{"id":555582,"date":"2026-03-31T05:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/555582\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:23:08","slug":"rip-hamilton-revealed-he-doesnt-win-the-title-without-everything-he-learned-from-michael-jordan-that-was-a-very-instrumental-part-in-my-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/555582\/","title":{"rendered":"Rip Hamilton revealed he doesn’t win the title without everything he learned from Michael Jordan: “That was a very instrumental part in my journey”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Rip Hamilton<\/a> was drafted by the Washington Wizards in 1999 as the number seven overall pick, Michael Jordan<\/a> had already retired for the second time a year prior.<\/p>\n

Hamilton had never imagined that he would one day share the court and the locker room with MJ until the unthinkable happened in 2001, when the six-time champion announced his return and joined the Wizards.<\/p>\n

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For Rip, it wasn’t just a moment to geek out over his childhood idol but more like being enrolled in a doctoral program in basketball greatness. With that in mind, Hamilton spent his one-year stint with Jordan like a sponge, soaking up every nuance of the game.<\/p>\n

That education paid dividends faster than anyone expected. Just two seasons after he played with Michael, Hamilton won a championship with the Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n

“To get the opportunity to play with him was absolutely amazing,” Hamilton told<\/a> Rappler. “I mean, to get an opportunity to practice with him each and every day, I couldn’t askfor better story than that.”<\/p>\n

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“It was amazing man, like that was a very instrumental part in my journey,” he reflected. “When I win a championship, I don’t win a championship unless I get them little nuggets from Michael Jordan in my early days playing in Washington.”<\/p>\n

MJ taught Rip his most unguardable move<\/p>\n

Before he joined the Wizards<\/a> roster as a player, Jordan had already been watching Hamilton from the front office as an executive. MJ recognized early on that Rip possessed an innate ability to shoot and had the potential to be a consistent scorer. In the 2000-01 season, Hamilton averaged 18.1 points per game.<\/p>\n

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More importantly, Jordan was impressed that, unlike other young players, Hamilton was eager to learn. To reward Rip’s dedication, Mike taught him one of his most unstoppable moves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“People look at my mid-range game and say I have one of the best of all time, but a lot of that came off of being in the practices with MJ. I remember one time I was playing against him, and he took two hard dribbles to the basket and pulled up, and he was like, ‘Rip, add that to your game. That’s the hardest play in the game of basketball to guard.’ And I was like, why? And he was like because as a defender, they are backpedaling, so he can’t jump to the highest point to block your shot. He’s always off-balance, and you’re always on-balance,” the UConn alum revealed in another conversation.<\/p>\n

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Related: “He put on a show” – Carlos Boozer recalled the craziness of LeBron James’ NBA debut in Sacramento<\/a><\/p>\n

Rip is forever indebted to MJ<\/p>\n

It didn’t take long for Hamilton to master everything Jordan taught him as a player. In his first and only season alongside MJ, he averaged 20.0 points per game, his career-best at the time.<\/p>\n

However, Hamilton’s numbers only told half the story. Under Jordan’s tutelage, he also learned a lot about the psychological side of the game. He discovered how to pick his spots with surgical precision, lure defenders and shoot before they could even set their feet.<\/p>\n

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By the time Hamilton was traded to the Detroit Pistons in the summer of 2002, Rip was no longer just a notable scorer. He evolved into an assassin on the hardwood. In 2004, he helped lead the Pistons to an NBA title, averaging a team-high 21.4 points in the Finals.<\/p>\n

Looking back, Hamilton is forever indebted to Jordan for making him not only an elite scorer but a fierce competitor with a champion mentality.<\/p>\n

Related: “I got a lot of ‘Rated R’ Rasheed stories” – Rip Hamilton revealed why Rasheed Wallace was his favorite teammate of all time<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Mar 31, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Rip Hamilton was drafted by the Washington Wizards in 1999 as the number seven overall pick, Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[4576,7328,34204,355,228425,99,11948],"class_list":["post-555582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-michael-jordan","tag-mj","tag-nba","tag-rip-hamilton","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}