Over the course of The Last Dance‘s airing, viewers were in for a treat whenever Michael Jordan was handed an iPad.
Jordan’s reactions on their own instantly became memes, which honestly made the entire documentary series that much more enjoyable.
Well, as long as you’re not Gary Payton.
During last week’s episodes, Payton explained how he felt he locked down Jordan in their Game 4 matchup of the 1996 NBA Finals. Jordan scored 23 points in the loss on 6 of 19 shooting. But when Jordan was handed the iPad to watch Payton discuss the defensive effort from that game, Jordan straight-up laughed at Payton.
That reaction, again, became a meme. And Payton wasn’t too thrilled to see Jordan dismiss his defensive effort. In an appearance on the Opinionated 7-Footers podcast, Payton said that he almost called up Jordan to confront him about the remark before deciding better of it.
Payton said:
“Oh you know I was hot. I was thinking about calling him at the time. … But you know what, that’s what I expect out of Mike because I would’ve said the same thing. I would’ve said the same thing. You know me, B. I’m not gonna admit to nothing, man. I’m not gonna admit to somebody that D’d me up or did nothing.
I’ll always tell you that any time in my career, nobody gave me problems but one person, and that’s John Stockton to me. That is just the way the game goes. I’m not mad at Mike because Mike didn’t have too many games that nobody D’d him up.”
Aw, he should have called Jordan. That would have been a conversation deserving of its own episode.
