Michael Jordan’s Humility Proved Redundant to Jrue Holiday as Key Decision Made on Different Grounds

“I didn’t think it was real, man. You don’t understand. I didn’t think Michael Jordan was real. I only thought he lived in the TV.” That’s how a young LeBron James once explained his first meeting with the Bulls legend. Over the years, many players had such experiences. One such young hooper and now 2x NBA Champion also wanted to model his career on MJ. Jrue Holiday even met His Airness and even though that experience was mystical, he still decided not to follow in certain footsteps.

On the Paul George Podcast, the Celtics guard spoke about UNC being his number-one option before choosing UCLA. During his visit to North Carolina, he met the 6x NBA Champion. “This was, I think, the first time I was meeting Michael Jordan. He ended up walking into the office as I’m with coach walking into the office. And I’m like ‘Yo, what’s up like my name is Jrue.’ He’s like ‘I know who you are’ and that to me I think that’s the only time I’ve been like star-struck. Like MJ knew who I was, I’m like oh MJ knew who I was oh yeah, that’s crazy.”

Before talking about his visit, Jrue Holiday spoke about his love for Tar Heels. “I really wanted to go to Carolina like UNC was my school MJ went there. They had the baby blue jerseys, you know, I thought that look good on dark skin. So you know I thought it was really going to pop on your boy.” Fascinated by Michael Jordan and the jersey color, the 34-year-old really wanted to go to North Carolina.

“But I ended up going on a recruiting visit there and it was just too far from home bro, and it was cold and I was like nah, this ain’t for me.” The California native didn’t go through the move because he didn’t to be away from his family. But a good thing for him was that Jrue Holiday ended up meeting Michael Jordan. The host of the show, Paul George, couldn’t resist making a joke at the expense of the Bulls legend.

“MJ couldn’t seal the deal that’s crazy!” A thing to note here, His Airness wasn’t there to recruit Jrue Holiday specifically. On that particular day, the program was honoring the ’82 class for winning the NCAA championship. But either way, the 2x All-Star met MJ. And he is not the only one to have such an experience.

A former teammate of Holiday was also star-struck meeting Michael Jordan

In his career, the 16-year veteran has played for 4 different teams. At 19 years of age, Jrue Holiday began his NBA career with the 76ers. He had great veterans like Andre Iguodala and Allen Iverson. Although that was the final year of AI in the league, he learned a lot from The Answer. The Current VP of Reebok also had the same reaction when he met Michael Jordan.

“I was Bulls fan coming up because of him. But while he was in the league, I hated the Bulls more than any team in the league. Once I got into the league and heard how they talked about us. I’ll never forget my first time, I talked about it in my HOF speech. I wasn’t lying at all man, he didn’t look real to me, I was star-struck.”

So no matter if you are Jrue Holiday, Allen Iverson, or LeBron James, meeting Michael Jordan is always a surreal moment. And the Celtics guard was close to emulating the exact steps by going to UNC. Would his career have panned out anything different if the 2x NBA Champion had chosen that path?