Former Chicago Bulls guard B.J. Armstrong was a prominent figure in Sunday's showing of “The Last Dance.” The former All-Star has been involved in a number of intriguing storylines throughout the series, but one of the narratives that stood out is the role Armstrong played in Michael Jordan's basketball comeback in 1995.
According to Armstrong, it all started with a quick catch-up breakfast between himself and Jordan. They remained connected throughout MJ's hiatus, and one random day, Jordan invited him to get a grab to eat:
“One day, he called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m in town, what’re you doing?’” Armstrong recalled, via Bill Difilippo of Uproxx. “I was like, ‘I’m about to go to practice, you know the routine.’ He was like, ‘Let’s meet at Baker Square,’ so I was like, ‘alright.’” After breakfast, we eat, eat our little pancakes and I was like, ‘Well, I gotta go to practice.’ I was like, ‘Why don’t you just come over, say hello, everybody would like to see you.’”
Armstrong then prodded Jordan with a little trash talk when Jordan made his way to the Berto Center:
“So he comes over to practice and I started telling him, ‘You old, you out of the game, you can’t play no more, I’ll kick your ass right now,’ more or less,” Armstrong said. “First, it was a joke, and then before I knew it, we were playing a full 1-on-1.”
As we've all learned over the past few weeks, Jordan is not the type you talk smack to. In this case, however, Armstrong's trash talking seemed to have worked in the Bulls' favor. Jordan soon made his glorious return to the NBA and wound up winning three more championships, even beating Armstrong's Charlotte Hornets in the 1998 playoffs.
Armstrong's trash talking came up again in that series, with “The Last Dance” showing how upset Jordan was at his former teammate after a stunning Game 2 win for the Hornets in Chicago. Jordan soon got his revenge en route to that final title.
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