MJ said nobody in his hometown expected him to succeed: "Everybody in Wilmington expected me to go to UNC and sit on the bench"

Michael Jordan retired from the NBA as the greatest basketball player ever. But long before MJ's basketball career started, he was an ordinary kid from North Carolina with a big dream.

Mike always wanted to be a professional baseball player or basketball player because he knew the big money was in pro sports. But his neighbors didn't think he was good enough to make it to Major League Baseball. At 5'10" and with no family member above six feet tall, nobody expected him to make the NBA as well.

"Everybody in Wilmington expected me to go to North Carolina, sit on the bench for four years, then go back to Wilmington and work at a local gas station," said Jordan to GQ in 1989.

Mike was the laziest among his siblings

As a kid, Michael did not want to work a day job. One summer, his mom, Deloris, got him a job as a maintenance man in a local hotel. However, according to His Airness, he quit his job quickly because he could not keep regular hours. From then on, he never had another job.

Even Mike's dad, James Sr., once said his youngest son was the laziest among his five children . According to Mister Jordan, young MJ didn't care if he didn't have any money to buy new sneakers or clothes for as long as he didn't have to work.

"Michael is probably the laziest kid I had," James said . "If he had to get a job in a factory punching a clock, he'd starve to death. He would give every last dime of his allowance to his brothers and sisters and even kids in the neighborhood to do his chores. He was always broke."

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But Lazy Mike proved them wrong

Yet, after his sophomore year in high school, Michael had a growth spurt that saw him grow six inches to 6'4" during his senior year. That's when his basketball career took off. MJ took up B.A. in Geography at UNC and earned a spot on the Tar Heels basketball team.

But Mike did not get benched as people from his hometown expected. Instead, he became only the fourth freshman to earn a starting position on the UNC senior basketball team. Also, in his first year, MJ hit the shot that sealed the championship win for the Tar Heels. He grew two more inches and became 6'6" tall.

Jordan played two more seasons at Chapel Hill before entering the 1984 NBA Draft. He was picked third overall by the Chicago Bulls, and the rest, as they say, is history. Lazy Mike proved everyone wrong by becoming the first NBA player to become a billionaire.

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