John Salley:
I won championships with MJ and Kobe.
What’s the difference between them, and how are they alike as players?
The difference is, when I was in Chicago, I was like a member of the Beatles, or with Elvis or Michael Jackson, you know, I was with legends. And you’re really lucky, because when I got to Chicago, I went through things that were unbelievable. We were at the Plaza in New York, and people would ask me if I had gone to dinner, and I’d say, “No, I’m not going out.” You don’t understand, it took forever to get to the Plaza. But we had a plane with a bar in the middle of it. We had a plane from MGM, we had security with us, and Michael Jordan’s security always flew on our plane and met us at the airport. It was crazy, we had three buses. If you missed any bus, you’d be fined and might not play.

When I got to the Lakers, things were different. Kobe was different, he was only 19 or 20 years old, I could go out to dinner with him, and no one would notice. Michael was different though, he was already a legend, it was like he was at the top. The biggest difference was that the Lakers spent less than the Bulls, and it was hard to believe. The Bulls had three massage therapists, a pool, all kinds of coaches, while the Lakers… didn’t have anything like that. It was really different.

I remember when I got to the Lakers, there was a massage therapist I brought along, and he was told he couldn’t work there anymore. I told Phil Jackson, “Think about race cars, like F1 cars. If a car has a problem with a small part, it won’t run well, but we don’t have a system here to take care of the players like that.” They didn’t take care of the players properly, no nutrition coaches or anything to help them perform better.

When I got to Chicago, I couldn’t believe what they were doing for us. The food on the plane, how they took care of us, and the environment was amazing, it made me feel like a king. But when I went to Miami or some other teams, it was really different.

For sure, things have changed now, but when I played, we had great care, and when Michael or Kobe got on the plane, they could do whatever they wanted.

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