Free The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith Page B

who was projected as a small forward. The obvious pick appeared to be Duke guard Johnny Dawkins, but the Bulls decided they needed a small forward since they were getting rid of Orlando Woolridge and had already arranged a deal to get point guard Steve Colter from Portland. And the Bulls were, to some extent, drafting Sellers to accommodate Jordan: “They liked Sellers because you couldn’t leave with your three [small forward] to double on Michael because Brad could hit the jumper,” Jackson explained.
    But Jordan believed that Dawkins would be the choice, and he had told Dawkins so in pickup games they’d played in North Carolina before the draft. So when the Bulls skipped Dawkins for Sellers, Jordan felt both betrayed and embarrassed. He felt the team made him look like a fool, and he took it out on Colter, a quiet kid from New Mexico, and later on Sellers, likewise sensitive and uncertain about how to respond to a superstar. Jordan’s famous tongue became a whip for these plowhorse players, as he saw them. Sellers would eventually break under the strain of Jordan’s attacks, the constant derision during practice, and the physical attacks when Jordan had him in his sights coming downcourt in practice, and Sellers’s game would plummet to such depths that he was out of the NBA by the 1990–91 season.
    Jordan can be demanding on the court, and it’s always been his habit to wave off the point guard to get the ball. That’s one reason Paxson had been the most successful point guard to play with Jordan; Paxson isn’t a creator. Unlike most point guards, who need the ball to make plays and set up teammates, Paxson feeds off creative players like Jordan and Pippen. He’s more comfortable passing the ball upcourt and then spotting up for a jump shot. Not so Colter—or most point guards, for that matter. But Jordan kept running Colter off the ball, demanding the ball in every crucial situation, and criticizing him whenever he’d made a mistake.
    It wasn’t always Jordan’s fault, since his coaches, Kevin Loughery, Stan Albeck, and Doug Collins, all permitted Jordan to stay back to pick up the ball in the backcourt and then run the offense. Jackson tried to change that and Jordan balked much of the 1989–90 season, but Jackson would continue to work on him for the 1990–91 season. He knew what a great weapon Jordan would be for the Bulls if he would just take off downcourt, because the defense would have to follow him and leave the court clearer for the ball handler to advance the ball.
    Colter wasn’t strong enough to stand up to Jordan; few Bulls ever have been. It’s one reason some people felt the Bulls should have pursued Danny Ainge after the 1989–90 season, when the feisty point guard was being made available by Sacramento. The Bulls were looking for a scorer for their second team, but they also needed someone to stand up to Jordan when he routinely ordered his teammates out of the way late in the game. “He’ll tell Michael to fuck off when he starts screaming for the ball,” said assistant coach John Bach at the time. “And sometimes we need that.”
    Another Bull who appeared to be wilting under Jordan’s heat was Will Perdue. “You’ve got to get Michael’s respect to do well on the Bulls,” said John Paxson. “Will had trouble.”
    â€œI never really understood,” admitted Perdue. “I’ll always set a screen for him when I’m in there and I know no one else but Ed [Nealy] would. I know Bill [Cartwright] would never do it. But I know Michael hated me and Bill.”
    Perdue came out of Vanderbilt, known perhaps more for his size-22 shoes than his game. Although he was Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in 1988, he had yet to find a role in the pros. He was slow afoot, although he had a good passing touch and could score. But he often shrank back from contact, which