“Several Things in the Documentary That He Made Up or Lied About”: Journalist Puts a Huge Allegation on Michael Jordan

The writer of the book “The Jordan Rules”, Sam Smith believes many things shown in The Last Dance were lies. Michael Jordan had claimed that Smith got the locker room inside info from Horace Grant for writing his book.

Trashing these claims, Smith revealed a few incidents from The Last Dance that were ‘blatant lies’. One of the things he talked about was Jordan being forced into retirement after the 1998 title. He said that the Bulls legend could have continued playing if he wanted to.

“That was a complete and blatant lie by Michael (on him wanting to continue playing),” Smith said on the Bonta, Steiny and Guru show on San Francisco’s 95.7 “The Game”.

“There were several things in the documentary that I saw, I would know, that he made up or he lied about. They weren’t major things, but it was like when a TV movie comes on and they say, ‘this is based on a true story.’ That’s what that was. It was based on a true story.”

After the 1997/98 season, the Bulls dynasty came to an abrupt end. Scottie Pippen wanted to leave as he had a deteriorating relationship with the franchise. Coach Phil Jackson had plans elsewhere.

Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause even tried to convince Jordan to stay. However, he said he didn’t want to stay anymore according to Smith.

Pizza theory of the flu game of Michael Jordan was complete nonsense, says Sam Smith

In 1997, Jordan had quite famously led the Bulls to a win over Utah Jazz through his flu during the Finals series. A story around it goes that Jordan ate a pizza from a local store in Utah a night before which caused food poisoning.

Smith trashed it as “complete nonsense” and said there are other such things in the documentary.

“The pizza thing – the poison – that was complete nonsense,” Smith said. “There were a couple of other things like that I won’t go into. They weren’t major, but the thing at the end [about Jordan wanting to return for the 1998-99 season] was a complete, blatant lie. I know what happened.”