Whether it was taking the shots that decided championships or facing off against the biggest and best stars of his era – Michael Jordan always exuded an air of fearlessness on the basketball court.
Jordan's intensity and drive for winning coupled with his skill and dedication powered him to six NBA titles in his illustrious career, as well as five Most Valuable Player awards, 10 scoring titles, six Finals MVPs and 14 All-Star selections.
The NBA GOAT was famously uncompromising and would even get into heated exchanges with his own teammates if they failed to meet his high standards.
But according to a former NBA star, there was one player who inspired fear within Jordan.
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Former Houston Rockets, LA Lakers and San Antonio Spurs forward Robert Horry claims Jordan was scared of Hakeem Olajuwon.
Olajuwon – a 7ft centre who was the No.1 pick in the 1983 draft, two spots ahead of where the Bulls took Jordan – won two MVP and two titles in an 18-year NBA career.
"If you ask Michael Jordan what one guy he ever feared, it was Hakeem Olajuwon," Horry said when speaking at the 60 Days of Summer event at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016. "He used to say, 'I'm scared of the big African.' Because [Hakeem is] from Nigeria."
And Horry, who won seven titles during his playing days, believes Jordan's short-lived retirement in 1993 was not a factor in his Houston Rockets team – led by Olajuwon – winning back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995.
Jordan had fired the Bulls to three successive titles between 1991 and '93, before stepping away from the hardcourt to try his hand at baseball following his father's murder that year.
Jordan returned late in the 1994-95 season and led the Bulls to another "three-peat" between 1996 and '98.
"People who are Chicago Bulls fans, I know this question comes up a lot. They always wonder, those two championships that we won in Houston, would we have won them if Michael Jordan had been playing? The answer to that questions is yes, because they couldn't stop Olajuwon," Horry said.
"We might not be able to stop Jordan, but they couldn't stop Olajuwon.
"We did have someone a guy who could kinda slow Jordan down in Vernon Maxwell. So before that question ever pops up, yes we'd have won two championships if Jordan would have played."
Topics: NBA, Michael Jordan, Basketball
Ryan Baldi