowl XXXVII.
