From coaches who cut him, to players who started over him and to anyone who ever thought he wasn’t good enough or wouldn’t make it, Michael Jordan made sure he mentioned and proved all their doubts wrong in his induction speech  to the Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday, Sept. 11. 

Jordan spent the majority of his speech trash- talking and joking. He started off with a man named Leroy Smith who made the high school varsity team in North Carolina over Jordan along with the coach who made the decision.

“I wanted to make sure [you] knew, that you made a mistake, dude,” Jordan said to his old coach.

Jordan continued speaking of another one of his old coaches, former Bulls assistant Tex Winter. Jordan told the story of a game where the Bulls were losing until he scored the final 20 points of the game. As Jordan came off the court, Winter looked at him and said, “Michael, there is no ‘I’ in team.” Jordan shot back, “But there is an ‘I’ in win.”

Through about half of Jordan’s speech it seemed that he used his induction as a chance to even up some old scores, attacking many more as he went on such as Byron Russell, who Jordan hit a buzz beater over, Isiah Thomas for his freeze out at an all-star game and Buzz Peterson, Jordan’s roommate in college who was chosen over him to be on a cover of “Sports Illustrated.”

“I wanted to prove to you, Magic (Johnson), Larry (Bird), George (Gervin), everybody that I deserved [to be there] just as much as anybody else, and I hope over the period of my career I’ve done that without a doubt,” Jordan said.

As sour and cold- hearted as Jordan’s speech might have seemed, most of his jokes were heartfelt, and he expressed thanks for all the people and events that happened to him in his life, good or bad.

“Everything put wood on the fire, and it kept me each and every day trying to get better as a basketball player,” Jordan said.

But my one question is, when you are called the greatest ever to play the game of basketball, do you obtain the right to brag or settle old scores at your hall of fame induction speech?  Many don’t seem to think so, with the harsh remarks that followed Jordan’s speech.

The media took his speech completely the wrong way and was just looking for a way to create hype over the whole event. When those who took offense to Jordan’s speech get inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, then they can give the speech however they please.

Now when taken out of context and heard for the first time, Jordan’s statements do seem harsh but his intentions were good hearted and were not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings as the media portrayed it. Jordan’s speech was actually very clever. He explained everything that happened to him made him the legendary competitor that he is today.