{"id":670180,"date":"2026-03-21T05:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/670180\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T05:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:24:18","slug":"hes-obviously-a-pr-machine-steve-kerr-commented-on-a-careful-way-michael-jordan-protected-his-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/670180\/","title":{"rendered":"“He’s obviously a PR machine” – Steve Kerr commented on a careful way Michael Jordan protected his image"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Jordan<\/a> wasn’t only admired by his Chicago Bulls teammates for his greatness on the court but also for how he conducted himself off it. For his former teammate, Steve Kerr<\/a>, MJ’s athletic skills were so obvious and great that it was his ability to protect his public image that stood out to Steve.<\/p>\n

According to Kerr, everybody knew that Jordan was the best player on the planet whenever he stepped foot on the court during the ’90s. However, Michael did an equally tremendous job off the court. He didn’t rub anybody the wrong way every time he appeared or spoke in public and he did the same thing with his endorsements.<\/p>\n

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To Kerr, it speaks volumes about MJ’s leadership qualities and how he cared about how people perceived him.<\/p>\n

“He’s obviously a PR machine with all of his endorsements,” Kerr said<\/a> of Jordan in Roland Lazenby’s book, “Blood on the Horns: The Long Strange Ride of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.” “His image is obviously very important to him. And I think, in one regard, that means that he doesn’t want to look like the guy who’s trying to take over the organization. He’s very savvy.”<\/p>\n

MJ was an honest endorser<\/p>\n

Kerr joined the Bulls<\/a> in 1993 as a free agent. At the time, Jordan was already endorsing a wide array of big-name brands.<\/p>\n

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It’s quite understandable if Kerr may have thought that His Airness had already perfected how to keep his public image in pristine condition. However, that wasn’t always the case.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, MJ had long been honest and truthful, especially in endorsing products. In fact, Jordan once turned down a hair care endorsement deal<\/a> with Johnson Products because he didn’t want to lie about his baldness.<\/p>\n

“If I endorse McDonald’s, I go to McDonald’s. If I endorse Wheaties, I eat Wheaties. If I endorse Gatorade, I drink Gatorade,” Jordan once said<\/a>. “I have cases of Gatorade; I love drinking Gatorade. I don’t endorse anything that I don’t actually use.”<\/p>\n

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“If I wanted to be a hard-nosed businessman, I could have been in a lot of deals, like the one with Johnson Products,” he added. “I had a deal with them for their hair-care products. I had two or three more years on that deal when I started losing my hair. So, I forfeited the deal. But if I had wanted to be greedy, I could’ve said, ‘Screw you, you didn’t know my hair was falling out, so you owe me money.’ But I didn’t.”<\/p>\n

Related: “No player is better deserving” – Robert Parish on LeBron James closing in on his Iron Man record<\/a><\/p>\n

Jordan was all about class<\/p>\n

Both on and off the court, Jordan epitomized class. The way he carefully addresses certain matters and makes his decisions is truly admirable.<\/p>\n

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This explains a lot about why MJ became the rightful face of the NBA during his playing years in the league. Moreover, the fact that Jordan only agreed to endorse brands and products that represented him in one way or another was also worthy of praise.<\/p>\n

That’s what the face of the league needs to do. Not only dominate on the court, but they also represent the league in a pristine manner off the court, too.<\/p>\n

MJ did that, more often than not.<\/p>\n

Related: “I slammed my I.D. on the counter” – Michael B. Jordan on why it’s annoying to share a name with Michael Jordan<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Mar 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Jordan wasn’t only admired by his Chicago Bulls teammates for his greatness on the court but also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,920,919,329,3824,935,3825,6,863],"class_list":["post-670180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bulls","tag-basketball","tag-bulls","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-chicagobulls","tag-michael-jordan","tag-mj","tag-nba","tag-steve-kerr"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116265501556113467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}