Michael Jordan and the ‘cocaine circus’

Basketball superstar Michael Jordan has confirmed the drugs culture he encountered as a rookie with the Chicago Bulls.

Jordan recalls his surprise uncovering of drug use in The Last Dance, the documentary series that has rocketed to the top of the Netflix ratings during its first week of broadcasting where two episodes have been aired.

The series chronicles his final championship run with Chicago in 1997-98 but there are some shocking truths unveiled during his rookie season in 1984.

During the opening episode Jordan is asked about a report calling the Bulls a ‘‘travelling cocaine circus’’ during his early days with the team.

Jordan, seated and looking serious, bursts into laughter, saying ‘‘I never heard that’’.

But he then recalled stumbling into exactly that during a preseason trip to Peoria in Illinois.

‘‘Look, guys were doing things I didn’t see [before],’’ Jordan said in The Last Dance.

‘‘I had one event, pre-season . . . I think we were in Peoria. It’s in a hotel, so I’m trying to find my team-mates. So I start knocking on doors and I get to this one door and I knock on the door and I could hear someone say, ‘Shh, shh, shh, someone’s outside’.

‘‘And then you hear this deep voice say, ‘Who is it?’ I say, ‘MJ’, and then they all say, ‘Ah f***, he’s just a rookie, don’t worry about it’.

‘‘So they open up the door, I walk in and practically the whole team was in there. And it was like things I’ve never seen in my life as a young kid.

‘‘You got your lines [of drugs] over here, you got your weed smokers over here and you got your women over here.

‘‘So the first thing I said was, ‘Look, man, I’m out’. Because all I can think about is if they come and raid this place right about now, I am just as guilty as everybody else in this room. And from that point on, I was more or less on my own.’’

Jordan’s dedication saw him named rookie of the year in that 1984-85 season, averaging 28 points per game and indicating there was plenty more to come.

‘‘I don’t smoke, I don’t do lines. I didn’t drink at the time. I was looking just to get some rest, get up and go play.’’

New Zealand Football has cancelled the Chatham Cup – first contested in 1923 – and the Kate Sheppard Cup national women’s competition in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The preliminary rounds were to take place this weekend with finals day on September 13. New Zealand Football CEO Andrew Pragnell said the decision to cancel both competitions was made after discussions with the seven federations, each of whom is working hard on how the community football season will operate once it is able to begin.