In the second season of Michael Jordan’s second NBA comeback with the Washington Wizards, he was paired with Jerry Stackhouse who was in his absolute prime.
The year before joining the Wizards, Stack had averaged 29.8 points per game for the Detroit Pistons. He had gotten used to being the number one scoring option on a team and wasn’t a fan of Jordan running the offense.
When Stackhouse was a guest on Adrian Wojnarowski’s ‘The Woj Pod’ a while back, he revealed that he felt that, between him and Jordan, he was the better player and that he therefore disliked his time in Washington:
“Honestly, I wish I never played in Washington and for a number of reasons. I felt we were on our way in Detroit before I got traded there. It was really challenging to be able to be in a situation with an idol who at this particular point, I felt like I was a better player. Things were still being run through Michael Jordan, and Doug Collins, I love Doug, but I think that was an opportunity for him to make up for some ill moments that they may have had back in Chicago.
So, pretty much everything that Michael wanted to do… We got off to a pretty good start and he didn’t like the way the offense was running because it was running a little bit more through me. He wanted to get a little more isolations on the post, of course, so we had more isolations for him on the post. And it just kind of spiraled in a way that I didn’t enjoy that season at all. Kind of the picture I had in my mind of Michael Jordan and the reverence I had for him, I lost a little bit of it during the course of that year.”
Full episode of The Woj Pod with @JerryStackhouse: https://t.co/0zX2rlDGGL pic.twitter.com/BPCOSFw72M
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 9, 2020