There are some rappers out there that I listen to, that I'm like: "You are really good but you could be like the Michael Jordan of rap if you applied yourself." There's a lot of people who are better at basketball than Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan just wanted to be Michael Jordan, more.
You know, I've always told him (Larry Brown) I wanted the relationship that Michael Jackson... Michael Jordan, I'm sorry. ... I wanted the same relationship with him like Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan had.
I would never have wanted to play with Magic Johnson, I would never have wanted to play with Michael Jordan, I would never have wanted to play with Karl Malone or John Stockton in my prime. We wanted to play against the Shaqs, the Kobes.
I always said if I ever get married, I would tell my woman - I love Michael Jordan, I am a Michael Jordan fanatic - I said, 'Michael Jordan is the only athlete you can sleep with and I wouldn't get mad, as long as you got something signed. You gotta bring back a ball, a hat or something. You can't just give away that sh*t for free.'
You wanted to compete against Michael Jordan, because they were the best. You wanted to beat them. Never once in my mind, I went, 'I would love to play with him.' I was always like, 'Man, we've got to beat them.'
I grew up a Michael Jordan fan; that was my first idol. But my true sports idol was Deion Sanders: he was the person I always wanted to be. I wanted to play two sports professionally, which would never happen, but to me, that was every kid's dream.
Being named Michael Jordan - I think growing up playing sports and having a name like Michael Jordan - and I was extremely competitive - I used to get teased a lot. But it made me want to strive for greatness and be able to compete at whatever I decided to do.
You know, if Michael Jordan can scream at the refs, me as Kanye West, as the Michael Jordan of music, can go and say, 'This is wrong.'
I've always respected [Michael Jordan] but I've never been a fan of his [Jordan's].Because everybody else is.
Just because you BEAT Michael Jordan doesn't mean you BECOME Michael Jordan.
When I was in college going through the draft process my dad was like, 'Hey Michael Jordan loves your game,' I'm like dad? This is before social media; this is before any of that so I'm like, 'Dad, get out of here, there's no way you can know that Michael Jordan likes my game.'
Michael Jordan was that guy - he was Michael Jordan. So whatever he did, we followed.
With Venus and Serena and their ascension - and you had a lot of kids that saw them and wanted to be like them - it's like any sport, any major athlete, like Michael Jordan in basketball: everybody wanted to be like Mike.
I dreamed about being Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan being my dad at some points, or him helping me play basketball.
A lot of players will tell you, 'When I was a kid, I watched Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron, Magic, and I wanted to be just like them.' For me, it wasn't like that at all.
I wanted to be a sneaker designer since I was 10; it was my dream to work at Nike and design signature shoes for Michael Jordan and Penny Hardaway. When it was time to select high schools, I wanted to go to one that would help me get a jump-start on my dream.