The history of the bad blood between Michael Jordan and Jerry Krause is well known. The duo that led the Chicago Bulls to six titles in the ’90s never truly saw eye to eye. Even though everything looked perfect on the court, once the arena lights went out, the two couldn’t stand each other.
The relationship actually began to crack very early, when MJ broke his foot during his sophomore season. After Krause arranged consultations with five of the country’s top foot specialists, the decision was made that Jordan needed to rest for the entire season, something that didn’t sit well with him.
The agreement was eventually that Michael could play under strict minute restrictions, but often, when he was having a good game, he didn’t want to come out, which only deepened the tension between the star shooting guard and the BullsGM at the time.
“I got scared as hell,” Krause said on “The Vertical with Woj podcast” in 2017. “I talked to him and he said, ‘Jerry, I’m okay, I can play.’ I think there was a line between Michael and me at that point. I said, ‘Michael, you work for this team, I work for this team, we are employees of this team.’ He didn’t like that. Michael got mad when I said that. I could sense his madness. Well, I said the truth, but what are you gonna do?”
Krause was thinking long-term
MJ got injured in the third game of the season and missed a total of 64 games. Chicago still made the playoffs with a 30-52 record, which at the time was the fifth-worst record ever for a team that qualified for the playoffs.
Being the competitor he was, Michael began to push for a return toward the end of the season, despite Jerry’s desire for him to sit out the entire year. The team from the Windy City was not a realistic contender anyway, and Krause was thinking long-term. He knew the roster would strengthen in the coming years, while Jordan was under a seven-year contract.
In Jerry’s business world, it only made sense for Michael to fully recover and sit out the season. However, in Jordan’s world, if he felt he could help the team win, he would do it, even if it meant risking an injury. It was a clash of worlds — an experienced NBA executive versus a young athlete in every sense of the word.
Jordan played 45.0 minutes per game in the playoffs
The result? Even though Jordan mostly abided by the restrictions, averaging around 15 minutes per game after the injury, he couldn’t resist when he saw the 1984 champs, the Boston Celtics, led by league MVP Larry Bird, waiting in the first round.
Jordan completely ignored Krause’s limitations and, in three games where the Bulls were swept, was playing 45.0 minutes while averaging an absurd 43.7 points per game — both a playoff career high and one of the most iconic performances in the history of the Association. That series also included his legendary 63-point outing in Game 2, proving to the world that Michael was destined to become the new face of the league.
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MJ was completely ignoring his superiors
Still, behind the scenes, things were falling apart. No matter how breathtaking Jordan’s performances were, Krause knew that beating the Celtics was unrealistic and that the risk of re-injury was completely unnecessary from Mike’s side.
Mark Vancil, the renowned author of “Rare Air: Michael on Michael,” once shared on Stacey King’s podcast how Jordan defied the Bulls’ caution after returning from a broken foot.
“When the cast came off, he did everything he was supposed to do. Then, he started playing down in North Carolina. I remember one night — he had been playing, and no one knew — we were at Jerry Reinsdorf’s office, his business office, at midnight on a conference call,” Mark shared.
“Krause and Reinsdorf, along with us and the reporters, were listening in with the three doctors. The whole thing was absurd,” he added. “And then, it came out that he had been playing, and, you know, they were furious.”
MJ was playing pickup games in North Carolina, completely disregarding his contract and the money the Bulls were paying him, risking the entire future. And while many view that as a testament to his relentless competitiveness and being cut from a different cloth, the fact that Jordan directly disobeyed his superiors was impossible to ignore.
In the end, everything turned out fine, but the consequences could have been severe. And in a way, they were. Despite all the success Krause and Jordan later achieved together, from that point on, their relationship was irreversibly beyond repair.