Craig Ehlo might have been at the end of several highlights of Michael Jordan’s career, but he thinks Larry Bird and a Portland legend were the hardest to protect.
If you missed 90s basketball and relived it through YouTube and documentaries, you must have come across a man who went by the name of Craig Ehlo.
Hakeem Olajuwon’s former teammate came into the league a year before the famous 1984 draft class that brought in The Dream, Michael Jordan and a few other legends of the game.
One of the favorite defenders of most coaches in the league, Craig played in the NBA for five different franchises, but you may know him from The Last Dance.
He’s the Cavaliers defender who was on the receiving end of ‘The shot’ of Michael’s career. He’s in numerous MJ highlights over the years, but the former shooting guard had a harder time protecting two other guys than even His Airness did from him.
Also read: 6’6 Michael Jordan would not return to Chicago if Jerry Krause traded Scottie Pippen for Shawn Kemp
Ehlo snubbed Michael Jordan for his ‘toughest players to mark’
In an old interview we came across, Craig talks about all the players he thought were tough to guard, Mike said alongside Reggie Miller and others, but when asked who was the toughest, he shut out the NBA champion 6x and instead said Larry Bird. and Clyde Drexler.
Now, Bird was without a doubt one of the most unstoppable players of all time. Feeling like a tree in front of him was not a rare scenario if you played in the league between 1979 and 1992.
But choosing a man that Jordan himself took it upon himself to make fun of when he wanted could be an exaggeration. But maybe Ehlo is honest and literally feels like he did better against Jordan than he did against Drexler.
But there are many other cases that tell us the opposite.
Like when the 5x MVP walked away with 69 points and 18 rebounds on March 28, 1990, in what was the most statistically prolific game of his career, Craig guarded him throughout the game.
He also started at shooting guard when the 6x Finals MVP hit another series-ending buzzer against the Cavaliers in the 1993 playoffs. That ended up being Ehlo’s last game with the Cavaliers, which was his oldest franchise.
Also Read: $20 Million Rapper Reveals How Michael Jordan Taught Wise Poker Wisdom
Drexler is one of the best players in the game, no disrespect, but when you’ve been the recipient of so many GOAT moments, you just can’t consider the Trailblazers’ legend any harder to protect than the Bulls’.
