The recent airing of “The Last Dance” really shined a light on Michael Jordan’s obsessively competitive personality, but there are other stories from throughout his career that demonstrate that.
Richard Hamilton has one of them. Hamilton first entered the league in 1999 with the Washington Wizards, where he spent three seasons. In his final year with the team, he played alongside Jordan, who also served as the Wizards’ team president.
In an appearance on the “All The Smoke” podcast, Hamilton recalled how Jordan, prior to making his return to the court, had once traded second-year guard Laron Profit for trash talk that was a little too aggressive, via Ryne Nelson of Slam Online:
“I remember one time, we were playing in practice, and Prof might’ve hit a shot on MJ, and he was running down court. ‘Yeah, you can’t guard me with them old-ass knees.’ MJ was heated. He was heated to the point that when I went to my exit meeting, [Jordan] was like, ‘Your man, he outta here.'”
Profit was ultimately traded for the draft rights to Brendan Haywood in August 2001. The Wizards didn’t miss much, as he ended up playing just 135 NBA games in his career.
Jordan is known as one of the most legendary trash talkers of all time. That doesn’t mean he wanted to hear it back. Profit learned that one the hard way.
