MJ’S hunger for competition

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was a key bench player for the Chicago Bulls during their second three-peat with Michael Jordan in the ’90s, and he is also one of the best shooters in NBA history.

In fact, Kerr still ranks first in career 3-point field goal percentage, and he made over 50% of his threes for the Bulls during their ’95-’96 championship season.

Of course, matching up against a shooter as prolific as Kerr did not faze Jordan.

Kerr told the story of a shooting competition the Bulls used to have in practice, one that — in typical Jordan fashion — would eventually involve money (via Ali Thanawalla of NBC Sports California):

“We used to have a contest,”

Kerr said of his time with the Bulls

“We’d shoot from the hash mark on the sideline at the end of every shootaround, about four of us, maybe five of us, and at the end of shootaround we’d start launching shots from there, and whoever made the shot first won, and Michael saw us doing it, and he just had to be involved. So he came down and started getting into the contest every day, and before you knew it, it was for money, and he was usually winning. That was sort of a typical Michael story, like he just craved the competition, and I think he loved the interaction, loved the whole idea of competing in any form. It’s kind of what made him who he was.”

“I always felt it was part of Michael’s genius with raising that bar, the level of competition and performance for our team every day just because of who he was,”

Kerr said

“Nobody wanted to be left behind. He constantly pushed everybody forward.”