RIP Hamilton got valued advice from Michael Jordan about how to make it in the NBA during their lone season together.
In return, the Washington Wizards youngster gave the basketball legend fashion tips with his Air Jordan sneaker line.
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The shooting guard was Jordan’s teammate with the Washington Wizards in 2001-02, soon after he joined the NBA and the Hall of Famer had returned from retirement.
During that season, Jordan would show up in the locker room wearing Air Jordan samples to see how his young teammates would react.
And Hamilton says the response of the players had a meaningful impact on the design of the products.
“That was one of the luxuries of playing with him,” Hamilton told Complex.
“He would come in the locker room every day with a different sample shoe, a sample shirt, or whatever.
“He would get the response of all the young kids.
“Because you got to remember, Michael Jordan was a little older at the time. We were 20, 21.
“So he was able to get real opinions off of kids that were 20, 21 years old that had a huge impact on the sneaker culture.”
On the flip side, Jordan once told Hamilton that he was not good enough to wear his Air Jordan sneakers during their time together at the Wizards.
“Me and a couple of the young guys would come up to him and say, ‘Hey Mike, what you think about putting us in the [Jordan Brand] collection?'” Hamilton recalled on ESPN’s The Jump.
“And he’d look at me and say, ‘Hey, Rip – my sneaker’s for All-Stars’.”
Hamilton did not let Jordan’s acidic comments get him down.
After moving to the Detroit Pistons in 2002, Hamilton won the NBA title in 2004 and made three All-Star teams.
He added: “After I made the All-Star team I said, ‘hey, M, now I’m an All-Star, now you’ve got to put me in that sneaker and now you’ve got to pay me the big bucks.”
Hamilton eventually became an Air Jordan athlete and in 2019 he got his own signature shoe with the Jordan 14 Rip Hamilton PE.
Hamilton had a 14-year career in the NBA, retiring with the Bulls in 2013.
He is currently a basketball analyst for CBS Sports.