J.R. Smith Recalled The Best Trash Talk Michael Jordan Gave Him On The Golf Course

J.R. Smith played 16 seasons in the NBA, winning two championships alongside LeBron James in Cleveland and Los Angeles after carving out a role later in his career as a trusted veteran shooter.

There are plenty of current and former NBA players who would happily trade careers with Smith, and it’s safe to say he had a good career on the hardwood. Now, Smith is pursuing a second athletic career as a golfer, playing college golf at North Carolina A&T and becoming one of the faces of the push to make golf more inclusive and diverse. While Smith has gotten the chance to play golf with all manner of stars since his retirement from basketball, there’s no one that’s quite made him feel as excited as when he got to tee it up with Michael Jordan.

As Smith recalled to Complex Sports, he felt like a kid getting to play golf with his idol, but quickly learned that playing Jordan on the course isn’t that far off from playing him on the basketball court when it comes to trash talk and that competitive fire. Smith remembers tying Jordan one day and then how on the second round Jordan “smoked” him, while also delivering some cutting trash talk in the process.

“So we was betting, right? So I doubled down on one of my bets. I was like, 5 front, 5 back, and 5 overall. He was like, ‘alright, cool cool cool.’ I said, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh, hundreds, not thousands. Hundreds. And he said, ‘no no no no no, I know what you talkin about. I know what you meant.’ And then he threw this jab at me low key, and I was like “ooh, that’s a good one.’ He said, ‘you had a good career, it wasn’t a great one, you had a good one.’”

Betting on golf with MJ seems like one of those things that’s equally fun and terrifying at the same time, so I can’t blame J.R. for trying to keep the stakes from getting too out of hand.