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How Michael Jordan Punching Steve Kerr In The Face Lead To Both Respecting Each Other

Ever since the premiere of ESPN Films and Netflix’s joint production ‘The Last Dance’, a 10-part documentary about Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls, the basketball world hasn’t stopped talking about Jordan, Pippen and their teammates.

This also is one of the reasons for so many former teammates and opponents of Jordan to share their stories, or tell parts of stories we haven’t heard about before.

Golden State Warriors head coach, Steve Kerr, now talked about an incident that occurred during Chicago Bulls training camp in 1995, before the start of the season the Bulls would end up winning a then NBA-record 72 games.

In practice, Jordan physically punished a smaller and slimmer Kerr. Jordan would do this to many ‘slimmer’ teammates. But Kerr wasn’t having any of it and fought back, which led to Jordan punching Kerr. Following the punch the two had a little boxing match, leaving Kerr with a black eye and the respect and trust of Michael Jordan.

“I would say it definitely helped our relationship, and that probably sounds really weird. I wouldn’t recommend that to anybody at home.”

“For me in that case, Michael was definitely testing me, and I responded. I feel like I kind of passed the test and he trusted me more afterwards.” 

“I feel like I passed the test and he trusted me more afterwards.”@SteveKerr discusses how a practice altercation with MJ helped grow their relationship on #NBATogether pic.twitter.com/yUwghEt513

— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 23, 2020

To hear both sides of the story, listen to how Michael Jordan experienced the situation, while revealing that he indeed always respected Kerr from that moment on.

“Phil put Steve Kerr opposite of me, but he was giving Steve all the calls. I’m getting like really ticked off. One thing led to another, the next thing you know, I foul him real hard, he fouls me real hard and then, before I knew it, I hold off and just whacked him in the eye.”