Teenager Michael Jordan “cried in his room” after one of his closest friends put the high school’s college team above him

MICHAEL JORDAN is widely recognized as the greatest basketball player of all time.

But the NBA icon had some moments of heartbreak and was told he wasn’t good enough to get over them.

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MJ won six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls and was a five-time league MVP.

He was drafted from North Carolina in 1984 and previously attended Emsley A. Laney High School.

It was in high school that he suffered one of the biggest heartbreaks of his basketball career.

A former high school coach, Clifton Herring, who passed away in 2019, spoke to Sports Illustrated in the past.

He revealed: “There was no doubt that Mike Jordan could handle the ball but his shooting was only good and his defense mediocre.

“Mike Jordan was seven or eight inches shorter than Michael Jordan, just 5’10” at age 15, and at least one assistant coach had never heard of him before that day.

“If Jordan excelled at all during the tryout, it was through his outstanding performance.”

Jordan discovered he didn’t make the team, but one of his friends was chosen purely because of his height.

Herring added: “The Laney Bucs had one major weakness and that was size.

“They didn’t have a returning player taller than 6’3”.

“Back then, it was rare for sophomores to go to varsity. Herring made an exception in 1978 to make up for his team’s size disadvantage.

“That’s one of the reasons Mike Jordan went home and cried in his room after reading the two lists.

“It wasn’t just that his name was missing from the university’s list. As he searched the list, he also saw the name of another sophomore, one of his close friends, the 6’7″ Leroy Smith.”

Jordan became the greatest basketball player of all time.

Smith, on the other hand, was not drafted in 1985 and never played in the NBA.