Roughly one year after announcing his second retirement from the NBA, Michael Jordan decided to prove that he still had some gas left in his proverbial tank. Never one to back down, Jordan heard of and accepted a one-on-one challenge from the Bulls' No. 1 overall pick in the 1998 draft, Corey Benjamin.
On November 10, 1999, Jordan stopped by the Bulls' practice facility to answer the call of Benjamin's challenge. By most accounts, His Airness won handily. However, Benjamin claims that the score was actually 11-9.
Benjamin told his side of the story in a recent interview with HoopsHype:
“Randy Brown, Ron Harper and Dickey Simpkins were Michael’s close friends. Those guys would always talk to Jordan on the phone and Jordan would always have stuff to say. I remember there was one particular moment when MJ said something to me and I told him, ‘I can get that.’ I was saying I could beat him one-on-one. We went back and forth, talking trash with each other for a month or two. Ron gassed it up a lot like, ‘He said he can get you, Mike! He thinks he can beat you!’ One day, Mike told Ron that he was going to come to our game [in Atlanta] and he told me, ‘I’m about to come see you.’ We’re at the game and they showed Mike walking into the game [on TV] and I knew right where he was headed. I’m in the training room with Ron and Randy, and MJ walks in there. He comes right over to me and says, ‘What did you say?!’ Remember, this is my childhood hero. I man up and I say, ‘I think I can get that.’ He told me, ‘I’ll be at your practice in a few days and we’ll see if you can get that.’”
Michael Jordan delivered on his promise to visit Benjamin at an upcoming practice. Benjamin, who admits that he looked up to the Bulls star growing up, noted that it was “the best feeling in the world” to play against the all-time great:
“We fly back to Chicago and at our next practice, I’m looking over my shoulder but I’m also thinking, ‘Yeah right, he’s not going to fly to Chicago just to play me.’ After practice, I’m walking off the court when MJ walks into the gym. He said, ‘I’m about to give you your chance.’ As a basketball player, it was the best feeling in the world to play one-on-one against Michael Jordan in front of everybody.
“The score was 11-9, just to let you know,” Benjamin added. “Everybody says it was 11-0 or 11-1 or 11-2. He did get up to 7-0 pretty fast and I was amazed; I had never seen anything like that in my life. But the final score was 11-9 and it was the best one-on-one game I’ve ever played. It was like a dream come true.”
Jordan was known to be a serious trash-talker on the court. Benjamin says this element of MJ's game was on full display during their matchup.
“Look around you,” Jordan said at one point during his one-on-one game against Benjamin, looking at the six championship banners hanging in the gym. “What do you see all around you? You didn’t have anything to do with those!”
At 36, Michael still had it. See for yourself…
In the end, it seems Benjamin learned the same lesson that many other players have in the past: Do not fuel Jordan's competitive fire.
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