Forgotten Michael Jordan teammate wins NBA title, becomes restaurant chain CEO in retirement career change

Rusty LaRue had hoped to play for the Idaho Cowboys of the lower Continental Basketball Association during the 1997-98 basketball season.

Instead, the journeyman improbably won an NBA championship while playing alongside Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the Chicago Bulls’ famous “Last Dance.”

LaRue, a talented student-athlete at Wake Forest University, was invited to Bulls training camp in the summer of 1997 but was waived before the team’s first preseason game.

The point guard was subsequently selected by Idaho State in the CBA expansion draft, but an injury to Bulls guard Steve Kerr changed his life forever.

LaRue was drafted by Bulls general manager Jerry Krause to replace Kerr, and he ended up playing 14 of 17 games on Chicago’s active roster.

Although he spent the rest of the season on the injured list and didn’t make the playoff roster, he still won an NBA championship ring and had a front-row seat to Jordan’s Last Dance.

At the team dinner shortly after the season ended, Bulls head coach Phil Jackson asked each player for a toast.

LaRue said he toasted to the team “because it basically ruined the rest of my career because it was all downhill from that point on.”

The point guard went on to play two more seasons with the rebuilding Bulls and had brief stints with the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors before retiring in 2004.

LaRue played only 98 NBA games in total, but he had a championship ring to prove his efforts.

After retiring, LaRue began coaching in high school and college, including as an assistant coach at Wake Forest University.

In 2018, he became chief operating officer of Dairi-O, a restaurant chain with eight franchises in North Carolina.

“When I decided to end my coaching career, I knew I wanted to rely on my business education to go in a new direction,” LaRue said.

“After I started researching new opportunities such as financial management, I ended up meeting the owner of Dairi-O at a men’s breakfast.

“Shortly after, I was offered the opportunity to become an owner and operator, and three years later, I am now… chief operating officer of all eight locations throughout the Triad region.”