Joe Dumars recalls Michael Jordan being allegedly favored by referees on calls: "He's going to be OK without you!"
Michael Jordan and the Bad Boy Pistons had quite a well-documented story. During Jordan's early years with the Chicago Bulls, he and the franchise struggled to make it past the Pistons in the playoffs. A rivalry inevitably formed that saw the two teams become bitter rivals as Jordan and the Bulls saw their playoff hopes crushed repeatedly.
When Jordan finally made it past the Pistons in the playoffs, the team responded by walking off the court. The handshake snub after the game earned them a "sore winner" reputation and only furthered the rivalry between the two teams.
During their heated matchups, many of the Pistons team members accused Jordan of getting preferential treatment, something they maintain to this day. The way he and the Pistons saw things, Jordan was getting a lot of extra and unnecessary help from the referees, given his esteem.
During a recent interview with CBS, Joe Dumars recalled the rivalry and the preferential treatment Jordan got. While taking a shot at his former rivalry seemingly out of left field, he explained:
"I'm going to divert here a little bit. It's what I used to tell the referees when they called a foul for Jordan, for Michael, and I didn't think it was. I would always say to them, 'He doesn't need your help. He's going to be OK without you.' You know what I mean? 'He's pretty good, he doesn't need you to give him any calls.'
"So I say the same thing about the offense right now in the NBA. We don't need to tilt any rules to the offense. Just keep it clean and see how good these guys are."
Above, you can see footage of Jordan and the Bad Boy Pistons going at it on several occasions as part of an NBA YouTube video highlighting their best battles.
Did Michael Jordan play a role in the NBA's efforts to change officiating?
In recent years, it's been no secret that the NBA has undergone a bit of change regarding officiating. For a while, the league had begun to see players like Trae Young and James Harden excessively bait defenders into fouls. From stopping to force a pursuing defender to bump into them, to abusing the rip-through, officiating was in a bad spot.
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That all changed a couple of years back when the league pivoted to calling those bait fouls on the offensive player. Now, when players forcibly try to draw tic-tac fouls on defenders, it works at a far lower success rate.
Although Michael Jordan's rivalry with the Bad Boy Pistons didn't play a role in the recent changes, the way Jordan was officiated did force the team to change the game. As a result of the preferential treatment he got, the Pistons implemented the "Jordan Rules" to stop his offensive dominance.
As Michael Jordan pointed out in The Last Dance, his rivalry with Isiah Thomas, who created The Jordan Rules, is alive and well.
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