“Michael would pick on somebody every day,” trainer Mark Pfeil remembered. “You saw this early on. Every day. Somebody was gonna be his goat. It would be anybody on the team, guys like Ennis Whatley and Ronnie Lester and Quintin Dailey. Michael would shoot, stick it in their faces time and time again. He used to get their goats to make them play harder, mainly because he was so competitive. There were times during his rookie year when practice was unworkable. Loughery would just toss up his hands and let Michael do his thing.
I’ll never forget seeing those practices early that year . Good grief, there was an intensity in Jordan that was unlike any other player who’d come along, because he was so talented. You could see that he was such a hard worker and you knew he was going to do things. He’d take it to the rack with such ease, against everybody . He was demanding. He wanted defenders to stick to him. ‘Tighter. Come on, defend me. Damn you!”