The Boston Celtics of the ’90s were still trying to find themselves after the retirement of Larry Bird that ended an era.
Following Michael Jordan retiring in 1994, then-general manager M.L. Carr saw a window of opportunity to try and add Michael Jordan and team him up with Dominique Wilkins.
Former Chicago Bulls general manager Jerry Krause denied ever having such a conversation with Carr, but it indeed took place.
“As I understand it, Jerry denied having the conversation, which is absolutely not true,” the former Celtics GM told Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston. “We did have a conversation. I reached out to Jerry, realizing that Michael had left the game. I knew Michael was not gone forever.
“I offered Jerry a first-round draft pick [to simply talk with Jordan] and he goes, ‘Well, M.L., Mike is not coming back. He’s retired.’ Well, he is coming back. I think he is. But he denied the fact that I did that, I guess to save face with his owners. … I thought, [Jordan] had already done it in that Chicago uniform, if he got a chance to come to Boston, put on the green, what a great thing that would be from a marketing standpoint. He would have made a fortune. … It didn’t happen. It would have been wonderful.”
Carr’s first splash was the signing of 34-year-old Wilkins and was hoping to get Jordan on board by having a star-caliber player on the roster. Wilkins denied any of this actually happened.
“I don’t think so,” said Wilkins, who laughed when apprised of the plan to play him next to Jordan. “It would have been nice. I’d have to loved to play with him, are you kidding? But, if that was true, you would have heard about that before now.”
Krause himself denied the conversation taking place:
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“I must have lost my memory because I don’t remember talking to M.L. about that subject. I think I would have remembered it and I don’t. I don’t know if there was some miscalculation of translation. I looked at my notes from my conversation with M.L., and it’s not in my notes.”
