Michael Jordan is denying rumors he's exaggerating a rib injury he suffered last week playing basketball because he wants an out from his planned comeback to the NBA.
"Pure garbage," Jordan told the Chicago Tribune on Thursday, insisting his two cracked ribs have merely stalled his training and final decision, and not that he's using it as a way to back away from a possible embarrassing return to the court at age 38.
"No way," he told the Tribune. "Believe me, I'll be man enough to tell you if I think I can't."
So far, sources say that he can, and that Jordan and Charles Barkley have been playing refereed games with and against other NBA players at Hoops the Gym, not far from the United Center in Chicago.
Last week, Jordan was on a team that included Barkley, Bulls guard A.J. Guyton, Bulls center Jake Voskuhl and ex-DePaul Blue Demon Bobby Simmons, the Tribune reported. The opposition featured Bulls forwards Ron Artest and Marcus Fizer, Bulls guard Jamal Crawford and the Celtics' Antoine Walker, a Chicago native.
Jordan, on offense, was posting Artest up low when the injury occured.
"I was called for the offensive foul," Jordan said of the banging in the paint. But he got the worst of it.
"I had shortness of breath, but I kept playing," Jordan told the Tribune. "We won."
But X-rays soon after, he said, confirmed fractures.
Now he must take it easy and avoid contact for four or five weeks, something he was about to do anyway as the president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards and with the NBA draft coming up. The Wizards own the No. 1 pick on Wednesday.
"And I was 218 (pounds), right at my playing weight," Jordan told the newspaper, indicating he was quite happy with how his game had progressed after three seasons in retirement.
"Let's just say I was happy," he told the Tribune. "By my own high standards I had a little left to develop. But conditioning was not a problem. I'm not coming back to play 65 games (of 82)."
Barkley, Jordan told the Tribune, is still lugging 20 pounds too many.
"I know I can do this. I don't know about Charles. He wants me to seriously look at him. We'll see."
Jordan said he will not let his playing decision dictate whether he trades the No. 1 pick for a veteran.
"I will not jeopardize our future for my benefit. Who's to say (if he took, say, top-rated high-school senior Kwame Brown) I couldn't blend in to what we have and be successful. It's something you dream about. I'm all about challenges. The unknown is the most intriguing."
Jordan's conversation with the Tribune proves he's not thinking about the golf course as much as he is ending the reign of the Los Angeles Lakers.
"I'm not trying to diminish what they are, but there's no way I think they're so dominant they can't be beat," Jordan was quoted as saying about the two-time champions. "First, though, I need to worry about (winning) the East."
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