The Uncut Interview With Michael Jordan

[Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow we're gonna smoke one of those have that we gotta get some uh we gotta get some alcohol so let's start with this and then we'll this one is like drinking burgundy wine yeah you got it it's elegant but these are yours thank you very much and i also the cigar you had i brought you a box it was something you're seeing i'm free so take care of me well you know what you're taking care of me i mean i told you i would so i part of this is to bring back memories because you were smoking those cigars i'm gonna go back to 93. i'm old i can't remember what happened in 93 but i do my best i just know we won and i quit i didn't quit i retired all right and the draw is like perfect okay my man of my richard is going to die he's going to die well if you decide you want to give him one i i'm only giving away you know then he likes these two and i signed both boxes as a concern momentum i may not get one of these though you ready i'm better than you okay 20 30 years ago uh millions of boys growing up wanted to be just like mike when you were growing up who did you look up to who did you want to be um well i was closer to watching my father do most of the stuff so i mean i wasn't really into uh professional sports because where i grew up you only had like two television stations you know nbc and abc and we couldn't even get the nba games so my most of my focus stayed on the college game so i was a big college basketball player you know i watched college and then baseball obviously my father was a big baseball fan he loved roberto clemente so he was a base pittsburgh steeler fan and i kind of grew up emulating or following his footsteps in terms of who he admired is who i watched um i grew up also a nascar fan so i was a richard petty fan i said we used to go my father just take the whole family pack us all in you know this is chrysler plymouth and we would drive all over north carolina south south carolina and go watch stock car racing so i was more into stock car racing than i was into anything else okay so in late 2015 yeah uh and i'm sure you know of this but the harris poll surveyed americans to rank the most popular athletes in american history and you were voted number one babe ruth was number two muhammad ali was number three and then there were a bunch of others many of whom you know all this is wonderful in your life what is your greatest regret oh you know i i really don't have regrets i'm i am a person that says you know as soon as you look back in your history and you come up with something that you feel like you want to change something else has to change you know so what about your biggest disappointment once again that's the same same analogy you know disappointment to me to win you got to lose to be successful you got to have something that's not successful uh to be happy you got to have disappointment so i think all of those things have evolved and happened to make me who i am and understand the benefits and the privileges i have for being who i am you know and not to wear it on my sleeve be very humble about it that's one thing my parents taught me very well is you know don't wear your reputation don't wear your accolades don't wear your you know your personality on your sleeve let it happen let it be you it is who you are don't hide from it but don't you know don't wear it and rub it in people's faces so you know when you sit there and you say well you know in 1990 or 2005 they voted me as like the best or the most popular athlete you know was ironic that i'm the youngest of the three so in essence it's all relevated on who is watching now uh if you ask 20 years from now i'm pretty sure lebron may beat me you know based on who's going to be making the voting so i take i say that to say to understand that you know it is what it is you know i don't wear it i don't showcase it i don't rub it in other people's faces someone else's opinion if you ask me i can never give you an opinion about things like that because as an athlete all you want to do is be the best athlete you can be well on that point when we did the interview 12 years ago you made a big point that you wanted to be private that you wanted to take back your life that you had been in the public eye and so forth and so forth now um i'll be jumping around but i have this burning question that i think you're in you very unique position to answer all right um college kids can't wait to leave school to go into the pros um there's no real rule that you have to be 21 or that you have to finish four years you have to be 19. i i'm just saying that but in other words at age 19 when you're still a very young man you give up your education you give up the college experience and so forth and so on and upon reflection i know that you're going to say that some people for financial reasons need to vote so what what do you think is is really um the correct the right way for the ncaa or the nba to handle this well you know i've been on both sides obviously you know i left school at the age of 20 21 my junior season uh it wasn't a financial decision it was more or less a you know a business decision opportunity for me to play professional basketball i was you know so close to graduation so education still was a part of everything that i do or i did at the time my feelings about you know the kid being able to go to the pros and i've seen both sides is that you should allow a kid if he feels like from a financial standpoint that he wants to go and work and earn a living i think there's a certain way that you can go about between the ncaa as well as the nba and all parties involved that you can systematically build a way to where that kid now at the age of 18 or 19 if they want to go and play professional sports they should be allowed to kind of like baseball you know baseball i think has a has a very good plan you know where if you come out and you get drafted at 18 you start in the minor league system and you work your way up to where your skills determine if you are qualified to play on a certain level along with that becomes a compensated aspect of what you know you're going to be compensated based on your skill set at that particular time which i think is very correct so i think from from a basketball standpoint if you if you're 18 and you choose not to go to the pros and you go to college i think you'll you should be obligated to stay in college for a length of time to where you can educate yourself you focus on education you focus on your maturity focus on your development of your bodies and your mind and then be allowed to come into the nba not the cba so i think to me that's that is a perfect model to where everybody gets exactly what they deserve or what they need all right so so what's in this young man's head is it about getting the best deal he can or is it playing in the city that he wants to in there is his hometown or is the city not an issue it's what are the what are the criteria upon which they hope they get drafted by a certain team well i mean i i think that's a little bit hard to determine because you in a professional league of multiple teams you know when i say a league you want to be able to have competitive balance within the league and if a player or an individual can choose based on the city to go to whatever respective team that he wants you may have you know you're going to have some discrepancy in terms of the talent pool and the competitive nature of it so if everybody wants to go to chicago you only can have 12 jobs in chicago chicago going to get all the best players what about dallas what about washington what about these other cities detroit you know indiana where they may not be they may not be metropolis of cities but they still have passion for the game of basketball and you're starting to see a little bit of it now to where all the stars are starting to gang up and go on one team i think it's going to hurt the overall aspect of the league from a competitive standpoint and you're going to have just one or two teams that's going to be great and another 28 teams are going to be garbage or they have a tough time surviving in the business environment so what role positive or negative does an agent play in helping the young man make the best decisions well i give you a good example you know in in because i asked you that because you're not only uh no player because i'm an owner i was on the same side yeah i was on the other side now i'm on this side and i think where the agent's responsibilities are is to educate the individuals educate the kids to be able to make sound decisions from where the way they sit or what they think they want you know a lot of times you have the agents making decisions based on what they want as opposed to what the players want and sometimes it's not even in the best interest of the players it may be in the best interest of the agents that's you know i think if you can regulate that which is very tough if you can moderate that to where that player or that athlete's going to be educated about his positions that he can make sound decisions that's going to be best suited for him and his family that's that's that's the correct agenda you know my agent when i came out of college i had you know obviously i was in college for three years coach smith my parents taught me you know right from wrong taught me to understand and listen and learn and then i got with an agent that basically educated me about the positions that i was in how to you know to manage my own you know my personalities you know the business aspect how that translates into you know in the business world things of that nature to a point now i can do a lot of those things on my own it's an education you know i lived in education i went through an education based on you know how my life was you know was was was lived i think that can be very helpful for the kids today you know but because the agent is not that motivated or not that's that's not their energy they're not teaching the kids you know and the kids then by the time they're not useful to the agent now have nothing and no decision making knowledge a lot of times they may end up broke you know they mismanaged their money you know you can avoid some of those problems especially when you talk about the kids skipping college and going to the pros where they gonna get that education from you know the best in the the best support system they have is engaging so if the agent's not gonna educate them you tell me they're gonna learn you know the pros and cons about being independent and being able to manage their own finances so when they're not represented by that agent or they're out of the game of basketball out of the game of football can they still articulate and make decisions just you know from a business sense i think that's that's one of the major issues you know you see a lot of players who you know when they retire they have no money you know they have mismanaged their money they have in all sports in all sports not just basketball football baseball whatever so you talked earlier you mentioned about the competition between cities and it's a sort of a dual question you can go wherever you want with it but you know you now are the owner of charlotte right um i assume you're at a competitive disadvantage uh in a lot of ways um and also the audiences at uh who watch uh basketball are declining over the years i think it peaked when you were playing right some people say they're just too many teams and the talent pool is diluted and the economics really favor the bigger cities in a large way uh i'm sure you're you didn't buy the charlotte team to be an awesome grand you want to you want to win the big prize sure do you have a shot how can how can you develop your team to become a winner well i think from charlotte yeah well it takes a lot of work you know which i'm not afraid of it takes a lot of you know uh forwardly thinking seeing good talent nurturing new talent developing new talent one of the biggest issues we do have is we're not a chicago we're not a la so you have to create a culture that a winning culture and you got to be able to connect that basketball team to the support system within that community one of the biggest reasons why i bought the team initially well i felt the team was under under uh preserved uh you know under operated because they were not connected to the community charlotte led the league for 10 years when they first came into the league led the league in attendance for 10 years which was a huge economical you know support for that city and the talent pool followed that they had good teams that went to the eastern conference finals you know they won 50 games they had potentials of winning and they got lost in the transition when when charlotte moved to new orleans charlotte was without a team then you had an owner come in who was not from north carolina did not understand you know and we're good friends bob johnson and i are very good friends and we talk about this and we understand the difference in terms of how things has transpired since i've taken ownership and since he was on um that disconnected itself from the community um angered the community to where they would not support uh the talent pool was not quite the same it took a transition in terms of the kids were getting younger and younger in drafts and what that entailed was you didn't have the same talent that when we played the talent pool was much broader because the kids were in college much longer and their coaches could develop them their skill set to develop blah blah blah so as the rules and the more players started to buy forego college and go to the nba what he wrote it was a talent pool as well in the education of basketball one of the advantages you have is that in the 300 mile radius you have so many colleges have great teams okay so do you are you active in recruiting uh to some degree yeah i am i try to you know it's a very sensitive thing to recruit um well you certainly go to games to see the talent oh yeah yeah i go see the talent but in terms of recruiting a kid to go to north carolina yeah that's a very personal and family decision you know maybe north carolina doesn't best suit that kid no i'm talking about once they're in college once they're in college there's not a recruitment anymore it's just a draft yeah but you can decide who it is you think well right you can evaluate it but if you got the ninth pick you got to have eight other teams pass on that particular player so you're gonna have to understand what may fall back at you at night you know so we have a good department that has we put so much emphasis because as you see the star players are not rushing to small markets so your your selection of the talent has to be a little bit more um worked at and selected uh selective for your team and your culture and for the city and from a coaching standpoint as well as from organizational standpoint so i put more emphasis on draft than what i used to because you're not being able you're not going to be able to get you know the bronze of the worlds to come to charlotte you didn't wake up or when you were playing for the bulls i'm sure it was not on your mind that your dream is one day on a team but i'd like to know when when the light shined on you that this is something i want to do and what was it that motivated you to uh to own a team because nobody no players ever done that before well i always want to be connected to basketball because my love is always going to be towards basketball and the best way that i think i can pass on the knowledge that i have for the game of basketball to to tomorrow's players is through ownership you know being able to you know to earn the respect of the players be able to communicate with the players to give them the understanding what it takes to plan late and to excel within the league so when initially when i got out of basketball uh in 2003 um actually i got out in 1998 you know when the team was dismantled um i really didn't know what i was going to do in terms of ownership so i looked at and i was presented an opportunity to be a part of a ownership in washington from a general manager standpoint and and with that came an education of understanding what it took so quite naturally you're going to make mistakes you're going to understand you're going to make mistakes the most the most important things about making mistakes is being able to learn from them and not be able to duplicate the same mistake so when i got the opportunity to be a part of the washington wizards at the time um ted leonces brought me in as a part of his group that's where i got my feet wet in terms of ownership and it was intriguing enough i didn't have the you know the experience of ownership i knew what it took which was a lot of money a lot of financial support but the knowledge in terms of being able to transition from a basketball player who could impact the game and determine the outcome to where now you sit up in it you know in the office and have not the same control you have to you know you have to be able to live vicariously through the players that you select which sometimes you know you're going to be allowed you're going to make mistakes and with that mistakes you gotta you know be able to make adjustments and that's what i learned in washington and you know in my first couple years i was a general manager then the next couple years i went went down and i played because i still felt that i could impact the game from a player's standpoint not with the same magnitude of what happened in chicago but from a teaching standpoint saying that okay a lot of these kids they believe in and leadership from a physical sense where that i can show you how hard it takes to work you know i'm in the gym the first one in the gym the last one in the league blah blah blah and i felt i felt like i could pass that okay so that's where the washington experience okay so what i'm hearing you say is that your your first and greatest passion is basketball yes at that time yes okay now we're fast forwarding all these years to today and you are a very um complete businessman sure with many different interests do you have a favorite amongst your businesses do you spend more time in one than the i mean you have in addition to the team i can go on and on i mean the list is pages but you know your jordan shoe brand uh i'm told does three billion dollars a year that ain't hay but it's a pr it was a process with that as well i mean and it's dots being connected you know it's basketball something that you know when the shoes were at its peak you know i played at a high level and and the consumers saw that and it basically authenticated everything about that shoe what we've been able to maintain is being able to communicate to the consumer from a basketball from an ownership standpoint their preference for that product do you spend a lot of time it's been a lot of business i spend most of my if you talk about if you look at all my portfolio of things that i'm involved in my strongest passion outside of the ownership of the hornets is the jordan brand because to me i can impact that in a much greater sense to be able to con continually talk to that consumer interact with that consumer it's not a draft it's not you know it's not where i'm you know dependent on how the season ends to determine if i have a draft pick in the first first 12 or 13 picks so if i had to pick of all the you know things that i'm involved in the most important is the jordan brand because it is my dna it is who i am the hornets is a product of the personnel that i assemble and if it doesn't have that dna you may not get the same results so it's a work in progress with the hornets with with the jordan brand it is successful because i can impact it or that you know how often do you see the symbol of the brand an icon that can communicate and say what you know what i think or impact that product and it truly is global yes it's true so having the hornets and having the shoe i understand i don't know anything about it but you have car dealerships sure why do you what was that about was that just it was an opportunity presented to me uh early on uh that uh from a friend of mine in in wilmington north carolina he owned car dealerships he came to me and says well you know i got this opportunity to get involved in car dealership would you have an interest that was purely from a business center what about the restaurants same exact thing but you've had restaurants for a while and now apparently recently you've been increasing and opening new restaurants uh what's because of the success of it the the the cornerstone guys who have uh basically you know i partner up with they help and they manage the the restaurant scenarios and what we have been able to is to understand what works with the consumer once again and we've been able to grow that business so initially you know when i was coming out of college or when i was in the nba early on without said that i would have been a restaurant owner no once that was presented to me and i understood the dynamics of you know that business we were able to grow that utilizing my persona in a whole different way tied into restaurants and you know obviously was there something about being in the restaurant business that fascinated you personally i love you i mean i like food obviously i love you know gatherings i love plus you know having somewhere to go yeah where i can control the environment yeah is always intriguing for me because i can let my hair down what little hair i have yeah and be able to do the things i want to do my restaurants allow me to do that you know i can go in i can get a good meal i can bring friends i can talk i can drink i can do whatever i choose to do and not worry about repercussions from that you know so it's a safe haven for me and yet at the same time it's it's a great business and i assume that you have no problem getting a table no not that i know nothing i know of um we talked 12 years ago about you know your love for cigars and then also you said you were you you enjoyed wine has that experience of one because you sell wine in your restaurants right but at home are you are you a a drinker are you a collector i'm a drinker i do collect you know i don't believe in collecting and not being able to enjoy you know what kinds of ones do you drink at all i'm into burgundy's pinots right now um and i got the education of wine for my you know bill gelato you know who is a good friend of mine you know and we spend time talking about it at one point in time we were thinking about doing a wine together it never materialized or i never got to a point where i could devote the time to doing something because you can always put your name on something but you know most of the things that i do practically all the things i do is very authentic authentic in terms of my involvement i don't want to just um lend my name to a product because at the end of the day that product is always going to represent my dna so i like to have some interest and i like to have some input i like to have some participation uh it's nothing that you that doesn't go out with my name on it that we don't oversee we don't you know we don't deal with so it's it's it's a process it's something i have a strong interest my wife loves it um we have countless number of bottles of wine you know we do tastings uh no difference in cigars i collect cigars as you know well we're going to get to the sketch let's digress to this golf i mean every it seems like any time i'm at the bears club you're out there wheeling around in your golf cart with a cigar in your mouth i don't i smoke six cigars a day maybe do you play golf almost every day almost every day and sometimes 36 holes always 36 holes and what's your handicap these days four and it's a bad four so don't you don't think that you can take advantage no i heard it was a two so no well um you're friends with a lot of the young pros i'm just curious because a lot of us i'm going to mention a few that i know you know and i'd like you to give me an idea of how good you think they are and what you think their potential are because these are guys that i'm pretty sure you know very well sure uh let's start with uh a new neighbor soon rory very talented uh never played golf with him yet really i've seen him on the range we have talked i'm a big fan uh for someone that's small and generate that much power um it's truly amazing i'm fascinated with my massive size and some of these guys being so small and they can blow it past me which is somewhat frustrating but it is what it is i mean you know ricky is coming into his own real talented uh he's actually just starting to get over the hump of being uh i think where i read and this is not what my interpretation was he was the most overrated golfer i think that i saw and i thought that was not fair i felt like he is a he's a phenomenon in the sense that he resonates with the consumers and with the kids and i think he had some jealousies in in that approach in in the way people viewed him uh but you know and i had some you know i can have some correlation to that you know have you ever played with jordan no i actually did i just played with him a couple uh about four weeks ago in cabo great kid um very very polite very talented grinder um when you get if you got a guy that's you know that's not talented but yeah he has heart he has determination you know he finds a will to win that's jordan he doesn't hit it long he's a great putter you know uh he's got a lot of attributes and i think a lot of it comes from you know just his hard work justin talented i met him when he was 12 years old do you play with any of these guys play with them all i play with them all here uh i do all i can to to get their competitive nature so who am i who am i missing that is in this young collective group of i played with brooklyn yeah who's young and up and coming yeah i played with jamie love mark who was you know ncaa winner keegan bradley i you know obviously he wears a jordan shoes luke donald is like a senior friend of mine who teaches me more things about the game from from a mental and from a short game standpoint that i spend probably most of my time with because he's two or two two doors down from my house and his wife and my wife are very close friends um i know that you have been over the years very close retired tiger sure where do you see him in terms of his life it's a transitional period you know um you know we we athletes we go through that you know and then we have to be adults we got to make you know sound decisions you know we got to make quality decisions um he is to me in a very unique situation you know tiger played and at his peak you know somewhere towards the end of mine at the you know of my career and then what changed between that time frame to now social media twitter you know all those types of things that has invaded invaded the personality and the personal times of individuals to a point where you know people have been able to you know utilize it to financial gains things of that nature and you know for someone like myself you know and this is what tiger deals with is that i don't know if i could you know survive in this twitter comment in this twitter time where you don't have the privacy that you would want and what seems to be very innocent could be always being misinterpreted in the conversation five ten years ago is always who's greater who's going to be the greatest him or jack and that conversation is pretty much over to most people uh i i make the difference and i'll give a different analogy to that because first of all you're never going to say who's the greatest of all time to me i think that's that's more for pr and more for selling stories and getting hype uh jack and tiger never played against each other they never played in the same tournament they never played with the same equipment they never played with the same you know length of golf course i never played against will changman i never played against you know jerry west to now say that you know one's greater than the other it's being a little bit you know unfair you know i think when you can see the similarities and you understand if you this is one way you can judge the two how much impact did each change or or evolve the game jack doing his time when he played but tiger during his time now you know obviously jack won more during the time he played tiger evolved it to where it was you know it crossed a lot of different boundaries where it's not just a white guy sporting you know the black guys afro-americans you know all the minorities played the game and you played at a level to where it generated so much interest financially that it grew the game from a financial standpoint now does that constitute him being the greatest does that mean he's any less than than jack i think it's unfair yeah jack probably has he has 18 more majors 18 majors and tigers got 14. and i think those are when you know that's how people are judging certain things i won six championships bill russell won 11. does that make bill russell better than me and make me better than him no because we play at different eras so when you try to equate who's the greatest of all time it's an unfair parallel it's an unfair choice and i think you know those are the demons that you know obviously tiger had to live with and he's going to be challenged and he's going to be graded upon that but for me i think they're both great i would never say one is greater than the other that's me that's my baby okay i wasn't suggesting one was i was just asking your thoughts yeah well that that's my thoughts moving from uh basketball to derek jeter doesn't doesn't he stay with you yeah i mean because i saw him once he's like his little brother yeah and i said where are you staying he said i'm staying with michael yeah yeah we hang out a lot and then a few weeks ago i saw your name mentioned as an investor in the marlins yeah so what motivate is strictly friendship or a business or both i love baseball i love baseball my love for baseball yeah and it's not final obviously they got to go through the approval stage state of uh his ownership and you know when he came to me about getting involved i said look i would support you in whatever way i have my own businesses i have the hornets i have you know the jordan brand i will support you in whatever way you want me to support you i think he's motivated to build a baseball franchise that can be successful that is who he is that's the way he lived his life it's it's very resemblance it re it resembles everything that i've tried to do from a basketball sense he's trying to do for my baseball sense i can only congratulate i can only support i think he's going to do a great job i think he's going you know he's going to roll up his sleeves he's going to dive in he's going to try to do the best that he can in terms of reconnecting it back to the city of miami and blah blah blah um i don't know how i could you know be a part of it but i am a part from afar and from a support standpoint well in some ways but i love the game of baseball yeah don't get me wrong right and i in some ways you now are on almost identical paths as owners with a a team that needs to step up its game yes and the thing that i can provide for him is for my team you know uh to be able to lend him advice and and give him some insights in terms of what we did in charlotte you know and to reconnect and to turn things around to where's a more successful franchise you talk about teaching have you ever been a coach no did you ever want to be a coach no i have no patience for coaching you know my biggest problem from a competitive standpoint is the the focus of today's athlete and the focus of where i saw the game how i pursued the game it changes and it's and it's totally different so to me for i for me to ask that individual to focus on the game the way i played the game in some ways would be you know unfair for that kid to have to endure that and if he didn't do it no telling where my emotions would be i don't think i would have the patience for it so in essence coaching is something that i've never really felt i could do from an emotional standpoint because i'm much different and i have a different perception about things than what the kids do today because it's a cigar magazine and because i'm trying to reach out to what my reader would want to know about you i'm sure they would all like to know you said you smoke six cigars a day sure what do you smoke what are your favorites my favorite yeah partagas lusitanians is my favorite and that's so you like a big cigar i like a big cigar but i i don't you know i can smoke a small cigar too you know um i like variety i like to at least experiment uh on different types of levels in terms of cigars why don't we go this way it's it's you know this is i'm not giving this up you want to try out something else yeah i i i want to go to the pre because the drawers will but nothing wrong with this drawing no it's just you got me talking so much i can't smoke well i i want to apologize okay no problem i don't want to weave without having this cigar so and i don't know i'm hoping you forget no and i don't want more for me i don't want you taking home the box and i don't you know i don't open these that often oh this is gonna be great this is the best part about this whole process is the cigars that you had to come up with these are your cigars oh this is a pre-caster cuban um i can't wait have you ever been to cuba many times that was that's where we were headed next so so actually i i started going there in 1991 to do a cover story for the wine spectator on cuban scars i had no idea when i went there i was going to have a cigar magazine that i went to cuba and it's like i didn't want to die what happened well that's my that's my that's my dream trip but well here's some i have a quote here from our last interview 12 years ago as this quote my biggest dream is to visit cuba and visit some of the cigar factories yes obviously with the embargo it's a little difficult yes well you can go now i could um [Music] i want to go with no restraints though if i go right now you still have restraints you know politically as well as you know a lot of other things you know my wife is cuban you know her family's it's got a lot of memories about cuba so in essence uh she wants to go um which i think is a motivational factor because she wants to go for different reasons i want to go for particular reasons obviously so in terms of us being able to go it's coming it's just a matter of time i know i can i'm going to tell you something you already know i know you're going to take me no no i wasn't going to say i'm going to take you because i don't want to be surrounded by thousands and thousands of people uh follow me around as you would i don't want to either but you would be so unbelievably welcome in cuba from the cuban people in the cuban government it would have an enormous impact on how they felt about their own self-esteem really yes i never looked at it that way and i mean i looked at it from a selfish stan standpoint in terms of i think it's a you know it's a very uh rich country um when i say rich in terms of you know the things that i like your heritage and things of the nature oh it traditional you know i initially and one of the things that my father-in-law and i talk about all the time is that i wish i could buy one of those old cars and ship it back here because to me that's that's very authentic to be able to see something like that and to be able to go and see how this transformation happens because i'm such a fan of cigars well if you uh i don't want to get into too much i've been there many times but if you went in a cigar factory all cigar making would stop and they would give you a welcome that would give you goosebumps i don't want them to stop i want to see what they do well they'll then you ask them to continue and they'll continue but um that's my dream that's my dream trip okay so that have you been ever to to a cigar factory anywhere else in any of the other caribbean countries no never have you are recognized in the business press i hate to even use the word i apologize for using the word a billionaire me yeah what does that mean what does it mean i don't think it changes anything i mean um other than that people can call me and ask me for money maybe yeah you know no but i mean on one level um you started out as a it's not in those kids from north carolina with dean smith sure i got a afro back there you see that but if your dad were alive um he'd be so proud of you what would my father do right now first of all he'd probably be sitting here smoking a cigar and asking and answering some of the questions that you he you know he's a very thoughtful guy you know the thing that i remember the most about my father and you know i had him for 32 years you know and i never look at it from a negative sense obviously he was murdered and you know and you know rarely do i get the chance to talk about him you know but the thing that i do remember all the time you know i think about them practically every day is for a person like myself who live in this in the spotlight and is so critical you know from people all the time in terms of what i do what i say you know where i go the thing he's always said take a pause before you make a decision and say what if and the purpose for saying what if is that whatever decisions you make always either going to have consequences either pros and cons no but you obviously listen to your father because in the very beginning you spoke about being humble not shouting about who you are and what you've done and just being within yourself true and a lot of kids growing up may start that way because of their parents but don't end up that way right you ended up that way well i mean once again i mean it's not just my father you know my mother calls me practically every day reiterating keep my nose clean that's her that's she ends the conversation every time i hang up as opposed to me you know hey obviously we say i love you mom i can't wait to see you talk to you soon blah blah blah the last word just keep your nose clean that's her constant reminder and say look people are watching you know people learning people are paying attention and you know the best news in today that sells is negative news that's what other reporters want i know and not that i live in a in a box to where i'm afraid to do things i know that you know as as my father says that what if comment is to be able to deal with the consequences of what decisions you make and you think about that if you think about the consequences pro a con you make the fight you make the right decisions that you feel is the right decision now all the decisions i made other people may view to be not the right decisions from their perspective but for me to go play baseball and everybody says oh it was a it was a failed opportunity to play baseball you know that's what they think for me it was the best thing that could have happened for me because it allowed me to go back to the game with a stronger passion at the same time i was able to understand the love that these minor league baseball players have making 1500 a month 1500 a month which is nothing but for them it was big to me to see that helped me put things in perspective to understand the platform that i was on in 93 that when i went back to it in 95 and 96 i appreciate it even greater so when we won those championships and we went through those those things mattered to me far greater than what i did in 91 92 93. people don't see that and people will never understand that to be success you know all they think about well you bet at 202 you know and you struck out a certain number of times yeah okay you know but the effort was there and the learning curve and the passion was there that has transcended not just to me but to other people who are afraid to do things because they are worried about the perception that may come from other places to me that's more gratifying uh than anything you know um so that's the things that my father and my mother instilled to me take a negative and turn it into a positive don't be afraid to fail i know you're concentrating on the answers because it's a very serious conversation no not i'm telling you exactly the way i feel my answers are no i know i understand but i'm what i really want to ask you now is while you've been talking you've been smoking a precache to a cuban cigar and how does it taste great is it unbelievable absolutely great so other than playing golf with me again and going to that one that was that was really huh did i win did i win no no you were did i win i'll tell you what happened no no yes or no question no no no i gotta what happened was you insisted on playing for more money per hole than i wanted to play for by a large amount it's not the money wave said we were down on i know i didn't say how much did i win no no i said did i win we were no we were down going into 18 and billy said to me don't worry i'll take care of this hole and we end up pushing so to repeat the question other than playing golf again with me and other than going to cuba what's on your bucket list the winning championship in uh in charlotte bravo that to me is huge because i think the city is uh it deserves it it's going through a lot uh me personally uh like any father i just want to see my kids successful i've been i've endured or i've gone through so much of good things you know very few bad things but you know bad things make you better but i don't need anything else to suffice my life so what is this that has been written about but not in any great deco that there's a eight or ten part documentary coming out where you where there's many hours of film i guess going back 20 or 30 years and that there's something coming that is going to be very unusual in terms of a person's life can you're very knowledgeable about things that you're not supposed to be knowledgeable about yes the the one of the the tapings of my last year or hour last year in 1998 we had a camera following us the whole time to capture the last dance at that time because everybody felt like the team was going to get dismantled and what you see i think in that is um my dedication to the game of basketball unwavering unwaveringly you know dedication day in and day out and how i hold being the leader of the team being the one that's been there for the longest i hold everybody else accountable for the success of what happened at the end of the year and people may look at it and you know they're going to get a honest understanding for what winning is about you know what leadership is about what passion drive now you you know players may look at it and say well god it was it was really tough but when you think about what happened after us winning you know the contracts that you know the guys got the memories that everybody got the championship blah blah blah it's much more gratifying is the documentary finished uh no it's not finished have you seen a lot of it yeah i've seen it so it's had it been through an editing process no it has not gone through a true energy will you all be able to see uh i think there's some one of the things that we're determined you know one of you know my my my agent and all my people that's been working with me along with the league has been pushing for me to do it and and i just it's one of those things where you know there's a time it's going to be a time where you you know you showcase it and when you showcase it people are going to understand you know what really happened and they can put themselves in that position um you know and you know i have no problems you know with people seeing that as long as they understand their passion because it's a strong passion for it and um [Music] and it's very raw but it's going public eventually yeah but i mean i potentially will i think it's a wonderful way to go public to share with people what it was like you sound like my my my my agent and you know my financial people i'm available yeah i know um but i think it's it's it's a true passion not i think it gives a great example for if you love something your agenda is to be successful and to be in to win it's a certain price you have to pay and it's a certain accountability you have to hold okay but here's where i'm going you this is 20 years ago represented values that you had that many athletes today don't even understand let alone possess so it could be a great learning experience so teaching experience for all these young people that think it's owed to them if it's perceived properly you know once again and i say that you know with the understanding that uh this is a very critiquing period you know of of of this world to where you know your intent may be viewed and we're going to try to make sure the intent is portrayed in the right way but that doesn't mean you know someone's not going to interpret it totally opposite of what the intent may be and then it's going to be up for scrutiny enough for conversation and criticize and blah blah blah i'm not worried about that because you know at the end of the day you know my heart my my soul my dedication is is in the right place so i right now have one regret you yeah i have a regret this cigar is one of the greatest cigars i've ever smoked in my life and i'm giving you the give me that box yeah that's it that's i figured that was something like that you ain't giving me that i mean it's unbelievable man everything comes with a price you want to share with people that you actually care about you know and that's that's what you're doing you know you know that i'm not just going to you know waste it i'm going to take take joy and you know that i'm gonna speak every one of them don't give them to your friends i'm not gonna give these things believe me i know that i can censor these types of situations i'm not gonna give you know guys who've never smoked a cigar yeah a 30 year old cigar that they can't appreciate well at 30. forget about 30. well it's uh how is 60 years or something okay how many years ago i mean we're talking about i got you i got you covered you only got one though and i'm not gonna give anybody i'm not gonna smoke more than okay more than one a day all right so to wrap it up because i'm almost speechless but i have a job to do so i can't why do you do so few interviews i mean hardly any and why have you agreed to give us a second one yeah you haven't figured that out all you gotta do is look at those two boxes over there yeah but you know you didn't know they were coming oh well i told you what i was gonna do and give me something that's worthwhile so but i laid the parameters early but you trusted me i did i trust you i figured you would be honest i don't think you're going to do that but uh part of the reasons why i i've kind of toned back it's i want my life to be my life you know i don't want to sit here and constantly reiterate things that you know i've said countless number of times and at the end of the day my time you know my time in in the spotlight is is dwindling and i i want to be able to control what i can you know what i do and what i don't want to do and blah blah blah someone else needs to step into the limelight and and either enjoy it you know prosper from it or grow or have people understand who they are blah blah me i'm i need no more admiration you know i've had enough and it's been great i'm still going to be a very positive you know force within the community and you know within you know with the kids up tomorrow but i got my own kids i got my own wife i mean i'm 54 54 years old you know i want to be able to go through a day or go through a week not worrying about what i gotta do wednesday what i gotta do thursday when i get because i never enjoy monday i wanna be able to you know and sometimes i surprise the out of myself saying look i got nothing to do today oh i got nothing to do tomorrow i got nothing to do on wednesday that's to me is ultimately retirement you know that's where i want to be and if i choose to get involved in things then then hey you know i want to go to charlotte i want to see what's happening with the team or i want to go to portland spend a week out in portland blah blah but not to wear you know my my moment the moment that i'm living right now i'm worried about what i have to do tomorrow and that's where my life was getting all right so i i probably work too hard so all i can say to you is i want to be like mike you can drink gatorade shave your hair get a suntan you know all the things smoke a lot of cigars well i did that part all right good you have ever just i i am dying to know have you had any holes in one two where at uh turnberry in miami on number three and number seven when i hit a seven iron one i hit a five wood wow i only had two but i mean it was enough to keep me coming back passionate about the good life join us at wine spectator whiskey advocate and cigar aficionado for candid interviews with the world's most fascinating personalities the inside scoop on fine wines whiskeys cigars golf fine dining and travel all devoted to enhancing your pursuit of life's great pleasures every issue includes unbiased ratings and expertise you can trust you're a connoisseur or a beginner eager to learn the good life is waiting for you join us today subscribe to one or all three wine spectator whiskey advocate and cigar aficionado at goodlife.mshanken.com

Channel: Cigar Aficionado

Views: 1,888,891

Rating: 4.9381886 out of 5

Keywords: Marvin Shanken, Michael Jordan, basketball, golf, Chicago Bulls, Cuba, cigars

Id: JfJYyN2GGts

Length: 60min 40sec (3640 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/thegoodbadandsmoggy]

I smoked a few partagas when in Cuba based off this interview, ha. Felt like I just won 6 rings.

H Upmann Half coronas are where it’s at though

[u/BlueSwoosh248]

I didn’t love Marvin’s interview style. Just seemed like he and Mike didn’t really get a rapport going.

I imagine that’s hard to do with MJ in general unless your name is Ahmad Rashad though.

[u/seanconnery69696]

I wanted to remain uncut, the doctor said maybe I should get circumcised. That's when I took it personally.

[u/spicybrownchicken]

this sounds stupid but is MJ addicted to cigars like cigarette smokers?