Jamal Mashburn is a productive small forward who has a knack for scoring. He’s not the most athletic, nor the most skilled, but what he lacks in those areas, he makes up for in savvy.
In a recent interview with the “Old Man and the Threesome” podcast, Mashburn shared an anecdote about meeting Jordan during his final All-Star Game and how his aura helped unlock parts of the game he didn’t know he had Partly he has.
Spend time with MJ
The All-Star Game often provides players with an opportunity to spend time with players they wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to interact with. For Mashburn, it was a chance for him to ask Jordan for advice and gain some valuable insights on how to improve his game. Boy, did he take advantage of that.
“I had a chance to spend time with Michael Jordan and we went one-on-one. You know what it was like before the layup line and things like that? I always knew Michael Jordan was great. But when I was with him While chatting, he was able to analyze my game,” Mashburn narrates the show for host JJ Redick.
Mashburn continued, “Jamal, 80 percent of the time you’re like going left, pulling your right hand, things like that, but then he gave me a solution. “Go right, two or three times in the game. ’ And he told me a story. He said, ‘Dr. J. Larry Bird taught me something about playing the game.’ I said, ‘Well, what you mean? “He said, ‘Well, there are times in the game where I’m not just trying to score, but the way I want to score.'”
Keep the defense off balance
It’s shrewd advice from a man who lit up America’s scoreboards for a career with his prodigious scoring prowess. Mashburn added that Jordan told him, “So Jamal, if you go to the right two or three times and then take a pull-up jumper or a right-hand layup or whatever, you balance your game; “You keep the defense off balance. ”
It wasn’t over yet, Mashburn shared that Jordan went to great lengths to study every player in the arena and went on to explain each player’s strengths and weaknesses.
“This guy goes through every All-Star player and talks about their strengths and weaknesses without thinking. I’m sitting there and I’m like, I thought I knew a lot about basketball, but he’s on a different level,” Mashburn shared.