Billionaire Michael Jordan Refrained From Paying His Employees With 1 Clever Tactic, NBA Veteran Reveals

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Boos rained down when Damon Stoudamire became the 7th overall pick for inaugural Raptors’ season in the 1995 NBA Draft. Fanbase wanted UCLA senior Ed O’Bannon, the Most Outstanding Player after winning the NCAA championship. One of the largest crowds to see an NBA game that season—precisely 36,131 at the Skydome—assembled to see what was supposedly the most unlikely upset… the mighty Bulls losing to Raptors 108-109. Michael Jordan witnessed Stoudamire scoring his career-high 30 points and breaking the rookie record of 125 set by Dennis Scott in 1989-90. But that’s just on-court drama.

27 years later, Stoudamire revisited the first time he met Jordan off-court. In a recent episode of Broken Play, Damon Stoudamire talked about how MJ extended his winning mentality to extracurricular activities, like card games, where he didn’t shy away from putting money on the line. Back in the 1990s, Michael Jordan and other members of Nike went to Japan for an event held by the brand.

While they were on the flight, The Mighty Mouse saw Jordan and others playing cards. The 1996 ROTY said, “Mike was talking so bad to those dudes. Listen, Mike was playing cards with the dudes that work for him. Beating them and telling them, ‘It’s cool, I don’t have to pay you this week’. That’s how he was.”

The 50-year-old American basketball coach even mentioned how he has never seen another person like the Black Cat, he said, “I just never been around somebody that can numb the room the way he numb the room and I don’t care athletes entertainers other billionaires like it don’t it don’t matter.”

Since he was still a rookie at the time, Stoudamire didn’t have a lot of money. So, he decided that it was not wise for him to place money on the table. This turned out to be a good decision as Jordan would have definitely made him pay if Stoudamire had lost against him.

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But he was still shocked to see Jordan say that he would not be paying his employees. Although he had millions to his name, Jordan did not make things easy on his people. But looking back at all the stories of Jordan’s competitive nature, it is not far-fetched to imagine that he would stand by his words.

Along with being extremely competitive, Michael Jordan was always betting with his teammates on almost everything. In one such case, Jordan bet his teammates on whose bags would come out first from the tunnel at the airport. After everyone had placed their bets, they were shocked to see that it was Jordan’s that came out first. But little did they know that Jordan had already set it all up.

Before placing the bet, Jordan had given 50 dollars to the baggage handler to make his luggage come out first. It was simple, Jordan hated losing. Former University of North Carolina assistant coach Roy Williams revealed, “He is so competitive. I can remember beating him in a game of pool. Three games running and he didn’t speak to me for 24 hours.”