Not too many collegiate players are teeing it up with Michael Jordan in their free time, but then again, not too many student-athletes have won two NBA Championships and are top-20 all-time in made three-pointers.
J.R. Smith, who attends North Carolina A&T and is a member of the golf program, recently did an interview with Complex Sports in which he told the story of teeing it up alongside the Chicago Bulls legend.
According to Smith, he and Jordan were tied through 18 holes but M.J. got the better of him in the second round by three shots, which Smith referred to as getting “smoked.”
The man known as Air Jordan is legendary for his trash talk, and when Smith was asked whether Jordan “talked sh*t,” he replied, “the whole time.”
As legendary as the trash talk is, the gambling reputation Jordan carries is on an even higher level. The pair decided to play a friendly game of Nassau, which creates three individual bets: the front nine, the back nine and the total score.
“I was like five front, five back and five overall,” Smith said. “He was like, ‘All right, cool, cool, cool.’ I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hundreds, not thousands. Hundreds.’
“He’s like, ‘I know what you’re talking about. I know what you meant.’ Then he threw this jab at me, low key, he said, ‘Yeah, you had a good career. It wasn’t a great one. You had a good one.'”
Smith may not have been Jordan on the court, but he played 16 seasons in the NBA, winning the aforementioned two championships as well as the 2012-13 Sixth Man of the Year Award.
Still, you better have thick skin if you’re prepared to go head-to-head with M.J.
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