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Topics: NBA, Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls, Basketball
Ryan Baldi
Michael Jordan is widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, but there is one former NBA star he believes could have been on his level.
According to Craig Hodges, a former teammate of Jordan's on the Chicago Bulls, the iconic No.23 once admitted that Clyde Drexler was just as talented as he was, only he wasn't as marketable.
Speaking to Vlad TV in 2020, Hodges recalled a conversation with the five-time Most Valuable Player award winner in which Jordan spoke highly of the former Portland Trail Blazers guard.
“Not every great athlete is marketable like that, and they have just as much talent,” Hodges said. “I remember having a conversation one time. It was like four of us, MJ included.
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"And the conversation came up about Clyde Drexler. And MJ said this, and I quote: ‘Clyde Drexler is just as good as me. He just don’t know how to play the game.’
"Do you follow me? And we ain’t talking about basketball.”
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Drexler was selected by the Trail Blazers with the 14th overall pick in the 1983 NBA draft, one year before Jordan entered the league.
The 6ft 7ins shooting guard went on to enjoy a standout 15-year career, with per-game averages of 20.4 points, 5.6 assists and 6.1 rebounds.
A 10-time All-Star, Drexler never won an MVP award and didn't come close to matching Jordan's haul of six NBA titles.
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He did, however, finally land the first and only championship of his career while playing for the Houston Rockets in 1995 – which, coincidentally, came while Jordan had briefly retired to try his hand at baseball.
In The Last Dance, the 2020 Netflix documentary about his career and success with the Chicago Bulls, Jordan took exception to comparisons between himself and "Clyde the Glide".
"Clyde was a threat," Jordan said. "I’m not saying he wasn’t a threat, but me being compared to him, I took offense to that.”