Michael Jordan??
Johnny said not to look past it, MJ is one of the smartest people he’s ever met in his life. Jordan owns the Air Jordan brand. The money from that is astounding. Jordan also only signs ten years deals with advertisers. With an MJ-only option to pull the deal at any time.
Did he retire because of gambling? Johnny said he didn’t know. But that he told Johnny and Phil first, and said he was gonna play baseball. MJ was going through a lot with the death of his father, who Johnny called a rogue. James was always involved with bad people and Michael constantly tried to help him. He was missing for 10 days before the Jordan’s even started really looking, because that’s how he was. It wasn’t the first time he went AWOL. Johnny told Michael that he was fine with him retiring and didn’t want him to become a washed up guy hanging on. When Johnny was hired with Washington in 2000 with Jordan and Doug Collins, Johnny begged MJ not to come back. When Jordan did, he told Johnny I’ll fire you if you don’t stop telling me I shouldn’t come back haha.
Concerning gambling, Johnny did say that MJ took him to VIP rooms where they gave MJ $3 million in chips. He saw MJ lose 3 mil and win 3 mil on many occasions…playing three hands of blackjack at once. Johnny also saw Patrick Ewing lose $3 million in two hours. MJ told Patrick, you’re a complete idiot, only I could possibly play 4 hands of blackjack at once.
Women? MJ used to tell Johnny that “Tiger Woods is an idiot. I tried to help him, but the kid’s gonna get caught.” (we all know how that turned out). In order for a girl to get to MJ, she needed to go through 4 undercover former narcotics detectives just to speak to Michael. She had to be approved by all 4 to make sure she wasn’t gonna say a damn word about MJ to anyone. So there’s MJ, not the greatest character guy, but he sure was pretty smart.
A couple MJ stories I’ll leave you with:
Story #1 – The day before game 4 of the Bulls Suns finals with the Bulls leading the series 2-1. Michael and Charles Barkley went golfing. They played 48 holes of golf. And Michael bought Charles a $20,000 diamond earring. Johnny asked MJ, “what did you do all that for?” Michael responded, “he won’t get in my way the rest of the series, what’s $20,000 to me? Charles thinks we’re great friends. I hate that fat fuck.” Jordan dropped 55 in game 4 and Barkley never touched him once.
Story #2 – Jordan invited Johnny Bach (Johnny later told me they talk once a month, good friends) to MJ’s Hall of fame dinner. It was $1,000 per plate, plus airfaire, hotel, etc. Johnny straight up told Michael that he didn’t have the money. The next morning, a limo showed up, airfaire and hotel and dinner was paid for, along with other money to spend for the week.
Unbelievable.