Jalen Green was a highly-touted prospect as a high schooler in California, earning a consensus 5-star ranking before heading off to the G League Ignite as he was among the first to forego the college route for the NBA’s alternative.
As most top high school prospects do as kids, Green would travel to various basketball camps to hone his skills against other top players and learn from some of the game’s best. One of those camps was a Michael Jordan camp in San Diego, where Green got to meet the legend himself, but it was not a storybook meeting between a kid and one of his idols.
As Green recalled on the Podcast P Show, his first interaction with Jordan as a child was getting told to “take off them weak ass Adidas” as he walked to the gym wearing a pair of Adidas slides.
MJ really said f**k them kids
pic.twitter.com/lZfVpueNJI
— Podcast P with Paul George (@PodcastPShow) May 22, 2023
It’s a phenomenal story, right down to Green running over to tell his mom about it and his mom proudly proclaiming she was taking pictures of it the whole time. The good news was Green got a pair of Jordan slides out of it, but it’s hysterical that even when it comes to kids at a camp, Jordan’s always thinking about the brand and not letting it slide when someone’s not wearing the Swoosh or Jumpman.