LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — With the third pick of the 1984 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls famously selected Michael Jordan.
With the 11th pick of the 1988 NBA Draft, the Bulls selected Will Vanderbilt.
Who?
Ask Jordan.
For Will Perdue's first five NBA seasons, as well as the stretch run of 1995, he and Jordan were teammates on the dynamic Bulls teams that won the 1991, 1992 and 1993 championships. Backing up Bill Cartwright, Perdue averaged better than 13 minutes per game and started 26 times during the three seasons the Bulls won rings. At 7 feet and 240 pounds, Perdue was a solid defender, rebounder, passer and screener.
Not that Jordan was impressed. Word got to Perdue quickly that MJ had a nickname for him: Will Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt? Vanderbilt is where Perdue played college basketball for C.M. Newton.
Hey, Mike, why do you call him, "Will Vanderbilt?"
"Because he wasn't good enough to play for Purdue," Jordan would always say.
Perdue laughed several times while recalling that anecdote and others.
"After a few years, the one thing you realized was that Michael more or less talked trash to get himself motivated, not you," Perdue said. "It wasn't personal."
And so it went with Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the rest of what typically was called their Bulls "supporting cast." The glory, the grit and the gripes of that glorious era will be spotlighted again at 9 p.m. Sunday, when ESPN airs the first of its 10-part series about the team, a series titled, "The Last Dance."
Perdue, 54, splits time between Louisville and Chicago. He works as a pre- and post-game analyst on Bulls' telecasts for NBC Sports Chicago. He also handles college basketball analyst assignments for Westwood One radio.
He was scheduled to work the Southeastern Conference men's tournament but discovered the tournament was canceled on March 12 while driving from Louisville to Nashville on Interstate 65.
The novel coronavirus has stopped his work season, too, until the NBA decides how it will proceed. On Sunday night, like most basketball fans, Perdue will watch "The Last Dance."
Will he be included?
Perdue hopes so.
In February 2019, an Uber driver was dispatched to his residence in the West Loop outside downtown Chicago. He was driven to Jordan's $15 million former home in Highland Park, Illinois, for what was supposed to be a 45-minute interview.
Perdue answered questions for nearly two hours. He said other former Bulls, like Toni Kukoc, waited in the house to be interviewed.
"But you've seen some of the people they've promoted who are in the series," Perdue said.
Yes, I have.
President Barack Obama. Justin Timberlake, Kobe Bryant, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, head coach Phil Jackson, Steve Kerr, Roy Williams, Bob Costas, Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman, Carmen Electra and others.
"Who knows?" Perdue said. "I might have ended up on the cutting room floor."
I hope not. Perdue was not there for The Last Dance season. But he was there when Michael Jordan the basketball player became Michael Jordan the international celebrity and brand. And he has stories.
Like …
"I was straightforward," he said. "Everybody wants to know what it was like to play with Michael. It wasn't easy."
Please explain.
"I tell people playing with Michael was a skill set," Perdue said. "You had to learn how to play with him. In this case, almost play for him. Because you're obviously playing for the organization and for your teammates. When you play with a guy like Michael, LeBron (James), Kobe (Bryant), those guys are different animals."
Their games, their personalities or both?
"Both," Perdue said.
What's the bigger challenge — their games or their personalities?
"Their personality," Perdue said. "A lot of times (Jordan) would be unforgiving of you for making a mistake … I don't know if LeBron, probably the best way to put it, has ever been that cut-throat.
"I tell people that I know, 'I never questioned whether I could play the game. I never questioned whether I was an NBA player. I questioned how good I could be,'" he added. "But I also questioned whether I was ever going to be good enough for that guy (Jordan). I always prided myself on work ethic. Hardest-working guy. That's kind of how I got where I got. But I had to ramp it up to keep up with him. He was our best player. He was the best player in the league.
"We all talk about how we love he game. Not only did he love the game, he loved the competition. So you'd always ask yourself, 'How do I become more competitive? How do I keep up?' You ask yourself why guys like Kobe and LeBron and Michael work so hard when they're so good? And most of this is natural, anyways."
Was there ever a moment when Jordan complimented you or gave you a nod or smile to let you know he respected you?
"That really never happened," Perdue said. "He never vocalized that respect until after we played.
"I saw him on the golf course one time. I waited for him on the 18th green. He came up and hugged me, and we were talking and he kind of got my attention.
"Usually, you just talk. But he made sure he got my attention. He said, 'The one thing I've always meant to tell you is that we traded the wrong guy.'
"I was like, 'Wow.'"
This was after the Bulls sent Perdue to San Antonio for Dennis Rodman on Oct. 2, 1995. The Bulls won the 1996, 1997 and 1998 NBA titles with Jordan, Pippen and Rodman. Perdue won his fourth NBA ring while playing with David Robinson and Tim Duncan on the 1999 Spurs.
This moment of acceptance came after Jordan and Perdue retired.
"That kind of caught me off guard," Perdue said. "I just said, 'Thank you.' I really didn't know what to say quite, honestly."
Did the constant mind games affect you?
"The one thing I wasn't going to do was allow him to beat me," Perdue said. "Everybody talked about how when I first got there how he referred to me as 'Will Vanderbilt.' He never said it to my face. He made that comment. I've had more than one person verify to me that, 'Yes, he did say it.'
"I never backed down from him," he added. "I constantly would take his berating when I made a mistake because it would be stupid for me to react during a game. If you made a mistake in a game, he would dress you down in front of 20,000 people so you just kind of had to take your lumps and keep going. You also had to realize it was OK because he does this to everybody, not just you."
Remember: Pippen became a Hall of Famer, one of the top 50 players in NBA history. But Perdue said that whenever Jordan sensed that Pippen believed his game was on the same level as Jordan's game that Jordan would talk to Jackson before practice and ask the coach to put the two players on different teams.
"Then Michael would eat Scottie's lunch and teach him a lesson," Perdue said. "Michael would start talking all kinds of trash. Scottie would get sucked in.
"You're telling yourself, 'Don't do it, man. Don't do it.'"
I've always heard that, during the 1993 title year, Jordan was nastier to former Louisville star Rodney McCray than he was to any player. McCray was a terrific player in Houston and Sacramento, but his career was near the end when he joined the Bulls for the 1992-93 season.
Was that true?
"Yes," Perdue said. "He went at Rodney daily. I felt bad for Rodney, because Rodney got hurt. And the problem was they couldn't distinguish what his injury was … some kind of abdominal injury. Rodney's locker was right next to mine in the practice facility. I used to watch Rodney get dressed and it looked painful for him to put his clothes on.
"But they couldn't figure out what the injury was. And I think Michael kind of took that as (McCray) was soft. I really don't understand why he made Rodney the target of a lot of his criticism. Honestly, I don't think Michael saw it as criticism. He just saw it as he was giving the guy a hard time, talking a little trash."
Once the Bulls started rolling through the league and collecting trophies, traveling with Jordan and Pippen was like traveling with The Beatles.
I asked Perdue for his favorite travel story. He reminded me that during his first two seasons — 1989 and 1990 — the Bulls took commercial flights.
"I always say the first three-peat we were like The Beatles," Perdue said. "The second three-peat, they were like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. It was just ridiculous."
On one famous occasion, the Bulls' veterans decided to let Jordan be swallowed up in all of his fame when the team rolled into its downtown Detroit hotel early one morning.
"We get in, and I think we pulled into the hotel at 1:30 in the morning," Perdue said. "There were about 150 to 200 people outside the hotel and for some reason, we decided we were going to let Michael go first and take the whole group of people with him
"Michael was like, '(Expletive) you guys, I ain't getting off.'
"Well, we weren't getting off either.
"Coaches got off. The bellmen came and got all the bags. The bus driver was sitting there looking at the bus, like, 'What's going on?'
"The bus driver got on the bus and asked, 'Are you guys getting off?' We said that we were waiting for Michael to get off. Michael always sat in the back. He said, '(Bleep) these guys. I ain't getting off.'
"So the bus driver literally shook his head, put his hands in his pockets and walked inside and stood in the lobby of the hotel and just watched us. It must have been 30 minutes. It was like a standoff. Maybe 45 minutes.
"Finally, Michael said, '(Bleep) you guys and ran up the aisle and got off. All 150 or 200 people went with him and the rest of us walked right into the hotel. We were just laughing."
One of Perdue's best stories unfolded after he was gone from the team, playing in San Antonio, which had acquired him for Rodman.
Rodman operated on a different frequency. The appearance. The posse. The crazy interviews. The women. The antagonistic history from the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons.
"I know several guys who played on those last three (championship) teams very well," Perdue said. "They'll tell you (the Bulls) were literally on the verge of being out of control. Dennis had a lot to do with that. As (Rodman's) popularity grew, he became more and more eccentric. The crazier stuff that he would do, the more attention he would get.
"There's a lot of famous stories. When (Rodman) came to Chicago, they assigned the assistant trainer, Wally, to keep an eye on Dennis. Wally will tell you it was probably the best two years of his life as a 20-something-year-old kid who is the assistant trainer with the Chicago Bulls.
"He's basically hanging out with movie stars and rock stars. The one thing that Phil (Jackson) told Dennis was, 'I just need you to be at games and I need you to be ready to play. Now, there are certain practices I'm going to need you to be at, too. But if you miss a practice, I'll just fine you, and we'll move on.'
"Well, they had a practice that Phil wanted Dennis to be at. Practice starts, or technically was supposed to start, and Dennis was nowhere to be seen.
"The one thing that Dennis did, he was renting a place within a half-mile of the (Berto) practice facility. So Phil yells, 'WALLY, Go get Dennis!'
"Wally says, 'Yes, sir,' hops into his car and runs over to Dennis's place. He knows exactly where Dennis lives.
"He knocks on the door. The door is unlocked. It's already open and it swings open more a little bit. You hear a female voice go, 'Hello? Hello?'
"He goes, 'Hello, it's Wally, and I'm looking for Dennis.'
"It's Carmen Electra (the actress). She yells, 'Wally is that you?' He said it was. She told him to come in.
"And Carmen Electra is just standing there buck naked talking to him.
"Wally says, 'I'm here to get Dennis. Phil says that it's imperative that he comes to practice.'
"Carmen says, 'All right. I'll get him up. I'll get him going. He'll be there shortly.'
"Wally got back to the practice center, and here came Dennis."
The Last Dance begins Sunday night. Can't wait.
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