Trash talking Michael Jordan once told OJ Mayo to ‘scream for his momma’
By Bryan Rose
In recent days, NBA legend Michael Jordan has been in the spotlight, most of it coming from an interview he did claiming he could beat LeBron James in a one-on-one battle.
In the same interview, Jordan suggested that he wasn’t much of a trash talker during his time in the league, though, did admit that he could get a bit mouthy if he knew the fellow player personally.
I guess the trash talking could extend to cocky high school talent as well.
Jordan, who held a basketball camp in 2006 just so happened to meet a young high school junior by the name of OJ Mayo – a very arrogant, OJ Mayo.
Mayo of course was quite possibly (at the time) the best high school player in the country and had the NBA not changed their rules, a very possible top five pick coming out of his senior year in high school. He didn’t mind letting the NBA great know just how talented he was, but Jordan felt he needed to bring him down a notch (or several) and began abusing him on both ends of the court.
The current Milwaukee Bucks guard recalls the encounter:
"“He said ‘I need all the campers and everybody to leave. Let’s clear the gym.’ And I said ‘oh man.’”That’s when MJ taught Mayo the lesson.“So we continued playing pickup, and Mike was Mike. He was jawing a little bit and really getting into me defensively. He was backing me down and said ‘you better scream for momma. Momma, momma!’” Mayo recalls Jordan chanting."
Maybe MJ will make that comeback against Mayo and the Bucks, eh?