Larry Hughes joined the Washington Wizards in 2002, the same year as Jerry Stackhouse. He was there when Michael Jordan and Stack began to have a power struggle.
Hughest saw why MJ and Stackhouse tandem wouldn’t work
According to Hughes, the Jordan-Stackhouse tandem was never meant to work because of the structure and history of the people involved. Hughes emphasized that Coach Doug Collins was always gonna be in favor of MJ, who was also an executive for the Wizards at the time, which put Stackhouse in a difficult situation.
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“I really do think it’s different personalities,” Hughes said on The Rematch podcast. “Coaching has something to do with that. MJ was there, we had Doug Collins. We knew that MJ brought Doug Collins in there so he could play for Doug Collins and Doug Collins knew that MJ brought him there so he could coach how MJ wanted to coach. That was a problem. I think with Stack and MJ, it was like Doug.”
Everybody in the Wizards were well aware that Doug was Jordan’s former coach with the Chicago Bulls. During their time together, there was no denying that Collins was very fond of Michael, and the two developed a great bond.
“Because Stack is from the same area as MJ’s from,” he continued. “Stack’s from a small town where you gotta get it how you get it and he’s never going back down, he’s never going to take that and just ride with that. So it was always a constant butting of heads because Stack respected MJ so much but he couldn’t talk through Doug because MJ brought Doug.”
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“So, basically Doug was going to shut everything to Stack, Stack want the ball on mid post or Stack wanted to like… he was shutting all of that down,” he added.
Stack lost respect for MJ
If the Stackhouse trade had happened five years earlier, he wouldn’t have had an issue taking a back seat for Jordan. However, that wasn’t the case. Jordan was nearly 40 years old while Stack was coming off a remarkable season, averaging 21.4 points per game.
From Stackhouse’s point of view, he should have gotten more touches than his fellow UNC alum. However, Jordan still wanted to be the first option on the offensive end, and Coach Collins liked it that way as well.
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With a coach who was a friend of Jordan and a teammate who was also a team executive, Stackhouse couldn’t do anything. Admittedly, Jerry lost a bit of respect for Mike at the time.
“It just kind of spiraled in a way that I didn’t enjoy that season at all,” Stackhouse once said. “The kind of picture I had in my mind of Michael Jordan and the reverence I had for him, I lost a little bit of it during the course of that year.”
“It was really challenging to be able to be in a situation with an idol who at this particular point, I felt like I was a better player,” Stackhouse said.
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The Wizards were MJ’s team
It eventually became clear to Stackhouse that he was technically and actually playing for Jordan’s team. Left with no choice, Stack had to play 70 regular season games with that kind of setup.
Despite the complicated dynamic between him and Michael, Stack still managed to be productive, averaging 21.5 points per game in his one-year stint with the six-time champion. On the other hand, Jordan played in all 82 games and averaged 20 points, shooting almost 19 shots a game.
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However, the team’s performance that season speaks volumes about Mike and Jerry’s disconnect and the silent rift between them. The Wizards failed to make it to the postseason, winning only 37 regular-season games.
After the 2002-03 season concluded, Mike officially retired for good. At last, Stackhouse became the Wizards’ main guy. Unfortunately, Jerry suffered a knee injury that kept him out for the remainder of the 2003-04 season after playing 26 games and averaging 13.9 points. He was dealt to the Dallas Mavericks after the season concluded.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Feb 23, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.