With the 8th pick in the 2000 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls selected Jamal Crawford, not least because Chicago superstar Michael Jordan, who retired for the second time two years earlier, had recognized the talent of the young guard from Seattle, Washington.
During an interview with HoopsWave some time ago, Crawford talked about getting to know Michael Jordan, with whom he went on to destroy everybody they played in pick-up games for the better part of two years.
“It was unbelievable because the first morning my dad told me during the draft process. He was like ‘Michael Jordan likes your game’. This was before social media. I’m like ‘dad there’s like no way you could notice’. It’s like what’s the chances of my dad even knowing something about Michael Jordan.”
It wasn’t even for too long and Michael Jordan was planning his second comeback. Crawford was in the midst of his rookie season, when Jordan’s coach Tim Grover called him, telling him that Jordan himself wanted to meet with him.
“Fast forward to my rookie year, Tim Grover calls me, like 6:30 in the morning. ‘Hey MJ said you can meet him’ and I’m like what, okay? This is when he was kind of prepping the year before the comeback to the Wizards so it was the year before he actually came back. So I drive down to the gym and I get there at seven o’clock. It’s just him and MJ in there. MJ has been there since 6:00 a.m. and he’s doing his defensive slide drills by himself. He was 40 years old. So instantly, the work ethic stuck with me. I’m like okay it’s no accident why he is who he is.”
Their meeting led two the two becoming friends and pick-up ball teammates. According to Crawford, the Jordan-Crawford combo basically played against everybody, but never lost
“Just having that conversation to us building our relationship to getting to the point where we played pick up for two years. He wouldn’t play a pickup game until I got there because I would help the Bulls and had to drive down there and he wouldn’t play until I got there. We never lost in two years and we played against everybody.”
