Michael Jordan's Only Weakness Revealed By Opponent After Rare Pick-Up Game

An ordinary teenager who got the chance to play pickup game with Michael Jordan in the '90s revealed MJ’s only weakness.

ESPN’s “The Last Dance” revealed a handful of prime MJ stories. The documentary provided fans a better understanding of Jordan’s passion for the sport he once dominated. Throughout the 10 episodes, Jordan’s greatness was highlighted from different perspectives. However, there was one thing “The Last Dance” wasn’t able to exploit – Jordan’s weakness.

Some fans may not know, Jordan organizes “pick-up games” every time he prepares for a comeback. This was his way of getting his rhythm back and he often asked his associates to select the players he would play with prior to the actual games. However, a rare footage was recently uploaded by podcaster Adam Howes showing a pickup game that happened sometime in 1994, around the time Jordan was about to return following his retirement in 1993.

In the video, Jordan was seen playing against everyday people in the gym during and the media people assigned to cover the event was able to interview two players who were fortunate enough to play against the GOAT. One of them said that Jordan was playing at around “30 percent” against everyone, which is still more than enough for him to be the best player on the court. But on the other hand, a young teen by the name of Aaron Watkins claimed he figured out how to stop Jordan. The teen even detailed the said weakness that he saw in Jordan’s game.

Many of Jordan’s rivals have put on their best defensive efforts in order to stop his incredible scoring abilities. But according to Watkins, the way to stop Jordan was to simply don’t fall for any of his moves and just keep him around the perimeter.

“Michael’s weakness is his shot. You just keep him around the perimeter, and when he does this move right here—palm the ball, bring it around—just don’t fall for that. Just wait for him to shoot, run up there, get the rebound, throw up some kind of lucky shot and you win,” Watkins said.

Indeed, nobody in the history of NBA has really been consistent in stopping a prime Jordan. A recent stat states that only Allen Iverson outscored Jordan during his prime but it didn’t mean that he was able to stop him.

Whether Watkins’ claims were true or not, his statement is still more valuable than any average people as he got the chance to actually play against the greatest basketball player in history.