Though Michael’s love for cigars came up in the miniseries, he also discussed it in detail during a 2005 interview with Cigar Aficionado. The basketball legend opened up about how he went from trying his first cigar to smoking them before all of his games.

He said: “I smoked my first cigar in 1991, when we won the championship. Up to that point, I had never smoked a cigar, never smoked anything. We won the championship, and Jerry Reinsdorf gave me one of his cigars… The next time I received a cigar was from my good friend, Ahmad Rashad… I wouldn’t smoke them, but I would sit there and chew on them. I got to the point where it became very relaxing.”

He then explained that smoking the cigars became an easy way to calm his nerves before he got on the court.

He said: “We had to be to the stadium at 6 o’clock for home games, and traffic was so bad it would take us an hour and 15 or an hour and 30 minutes to drive. So now I’m sitting in a car for almost an hour and a half, and I’m very tense.”

“I’m worried about the traffic,” he continued. “So I started smoking a cigar going to the games. In 1993. It became a ritual for every home game.”

He’s admitted to smoking up to six cigars per day, which left fans wondering about how it affected his performance in each game. 

However, you’ll notice that the famous billionaire was only seen with a cigar in just one episode of ESPN’s miniseries. And apparently, his mom was the one who put that to an end.

The director, Jason Hehir, recalled: “He said ‘I can’t have a cigar today because my mom got mad at me because she saw me smoking a cigar.'” Ummm kudos to his mom for being such a boss!