The Blazers, of course, picked Kentucky center Sam Bowie, leaving the Bulls to swoop up Jordan with the third pick. “S-,” Knight said, “take Jordan and play him at center.” But Knight urged Portland’s general manager, Stu Inman, to take Jordan first. It was an open secret that the Houston Rockets would take Akeem-the H in his first came later-with the top pick.
The Portland Trail Blazers held the second pick in the 1984 NBA Draft. “Jordan’s game is made for the NBA,” he declared. My friend and classmate, Pat Knight, the coach’s son, regaled the seventh grade kaffeeklatsch with stories of Jordan’s feats during practices.īob Knight gushed uncharacteristically about his shooting guard and warned that any NBA team foolish enough to pass up drafting Jordan would regret the decision. At the Olympic trials, his aura grew, as he distanced himself from the others. He’d just finished his third season at North Carolina-ironically, losing to Indiana in his final college game-and was pegged as a high lottery pick. Of course, Jordan could play a little too. But he could relate to Knight’s abiding drive for perfection. “I learned the four-corner offense from Coach Smith I learned the four-letter word from Coach Knight,” Jordan joked more than once. Dream Speech.” He rolled his eyes when Raveling tried to convince Jordan to shod himself in Nikes, not the Adidas shoes Jordan, accountably, preferred to wear. He listened intently while Raveling talked about being on stage for Martin Luther King’s “I Have. He got along especially well with the lone black assistant coach, George Raveling. Jordan was popular among his new teammates.
I played video games with Wayman Tisdale and pool against Chris Mullin. Charles Barkley put on an awe-inspiring eating display.
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After school, I would peddle my bike a mile or so to the Student Union and observe/accost the same players I’d been watching on TV a few months earlier. When practice was over, the players were on their own, ambling around town, sometimes accepting rides to the movies from strangers.įor a 13-year-old incurable basketball junkie, this was a hell of a speedball. There was no hospitality, no security detail, no hangers-on. The try-outs were held not at the venerable Assembly Hall but at the IU Fieldhouse, a no-frills gym smelling of Bengay and an indifference to showering. They were transported around town in maroon vans, three players per row. Those auditioning lodged in rooms at the Indiana University Student Union and ate in the cafeteria. Except you’d look around the bus, and it was Michael Jordan across the aisle and Charles Barkley in the row behind you and Patrick Ewing in the row ahead of you.” It was like going to Camp Wong-a-Monga or whatever. “We all picked up our own bags and then piled into these buses. Joe Kleine, then a forward from Arkansas, recalled flying into Indianapolis-you went to Knight he didn’t go to you-and getting the no-frills treatment as soon as he landed. In keeping with Knight’s sensibilities, the players were not exactly coddled.