J.R. Smith, who played 16 seasons in the NBA and is now playing college golf at North Carolina A&T State University, recently detailed playing on the course with Michael Jordan and how the legendary trash talker got in his head. Speaking with Complex Sports, Smith described getting to play with Jordan as “one of the most childish feelings I’ve felt as a grown ass man.”
He recalled to the outlet: “So we was betting, right? So I doubled down on one of my bets. I was like, 5 front, 5 back, and 5 overall. He was like, ‘alright, cool cool cool.’ I said, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh, hundreds, not thousands. Hundreds. And he said, ‘no no no no no, I know what you talkin about. I know what you meant.’ And then he threw this jab at me low key, and I was like ‘ooh, that’s a good one.’ He said, ‘you had a good career, it wasn’t a great one, you had a good one.’”
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Throughout his NBA career, Smith played for five different teams, averaging 12.4 points per game. He won two NBA titles, the first of which came with the Cavs in 2015-16 while the second was in 2020 as a member of the Lakers.
The 36-year-old officially retired from the league in March but tells Complex that he feels he was blackballed.
“Yeah, 100 percent,” he says. “Anybody can sit here and tell you that that’s a fact.”
Check out a clip from Smith’s discussion with Complex below.
[Via]