The Michael Jordan comparisons to LeBron James are a battle of unequal eras in the opinion of one of his closest friends, “Sir” Charles Barkley.
The former 11-time All-Star spoke on the futile nature of the comparisons pointing out the referee’s more rigid stance on gameplay. In short, Barkley called foul on the never-ending comparison.
“You know how many free throws Michael Jordan would shoot today?” Barkley opined on the “Dan Patrick Show.” “James Harden is a great player. He shoots 12 a game. But you just can’t compare eras because of the physicality.”
The lack of foul calls during Jordan’s era also went beyond the court. In the pre-Me Too generation, Jordan missed many calls that would have easily been on his head, even off the hardwood.
Michael Jordan’s gambling fetish is legendary as stories have abounded from cards to golf about the epic competitiveness of the widespread consensus greatest hooper to ever play in the NBA.
Most of those stories were told by other athletes. An unlikely source emerged back in 2013 with a troubling story of her own, troubling for a few reasons. Kennedy, a popular MTV Vj from the ’90s, has a unique tale to tell.
In her book “The Kennedy Chronicles,” the former video jockey detailed how an outing with MJ and a hip-hop business GOAT, Russell Simmons, evolved into a street corner dice game with crazy potential consequences.
I had the pleasure of meeting Kennedy. She took me on a tour of MTV studios and told me how Michael Jordan tried to get her in the sack.
— Fake John McClain (@FakeJohnMcClain) November 22, 2013
Kennedy expounds on a story about having dinner with Jordan and Russell Simmons at the Bowery Bar, a hot eatery in New York City. That’s when, according to Kennedy, Jordan turned it into a crap shoot and pulled out some dice.
This is where it gets weird.
Kennedy proclaims that Jordan wanted to up the ante and thought something should be put on the line or, in her words, “time to play for something.” That “something” was Jordan proposing a hookup with the Vj.
“If I win, you come back to my hotel room with me tonight,” Jordan reportedly said.
According to Kennedy, the thought of betting a one-nighter with the Chicago Bulls icon wasn’t the only problem. It was having it be her first sexual experience. She says she freaked out because she was then a virgin.
So,when are people going to go after the person whom former MTV VJ and current Fox personality, Kennedy,said was a part of a gambling game where the winner got to take her to their room and take her virginity…. Michael Jordan.
— Quentin (@QuentinC44) May 7, 2022
Also, she elicited an old trope about Black virility, saying that she imagined Jordan sexually would “eviscerate me from the inside out.” Instead, she wanted to wager for some Knicks tickets.
“Sure, he’ll filet my vag like a sea bass if he won at dice on a men’s room floor,” Kennedy writes … “but as soon as I want basketball tickets he’s a Promise Keeper? Whatevs.”
Then strangely, Kennedy claims that Jordan reminded her that he was married, at that time to Juanita Jordan, and with that, he could feign plausible deniability. Jordan also doubled down on the Knicks tickets and offered then New Jersey Nets tickets instead as an appeasement prize.
RT @MySportsLegion: Michael Jordan tried to win VJ Kennedy's (MTV) virginity in a game of dice back in the nighties. pic.twitter.com/CzZXRbS2qK
— Chef K. (@BorneKing) July 2, 2013
Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery is known to millions of Gen X and Boomer II generations for helping to “bring the cutting edge of culture into our living rooms during the 1990s through her outrageous segments as an MTV VJ.
Born in Indianapolis and raised in Oregon, it is safe to say that Kennedy did not grow up with many Black men in her early life. The assumption that a Black basketball player will destroy her insides is steeped in stereotypical thinking. The fact that was her first thought as opposed to denouncing Jordan’s alleged indecent proposal is, again, troubling.
As an on-the-spot correspondent for MTV News, she interviewed all types of celebrities and had unparalleled access to personalities of the era during MTV’s golden years.
Although Kennedy claims that she won the dice game, the story still poses more questions than answers to how crazy Barkley’s theory of no comparisons necessary extends.
