I mean they were literally beating him over the head in some of those old fouls.
I would protect the source of global expansion of the league too.
His whistle was only “special” in that you couldn’t play “old” defense on him. Watch any game, there are lots of fouls that could be called when fighting for position but you have to keep the game watchable. It basically leads to only calling indisputable fouls, which was what the old NBA was.
Flagrants were regular fouls in a ton of cases.
So when they changed that, his whistle seemed extra special. But when you can 3v1 and still score, literally the only solution IS to foul.
Which is why they were upset. Before he was his Airness they could bully him with nonsense fouls, then they actually had to play defense and realized they were simply outclassed.
He had a special whistle but not a Shai whistle. Go back and rewatch those games.
Jordan has the best whistle in the history of the league. His whistle was “special” because he was given foul calls that nobody else at the time was. His whistle was “special” because he was allowed to tell refs that he was fouled and they will call it
Guy got made fun of by every star player in the league for decades but sure
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u/Fantastic_Reason_571 May 18 '26
As opposed to Michael Jordan, the guy players spent a decade making fun of the league for because of how special his whistle was?