Anybody who knows basketball know that Michael Jordan was a ruthless competitor with a win-at-all-costs mentality.
The trash-talking extraordinaire never backed down from any challenge, and often took slights — such as Charles Barkley and Karl Malone winning the MVP award over him — as personal shots.
‘His Airness’ was even known to create fake stories just to get himself motivated.
MJ faced a ton of rivals during his illustrious NBA career, including Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, and Reggie Miller, but one opponent who often gets forgotten about is LaBradford Smith.
On March 19, 1993, Smith and his Washington Bullets traveled to Chicago to take on Michael Jordan and the defending champion Bulls for the first night of a back-to-back.
Smith, a shooting guard, was drafted 19th overall in the 1991 NBA Draft and was given the assignment of matching up with Jordan — a mismatch if ever there was one given Smith was a role player and MJ was reaching the peak of his powers and bidding for a third straight championship.
Against all the odds, though, Smith had the performance of his life, connecting on 15 of his 20 field goals and going a perfect 7-of-7 from the free-throw line.
The shooting guard finished with a career-high 37 points, and even though the Bulls won the game, 104-99, MJ was incensed that a relatively unknown player had got the better of him.
After the game, Jordan claimed that Smith approached him and said, “Nice game, Mike.”
No. 23 then supposedly vowed that he would match Smith’s 37 points in the first half alone of the two teams’ next meeting on the very next day.
In the second game, this time at the Bullets’ Capital Centre, Jordan showed that he didn’t take too kindly to being shown up by a role player, dropping 36 points on Smith and the Bullets in the first half.
MJ finished the game with 47 points and his Bulls cruised to a 126-101 victory. Smith, meanwhile, had just 15 points following his heroics of the previous night.
It’s a fascinating story, but one that’s only partially true.
Years later, Jordan admitted Smith never told him, “Nice game, Mike,” after scoring 37 points on him.
In fact, MJ made the entire story up just to give him added motivation to get revenge on Smith after he’d embarrassed him the night before.
LaBradford only spent one more season in the NBA after that.
He was waived by the Bullets during the 1993–94 season having averaged 9.3 points, and spent the rest of the campaign playing for the Sacramento Kings before playing overseas in Europe.
Jordan, meanwhile, went on to capture the three-peat after getting his revenge on Smith, beating Charles Barkley’s Phoenix Suns in six games in the 1993 NBA Finals.
He retired seven month’s after that 47-point outburst against Smith and the Bullets, but returned in March of 1995 to capture the repeat three-peat between 1996 and 1998.
For many, MJ is the greatest player who ever lived, and the LaBradford Smith story serves as a kindly reminder at what it took for him to get there.