Michael Jordan's Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Speech

Walking in Michael is one of his basketball role models, the Hall of Famer known as Skywalker, class of 1996, David Thompson. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jordan. Thank you. Thank you. I told all my friends I would come up here and say thank you and walk off. I can't. There's no way. I got so many people I can thank in all the videos. You never just saw me. So Scott, every chance to buy one. I've had a lot of questions over the last four weeks. And everybody's saying, well, why did you pick David Thompson? I know why David knows why. And maybe you guys don't know why, but as I grew up in North Carolina, I was 11 years old, 1974, I think, when you guys won the championship. And I was an anti-Carolina guy. I hated UNC, and here I ended up at UNC. But I was I was in love with David Thompson, not just for the game of basketball, but in terms of what he represented. You know, we all, as Vivian say, or said, we go through our trials and tribulations. And he did. And I was inspired by him. And when I called him and asked him to stand up for me, I know I shocked the shit out of him. I know I did. But he was very, very kind and said, yeah, I do it. And that was a disrespect to any of my Carolina guys. They all know that I'm too blue Carolina guy to the heart. You know, Coach Smith, Larry Brown, Sam Perkins. James Worthy, you know, all of those guys. Well, it all starts with my parents. You guys see all the highlights. What is what is it about me that you guys don't know? As I sit up and I watch all the other recipients stand up here and they give their the history and so many things I didn't know about. Jerry Sloan, I know he lived on the farm, but I didn't know he was in a small classroom from first grade to the eighth grade. Even David Robinson, obviously, I've known David for some time. And, you know, I found some some things out about him. And even with John, I found some bad things or good things about him. And even Viv, I've known Viv for years. And her and my father and my mom spent a lot of time on the Nike trips. And, you know, I found out a lot of good things about her. But what about me that you guys don't know? I got two brothers, James and Larry. At five, four, five, five in height. They gave me all I could ever ask for as a brother in terms of competition. You know, you would think that, you know, he's my brother. Larry is a is a ideal situation where small things come in small packages. This dude fought me every single day. And to the extent that my mother used to come out and make us come in because we were fighting way too much. And my older brother was always gone. He served in the Army for 31 years. And the competition didn't stop there. My sister, who's one year younger than me, Ross, never wanted to be home by herself. She took classes, extra classes to graduate from high school with me. To go to university in North Carolina with me and to graduate prior to me. And you guys didn't ask me where my competition or my competitive nature came from. It came from them. It came from my older sister. She was not here today. And my father, who's not here today, obviously he's with us in all of us. I mean, my competitive nature has gone a long way from the first time I picked up any sport. Baseball, football, grand track, basketball, anything in this class. I played it. When you think about, you know, so they started the fire in me. You know, that fire started with my parents. And then, you know, as I moved on in my career, people added wood to that fire. Coach Smith. And what else can I say about him? You know, he's a legendary and he's, you know, in the game of coaching. And then there's Leroy Smith. Now you guys think that's a myth. Leroy Smith was a guy, when I got cut, he made the team on the varsity team. And he's here tonight. He's still the same six, seven guy. He's not any bigger. He's probably, his game is about the same. But he started the whole process with me because when he made the team and I didn't, I wanted to prove not just to Leroy Smith, not just to myself, but to the coach who actually picked Leroy over me. I wanted to make sure you understood you made a mistake, dude. And then there's Buzz Peterson, my roommate. Now, when I first met Buzz, all I heard about was this kid from Asheville, North Carolina, who's a player of the year. I'm thinking, well, he ain't never played against me yet. So how did he become player of the year? Is that a, is that some type of media exposure? You know, I came from Wilmington, you know, we had two channels, channel ABC and channel seven, channel NBC. That was it. I never saw NBA sports at all. When I grew up, he didn't have CBS affiliation in North Carolina. In Wilmington. So Buzz Peterson became a dot on my board. And when I got the chance to meet Buzz Peterson on the basketball court, but in person, Buzz was a great person. It wasn't the fault of his, it was just my competitive natures. I didn't think he could beat me or he was better than me as a basketball player. And he became my roommate. And from that point on, he became a focal point, not knowingly, he didn't know it, but he did. And coach Smith, the day that he was on the Sports Illustrated and he named four starters and he didn't name me, that burned me up because I thought I belonged on that Sports Illustrated. Now he had his own vision about giving a freshman that exposure. And I totally understand that. But from a basketball sense, I deserve to be on that Sports Illustrated and he understand that. And it didn't stop there. You know, my competitive nature went right into the pros. I get to the Bulls, which I was very proud that at the time Jerry Reinhart didn't own the team. It was another organization and Rob Thorne drafted me. Kevin Lockett was my first coach. Kevin used to take practices and put me in the starting five. And we, you know, he'd make it a competitive thing where the losing team have to run. So now I'm on the winning team and halfway in the game, halfway in the situation, he would switch me to the losing team. So I take that as a competitive thing, but you trying to test me and by nine times out of 10, the second team would come back and win no matter what he did. So I appreciate Kevin Lockett for giving me that challenge, you know, providing that type of fire within me. He threw another log on that fire for me. Jerry Reinstor. I mean, what else can I say? The next year I come back, I broke my foot. I was out for 65 games. And when I came back, I wanted to play, you know, here in the doctors, they came up with this whole theory that you can only play seven minutes a game, but I'm practicing two hours a day. You know, I'm saying, well, I don't think I don't I don't agree with that math, you know. And back then it was about whoever had the worst record, get the most balls in the ping pong balls and, you know, you can decide what pick you're going to have. But I didn't care about that. I just wanted to win. I wanted to make the playoffs. You know, I wanted to keep that that energy going in Chicago. So I had to go in his office and sit down with him. I said, you know, I feel like I should play more than 14 minutes and practice in two hours. He says, MJ, I think I have to protect the long term of investment that we've invested in you. That's a jury. I really think I should be able to play. He said, let me ask you this. You say if you had a headache and, you know, at that time it was about 10 percent chance that I can re injure my my ankle or my foot. He says, if you have a headache and you got a 10 tablets and one of them is coated with cyanide. Would you take the Tylenol? And I looked at him, I said, how bad is the headache? Depending on how bad the headache. Jerry looked at me and said, you OK, I guess that's a good answer. You can go back and play. He let me allow to go back and play. And, you know, Jerry provided a lot of different obstacles for me. But at the same time, the guy gave me an opportunity to perform at the highest level in terms of basketball and the Bulls, the whole Bulls organization. You know, they did a great justice for me and for all my teammates. Believe me, I had a lot of teammates over the 14 years that I played for the Bulls. And, you know, I respected each and every one of them. I just wanted to win, you know, no matter how you look at it. And then along came Doug Collins, who was caught in the whole mix of this, Jerry Kraus and and Jerry Reinsdorf. And, you know, at the same time, he you know, when I was trying to play in the summertime, he said, well, you know, you're a part of the organization. The organization said you can't play in the summertime. I said, Doug, you haven't read the fine print in my contract. And my contract said I had the love of the game clause. That means I can play any time I want, any place I want. And Doug looked at me and said, yeah, you're right, you're right. And that's how we became a little closer in terms of Doug Collins and myself. And, you know, Jerry Kraus is right there and Jerry's not here. Obviously, I don't know who invited him. I didn't. But I hope he understands. I hope he understands it goes a long way and he was a very competitive person. I was a very competitive person. He said organization wins championships. I said I didn't see organization playing with the flu in Utah. I didn't see him playing with, you know, with the bad ankle. Granted, granted, I think organization put together a team, but at the end of the day, the team's got to go out and play, you know. So in essence, I think the players win the championship and the organization have something to do with it. Don't get me wrong, but don't try to put the organization above the players, because at the end of the day, the players still got to go out there and perform. You guys got to pay us, but I still got to go out and play. Obviously, you see my kids, you know, Jeffrey, Marcus, Jasmine. I love you guys. I think you guys represent a lot of me, a lot of different personalities. Your mom, you represent them as well. You know, I think that you guys have a heavy burden. I wouldn't want to be you guys if I had to, you know, because of all the expectations that you have to deal with. I mean, look around you. They charge a thousand dollar tickets for this thing, for this whole event. It used to be two hundred bucks, but I paid it. You know, I had no choice. I had a lot of family, a lot of friends I had to bring in. So thank you, Hall of Fame, for raising ticket price, I guess. But you guys, I love you guys. You guys just don't know you got a whole host of people supporting you, family, friends, people that you don't know, relatives coming out of the woodworks, you know, no matter how you look at it. But I think we taught you right, your mom and I. And hopefully you can make the right decision when the time comes. My mom, what else can I say? My mom, my mom never stays still. You think I'm busy. She's always on the go. And without her, she's a rock. She's unbelievable. She's right now. She takes over two jobs. She's an unbelievable woman. I mean, if I got anybody that's nagging me each and every day, it is her. And she she constantly keeps me focused on the good things about life, you know, how people perceive you, how you respect them, you know, what's good for the kids, what's good for you, you know, how you perceive publicly second thought. Take a pause and think about the things that you do. It all came from my parents. You know, it came from my mom. And she's still at this stage. I'm 46 years old. She's still parenting me today. And that's a good thing about that lady. I love her to death. And I'm going to thank a couple of people that you guys probably wouldn't even think that I would think. Isaiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, George Gervin. Now, they say it was a so-called freeze out in my rookie season. I wouldn't have never guessed. But you guys gave me the motivation to say, you know what? Everything I have improved enough to these guys, I got to prove to them that I deserve what I've gotten on this level. And no matter what people may have said, if there was a rumor, I never took it as as as truth. But you guys never froze me out because I was just happy to be there, no matter how you look at it, you know. And from that point forward, you know, I wanted to prove to you, Magic, Larry, George, everybody that I deserved to be on this level as much as anybody else. And I hopefully over the period of my career, I've done that without a doubt. You know, even in the Detroit years, we've done that. Pat Riley, I mean, you and I, we go way back. I still remember in Hawaii, you remember in Hawaii where you and I, I was coming in, you were, I guess, leaving. And you decided to stay a couple extra days, but you were in my suite and they came and they told you you had to get out of my suite. And you slid a note underneath my door, although you had to move, you didn't move. You slid a note saying, I enjoyed the competition. Congratulations, but we will meet again. And I take the heart in that, because I think in all honesty, you are just as competitive as I am, you know, even from a coaching standpoint. And you've challenged me every time I played the Knicks, the Heat, and I don't think you were with the Lakers, but any time I played against you, you had, you had Jordan Stoppers on your team. You had John Starks, who I love. You even had my friend Charles Oakley saying, we can't go to lunch, we can't go to dinner because Pat doesn't believe in fraternizing between the two of us. And this guy hit me harder than anybody else in the league, and he was my best friend. Patrick, you and we had the same agent. We came out the same time, but we couldn't go to lunch. Why is this? You think I'm going to play against Patrick any different than I play against anybody else? No, no. And then you had your little guy who was on your staff, who became the Knicks coach after you, Jeff Van Gundy. He said, I conned the players, I defended them, and then I attack them on the basketball court. Where did that come from? I just so happen to be a friendly guy. I get along with everybody, but at the same time, when the light comes on, I'm as competitive as anybody you know. You know, so you guys, I must say thank you very much for giving me that motivation that I desperately needed. Phil Jackson, Phil Jackson is, to me, he's a professional Dean Smith. You know, he challenged me mentally, not just physically. You know, he understood the game, along with Tex Winter. They taught me a lot about the basketball game. Tex being the specialist, you know, I could never please Tex, and I love Tex. Tex is not here, but, you know, I know he's here in spirit. I can remember a game coming off the basketball court, and we were down, I don't know, 5, 10 points, and I go off about 25 points, and we come back and win the game. And we're walking off the floor, and Tex looked at me and said, you know, there's no I in team. I said, Tex, there's not. It's not an I in team, but it's I in win. I think he got my message. I'd do anything to win. You know, if that means we play team format, we win. If that means I have to do whatever I have to do, you're going to win, no matter how you look at it. And then you had all your media, and they said, oh, scoring champion can't win a NBA title. Or, you know, you're not as good as Magic Johnson, you're not as good as Larry Bird, you're good, but you're not as good as those guys. You know, I had to listen to all this, and that put so much will on that fire that it kept me each and every day trying to get better as a basketball player. Now, I'm not saying that they were wrong. And my last example of that, and the last one that you guys probably have seen, I hate to do it to him, but he's such a nice guy. You remember this, John? And believe me, ever since that day, he got his chance, I don't know how successful he was, but I think he had his chance, and believe me, I relished on that point, and from this day forward, if I ever see him in shorts, I'm coming at him. One day you might look up and see me playing the game at 50, oh don't laugh, don't do that, never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion, thank you very much.