Michael Jordan defended himself against some serious accusations in this iconic interview published in a 1992 issue of Playboy magazine. In fact, the Bulls superstar denied allegations of ball-hogging and intentionally impeding teammates’ performances made in Sam Smith’s famous book The Jordan Rules. Michael Jordan also revealed in the interview that Smith didn’t preserve journalistic integrity while writing the book.

In 1991, Sam Smith published his bestselling book, The Jordan Rules, as a report on the inner workings of the Chicago Bulls franchise. The book immediately captured the attention of the basketball world for its controversial anecdotes about Michael Jordan. In other words, the book featured a lot of slanderous accusations that disgruntled Bulls players made against Michael Jordan.

Meanwhile, Jordan dismissed the accusations to be concocted out of envy and falsehood. In this iconic Playboy interview, he explains the basis of his conclusions.

Michael Jordan debunks The Jordan Rules allegations

As it turns out, Michael Jordan refused to accept The Jordan Rules as a truthful report on the Chicago Bulls organization. During the interview, he revealed that Smith’s book slandered him and Bulls then Vice-President of basketball operations, Jerry Krause, the most.

Incidentally, Krause and Jordan are the only ones that refused to meet Smith for lunch. “It?s like he was planning to kill us anyway, so why take us to lunch?” explained the six-time NBA champion.

Meanwhile, Jordan also claimed that the allegations of selfishness made by his teammates were the result of jealousy. In other words, the five-time MVP never tried to sabotage his teammates’ scoring potential. In fact, he did quite the opposite.

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The 14-time All-Star always put the team’s interest above his own.

Jordan further explains the context of said allegations

As it turns out, Michael Jordan believes Sam Smith’s book is a conscious attempt to defame him. “You get to a point where people are going to get tired of seeing you on a pedestal, all clean and polished,” the five-time MVP told the interviewer.

Moreover, he also floated the idea that Smith might have tried to manipulate players to extract relevant quotes to fit his narrative. “But I could see Sam Smith actually manipulating, putting words in their mouths, to get his meaning from the situation,” Jordan added.

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Do you think the claims against Jordan in Smith’s book are baseless? Let us know your thoughts below.