Steve Kerr explained how Michael Jordan scared all of his teammates into being better basketball players
- Steve Kerr said he's never been around a player who led teammates like Michael Jordan.
- Kerr said on Bill Simmons' "Book of Basketball" podcast he used to be "scared to death" of Jordan, but it helped his game in the long run, as Jordan's intensity prepared Kerr for big moments.
- Kerr said while other players have different and equally effective leadership styles, Jordan's worked, even though it was "difficult" to be around.
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Michael Jordan's intensity and competitiveness were so high that it made players "scared to death" of him, according to Steve Kerr.
Kerr was on Bill Simmons' "Book of Basketball" podcast and discussed the various leadership styles he's encountered during his time in the NBA. Kerr said he found it "fascinating" to play with Jordan because of his unique leadership style. Kerr compared it to Tim Duncan, a much more lowkey, genial teammate.
"It was a lot easier to play with Tim Duncan," Kerr said on the podcast. "I remember I told [Gregg Popovich] after we won the second championship in San Antonio in '03, I said, 'The difference between Michael and Tim is you always felt like you were playing with Tim, and there were times you felt like you were playing for Michael.'"
However, Kerr said there were methods to Jordan's madness.
"It was unbelievable to be on his team, to be his teammate. And you had to accept that responsibility. You knew he was gonna be harsh on you, knew he was gonna be tough on you, was gonna talk trash to everybody in practice, test you. His reasoning was, if you couldn't handle the trash talk in practice, there was no way you were gonna handle the pressure of the NBA playoffs. It made perfect sense. He was right!"
Kerr joined the Chicago Bulls for the 1993-94 season when Jordan left the NBA to play baseball. Jordan returned to the Bulls late in the 1994-95 season. Kerr said he became a better player while with Jordan, not just in basketball terms, but because Jordan helped mentally reconfigure Kerr.
"He made me way better. Not only from the standpoint of the traditional great player drawing attention, and 'Okay, they're gonna double-team him, I'm gonna be open.' That's the easy explanation. It's more than that. It's, don't be scared. Like, you gotta compete. That's probably the biggest thing I learned from him, watching him: he was just so fearless. He never shied away from the stigma that would come through failure. He understood fully that if he just went all-out every single game and went for it on every single play, the positives would outweigh the negatives, but you just to have to live with the failure.
Kerr said Jordan even made practices intense, a far cry from how NBA practices are run today.
"You even felt that in practice ... The level of our practices was insane. Insane. And that was because Michael set that tone."
Kerr famously matched Jordan's intensity during a practice in 1996. As Kerr recalled to ESPN in 2013, he and Jordan were matched up on one another and trash-talking. After Jordan gave him a shove on a play, Kerr turned around and shoved Jordan back. Jordan punched Kerr in the face, and the two had to be separated.
The fight was short-lived and even had benefits. After Jordan apologized and the two talked over the incident, Kerr believes Jordan gained a new respect for him.
"It was more just I'm going to stand up for myself ... It was a totally different relationship from that point on," Kerr told ESPN.
Kerr has been around some of the NBA's all-time greats, from Jordan to Scottie Pippen to Duncan to Steve Nash to Stephen Curry. He said nobody is quite like Jordan.
"Playing with him was incredible and fascinating but difficult."
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