Sam Smith

Michael drew the spotlight on him, and that provoked him to play even better.

I was around Michael from the beginning when he came to Chicago in 84 and at the draft, Rod Thorne said, look, he's a really good player, but it's not like he's going to change the franchise or something.

So, so it's like, okay.

And he, I watched this development of his, his stages going through multiple coaches at different coach first three years, every year, different players he was playing with.

He mentioned in his last dance documentary about his, uh,

Being a roving drug gang, which it was, half his – literally half his teammates from his rookie year went into drug rehab.

It was a bad era for the NBA for that.

And one thing with Michael is people wanted stuff from him all the time.

And he distrusted if you wanted something from him.

And I noticed with Phil that – because early on, Michael was very dubious about Phil.

Yeah, because Phil, I remember when he came in, said, and he pointed out only one player in the last 25 years, Karim Eddozer-Barr, had won a championship by leading the league in scoring.

Michael was leading.

He liked leading, leading, scoring.

And I remember when Phil got the head coaching job.

That's how I wrote the story.

I'm sure Phil didn't like it.

I talked to Michael the day Phil got the job and said he was going to institute this offensive program.

triangle and quoted Michael saying, well, I'll give it three games and see how it works.

And so, but I did notice that relationship, that Phil wasn't asking Michael for things.

He was trying to help him improve.