SOMETIMES you just have to keep your idols just that: idols. Getting a chance to team up with them can burst the bubble.
Jerry Stackhouse admitted he regretted playing for the Washington Wizards at the time when Michael Jordan was on the last year of his second comeback from retirement.
Airing his thoughts in his guesting at The Woj Pod hosted by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Stackhouse, who was still at the prime of his career near age 30, felt he should’ve been the focal point of the Wizards offense, which revolved around the 40-year-old Jordan.
"Honestly, I wish I never played in Washington and for a number of reasons. ... Things were still being run through Michael Jordan,” Stackhouse admitted.
Stackhouse, who played two seasons with the Wizards after being just two years removed from back-to-back All-Star appearances for Detroit, felt Washington coach Doug Collins was trying to appease Jordan as a way to make up for some negativity between them during their time in Chicago.
“We got off to a pretty good start and he didn't like the way the offense was running because it was running a little bit more through me,” Stackhouse said of Jordan. “He wanted to get a little more isolations for him on the post, of course, so we had more isolations for him on the post.

“And it just kind of spiraled in a way that I didn't enjoy that season at all,” he added as the Wizards finished with a 37-45 record and missed the playoffs in Stackhouse’s first season with them.
Stackhouse, though, still ended up averaging team-highs of 21.5 points and 39.2 minutes, although he was just second in attempts at 17.2, behind the 18.6 attempts Jordan needed to take to get his 20-point average.
After playing 26 games the next season, Stackhouse packed his bags and saw himself suiting up for the Dallas Mavericks, before making stops in Milwaukee, Miami, Atlanta, and Brooklyn in a 19-year career.
“The kind of picture I had in my mind of Michael Jordan and the reverence I had for him, I lost a little bit of it during the course of that year," said the 45-year-old Stackhouse, who's now the head coach at Vanderbilt.

Jordan now owns the Charlotte Hornets.
Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph