April 25th marks the Chicago Bulls playoff run to their 1st World Championship 30 years ago to the day.
I was an undrafted & the lone rookie on that historic team. I’ve come a long way since then & I’m a long way away form Chicago on this cold rainy day in Austin, so I thought

it might be fun to reflect on the 1990-91 season over the next few weeks or months.
One of my favorite moments/experiences from that season was being on the Oprah show with a few of my teammates.

Can you name them all?

#RealMenWearRed
#DaBulls
#ChicagoBulls #NBA

Training Camp that year was the hardest thing I had ever experienced in my life in sports. It was a WAR ZONE between the lines. When I tell you MJ was on a mission to win the championship it would be an understatement. The man was a smoldering beast! Everything we did was hard &

physical & he set the tone. Sure Jackson was our head coach but MJ was our leader. We took our cues from him & he ALWAYS had it turned up past ten.

We (always) scrimmaged starters vs subs.

Can you name the starting five?

I was the only rookie on the team but there were 2 other new additions to the club.
Cliff Levingston was brought in from Atlanta. He quickly formed a bond on the team & got buddy buddy with Scottie Pippen who he would face off against in those scrimmages. They would from time to

time go into what they would call “brother-in-law” mode. BIL mode meant they would play less physical with each other.

The other addition was Dennis Hopson. Hop came over from New Jersey. He had been averaging around 16 a game over his 4 year career w/ the Nets.

Everybody liked Hop.
Everybody but MJ that is. Well in honesty I don’t really know if MJ didn’t like him or not, all I know for sure is that they put Hop in front of MJ in those scrimmages every day & that was a mistake.

When I say it was the saddest thing I saw during my 15 years in the league I’m not being dramatic. MJ was physical with him on both offense & defense. MJ loved to talk trash & Hop was his favorite target. Over the course of the season you could see Hop had gone into a shell.

That season we never beat the starters in a scrimmage. Even on the rare chances we could keep it close MJ would just go at Hop & close us out.
However there was one magical moment when Hop must have just had enough & decided to go back at Mike. I mean nose to nose, taking it to

hoop, running around picks & draining jumpers . We beat the starters & before Phil could move on to the next drill or officially end practice Stacey King & I along with BJ & some others scooped up Hop & carried him off the court & back to our locker room.

We practiced at a

health club at the time complete with a nail & beauty salon. I often wonder what the members must’ve thought seeing us parade thru the treadmills & stair masters.

Unfortunately for Hop the next time we scrimmaged it was right back to the way it always was.

Hop would get his ring but they shipped him out in the off season.

I/we all survived training camp. A bit banged up but eager to play against someone other than ourselves.
The city was on fire. Everyone was hoping this would be the Bulls year to make it to the @NBAFinals.
We opened the season @ChicagoStadium. A 61 year old barn of a building.

To get from the small locker room to the court you had to walk down a narrowish hallway which the servers that ran beers to fans used. The floor was this god awful black & white checkerboard pattern & it made it hard to see where the girls had spilled beer.

In the hallway there was a staircase of some 20-25 steps we’d have to climb to reach the event level. They were step & narrow for someone with a size 17. I nearly busted my ass on more than one occasion.
I dunno how those Blackhawk players did it with ice skates on.

OMG I just read about Scottie Pippen losing his son. Please know I had no idea while I was running at the mouth.

My heart breaks for Pip & his family.

I’m trying to get more information now.

He is living my worst nightmare...

Scottie & Horace help yours truly to my feet after successfully taking a charge. I got my ass knocked down quite a bit my rookie year. The NBA in the 90’s was a MANS league. You couldn’t be no punk. Especially if you played the power forward & center position. If you got labeled

as soft or weak, you were done! Everyone knows the names like Laimbeer, Mahorn, Oakley, Malone & Thorpe but you’d had to be ready to scrap every night. I like to think I gave out as many hits as I took.

One side note about the locker room. My locker was located right next Michael’s locker which I thought was great. I quietly hoped some of his greatness might rub off on me. I’d watch how he prepare for the game from the moment he arrived.
Everybody wanted a piece of MJ’s time...

1st thing he’d do is locate his tickets that he was going to leave for family, friends & business associates. Each player player was given 4 tickets to each home game. (2 tix on the road)
I didn’t know anyone in Chicago outside my teammates so I traded 2 of my tickets to a local

car dealer for a car which I trade in for a new one every 5k miles.
MJ however always had a fat stack of tickets. Nobody knew if they gave them to him or he purchased them & nobody asked. :)

He fill out the envelopes himself while he spoke to the media. Pip would regularly

come over & ask MJ for a couple of xtras & after giving him a hard time always made sure his partner had what he needed.

After Mike had finished with the media & stuffed his last envelope he’d pull on his UNC practice shorts which always seemed a bit too worn & faded. Mike liked to look good. Great suits, shirts & ties. Shoes & belts. Brother liked to rock suspenders back then too. Even his J’s

were brand new for every game. (He on more than one occasion tossed a new pair at the half if he’d had a subpar performance)
So the Carolina shorts seemed out of place.

MJ always liked to get his ankles taped last. However, when he was ready to get taped you had better not

be on the table getting yours taped or waiting to get taped cause he’d kick you off the table or cut in front of you.
There was a pecking order on all teams in the league back then. One of the unwritten rules the vets ALL liked to enforce was priority in the training room.

Additional side note.
I wish had been snatching up those discarded game worn shoes back in the day.
1 my son wears MJ’s size & 2 have you seen what these cats are paying for Air Jordans these days!?

ASN: There was a girl in a remote powered wheelchair who was severely paralyzed. I can’t recall her name but she came to most if not all our games & all of us players would greet her but she’d shine brighter when Mike shared a moment with her.
@Stacey21King what was her name?

The Luvabulls. Let’s just say Cathy Core the managing partner of the group had her team correct. They looked great & preformed even better. I often would catch dudes on the visiting teams checking out the chicks during timeouts when they should have been paying attention to the

coaches in the huddle.

(& yes before you turkeys go there I snuck peeks too I was just smart enough not to get caught)

The Blues Brothers.
It took me a min to warm to em but I’d say I liked em. They did a skit were the fat one would get on all fours in front of the basket & the taller skinny one would run & jump off his back & dunk a basketball. He’d miss from time to time so if he made it

the crowd would erupt.

Benny The Bull was far and away the favorite with the kids. I liked him right from the start. I had much respect for a guy to wear that thick heavy custom all night & entertain the crowd. I figured he must’ve sweat like a pig in that suit.

I just had a flashback to arriving in Chicago the summer of 1990.
I flew in from Charlotte, North Carolina where the Hornets had just failed me on my physical. They said my right shoulder was not sound enough & I’d never survive the riggers of the NBA. The had it half

right. My right shoulder was looseAF! It would often pop out of joint in practice or games during my final 2 years at UNC but I never missed a day of practice & it never knocked me out of game were I didn’t return to finish the contest.

It came out on more than a few occasions

that 1st year with the Bulls & sometimes I could get back into place without the coaches knowing but it would freakout Horace & he’d always give me away by the faces he’d make. Chip Schaefer our head athletic trainer got good at slipping it back into its socket on the occasions

when it had come way out. I’d ice it down for a few mins & get back in there. I wasn’t trying to give these guys an easy excuse to cut me.
(I was on a non-guarantee contract making the league minimum. They were always looking to add talent to team & I’d be an easy cut)

So I can’t remember if Jerry Krause picked me up at the airport or if someone dropped me off at the Drake Hotel where we had lunch but the 1st thing he said to me was “we heard you failed your physical this morning in Charlotte”.
27 teams in league but word travels fast.

Jerry had some health issues so breaking bread with him was...dis...well let’s just say not good place 2 be.
He’d choke hack & cough all the time & it accelerated when he ate.
He tells me they’re gonna to sign me to a make good contract & if I proved myself

in summer league out in LA they invited me to veterans camp.
Told me I’d have to be willing to work hard.
I wanted to say bitch please I played for Dean Smith I know what it means to put in work. Instead I said something a long the lines like nobody outworks me.

I would later learn that nobody outworks Michael Jordan.

Well to rap this up 7 players got invited to training camp & couple from the summer league roster & few others.
One by one after preseason games someone would get called in to see Phil after the game & the next day at practice they were gone. Man those were some stressful times.

I had one thing going for me that those other dudes didn’t. Coach Smith was the master a TEACHING the fundamentals of basket. We watched film & drilled & watched more film & drilled. So I was quick to understand the many concepts of the Triangle offense that Jackson & Winter

had just started running the year before. PJ was only in his 2nd year as a head coach & leaned heavy on Tex to teach us the offense. Coach Bach was the defensive guy. More on him later.
So after our last preseason game the other six guys were gone.

I didn’t get a press conference announcing I’d made the roster. Hell nobody from the coaching staff even said congratulations.
I just put on my practice gear & took to the floor.

I wasn’t your typical undrafted rookie. I felt like I should have been drafted ahead of some of the other guys that got drafted. I had list with everyone’s name on it from the 1990 draft class.
I was determined to play in league longer than all of them. Only 1 played longer.

Guess who?

Anyway that chip on my shoulder served me well.

There was a real battle for playing time at the 4 & 5 spots.
Bill Cartwright, Horace Grant, Will Purdue & Stacey King & I fought & clawed one another each & every day. Bill & Will were the centers. G & Sky King were

power forwards. Iwas able to play both spots.
That would serve me well in the 2nd half of the season & playoffs.
The great thing about those dudes was as much as we fought each other for mins in practice
we celebrated each others successes in games. Always a sign of a good team

Test Test Test

Well 12K tweets on this platform & I still don’t know how to use it properly.
Unsure how to keep the current “thread” going so I’m just gunna start a new one.

So unsure who gave Stacey his nickname “Sky” but the 1st time I heard it came outta @bjarmstrong mouth so maybe Kid will tell us?

Now everyone knows why we called BJ “Kid”.

I learned something this week I never knew about Sky. He was the all time leader in blocked shots

I’m ending this thread & starting a new one.