Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan isn’t a fan of NBA players taking days off to rest. Jordan criticized the idea of load management Tuesday, saying the practice “shouldn’t be needed.”

Jordan made those comments during another appearance on “MJ: Insights to Excellence.” Host Mike Tirico asked Jordan for his thoughts on load management, which wasn’t really a thing when he played in the NBA.

Jordan made it clear he wasn’t a fan of the idea, saying he wanted to prove himself to the fans every night.

“It shouldn’t be needed, first and foremost,” Jordan said. “I never wanted to miss a game because it was an opportunity to prove. It was something that I felt like the fans are there to watch me play. I want to impress that guy way up on top who probably worked his ass off to get a ticket, or to get money to buy the ticket.”

Tirico interjected at that point and asked Jordan if he really cared about the opposing fan sitting all the way at the top of the arena. Jordan replied, “Yeah, because I knew he was probably yelling at me and I wanted to shut him up.”

Jordan continued:

“You have a duty that if they are wanting to see you and as an entertainer, I want to show,” he said. “If the guys are coming to watch me play, I don’t want to miss that opportunity. 

“Now, physically, if I can’t do it, then I can’t do. But physically if I can do it, and I just don’t feel like doing it, that’s a different lens.” 

Jordan then talked about a situation early in his career where he rolled his ankle and was told by a veteran on the Bulls that he should take a seat on the bench. Determined to make a name for himself, Jordan taped up the ankle and continued to play through the injury.

The NBA legend was careful not to call out specific players by name when discussing the issue of load management. The practice, in which players will occasionally miss games or not play in back-to-back games due to rest, rose to prominence in recent seasons. 

A number of NBA stars engaged in the tactic, including LeBron James, Luka Dončić and Kawhi Leonard. It reached a point where the NBA had to step in and introduce new rules to prevent teams from resting players as frequently. 

Coincidentally, Jordan’s former teammate and current Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was asked about load management following his team’s win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday. Kerr explained that everything is measured today, including the distance players run and the speed at which they are zooming around the court. He added, “Compared to 25 years ago, 20 years ago, it’s dramatically different. So the stress on these guys’ bodies, I think is way more than what it was in the past.”

Kerr said that while the NBA was more physical in the era in which he played, he believed it was harder for players to constantly be in movement today and play full-court basketball. Because of that, Kerr said he believed depth was a major key to success in today’s game.

Despite not playing in the modern game, Jordan is more than qualified to talk about the issue. In addition to having a sterling resume as a player, he rarely missed games. During his first eight seasons in the NBA, Jordan played in fewer than 78 games in just one season, and that one season he broke his foot. 

Jordan was limited to just 17 games in 1995-96, when he returned at the end of the regular season following his first retirement. In his final five seasons in the NBA — including the two that came with the Washington Wizards after his second retirement — Jordan played in all 82 games four times. His only missed time over that period came during the 2001-02 NBA season, when Jordan dealt with a knee injury.

Due to his multiple retirements, Jordan is tied for 113th with 1,072 games played. A handful of modern players, including Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and James, sit above Jordan on that list, and there’s an argument load management helped them reach that point.

LOS ANGELES — As media swirled about the overcrowded room, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s diamond-encrusted chain glistened in the clubhouse light.

The pendant in question, a custom rendering of his personal VG27 logo, dangled radiantly from a hook in his extra locker. Guerrero himself had not yet entered the room, but his presence — over this night, this World Series and this franchise — was omnipresent. And the jeweled-out chain, likely worth more than most people’s cars, provided a not-so-subtle reminder that Vlad Jr. has become, or has always been, more than a player.

His performance in Toronto’s 6-2 victory in World Series Game 4 — 2-for-4 with a walk and the game-defining home run — reaffirmed as much. Guerrero is an aircraft carrier, an institution, as synonymous with this era of Toronto Blue Jays baseball as the team’s logo. No player in this World Series — and none, besides Juan Soto, in this sport — has been guaranteed more money to play baseball than Guerrero. And this October, he has earned every last Canadian dollar.

“He’s playing for legacy,” closer Jeff Hoffman told Yahoo Sports. “He’s playing for how they’re going to talk about him when he’s done playing.”

Guerrero, however, is far from done.

And on Tuesday, the 26-year-old added to his pedigree, delivering the most meaningful swing of his already unforgettable postseason. With Dodgers starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani settling into his outing and the Jays already down one in the top of the third, Guerrero unleashed on a hanging sweeper for a go-ahead, series-altering smash.

As the pill shot through the pastel California sky, Guerrero strutted down the first baseline, admiring his handiwork as he went. And when the ball crested over the left-field seats, the man of the moment emphatically dismounted his lumber before turning to his dugout and hollering “¡Vamo’!”

“Let’s go.”

And so, the Blue Jays went.

[Get more Toronto news: Blue Jays team feed]

Starter Shane Bieber worked 5 1/3 effective frames of one-run ball. He turned things over to Toronto’s exhausted bullpen. That unit kept Los Angeles’ dangerous offense at bay until the Jays’ offense exploded to life with an exhale-inducing four-spot in the seventh inning. The Dodgers tacked on a run in the ninth, but things concluded comfortably enough for the visitors. With that, the Blue Jays evened this captivating Fall Classic at two games apiece, ensuring that the 2025 World Series will indeed return to Canada for a Game 6 on Friday.

When it does, Guerrero will remain at its center. His October for the ages has made it so.

Guerrero’s tank off Ohtani was his first of this series, but his seventh of these playoffs. The slugging first baseman now holds both Toronto’s single season and career postseason home run records. He is currently hitting .419/.500/.806 in these playoffs. The Dodgers intentionally walked him with a base open in the seventh. And less than 18 hours after suffering one of postseason history’s most grueling losses, Guerrero and his ballclub reoriented the narrative.

Most of Guerrero’s teammates did not sleep well after Monday’s marathon Game 3. They were too riled up from the madness. Their body clocks being on Eastern time did not help. Jays infielder Ernie Clement said he conked out around 5 a.m. local.

But Guerrero, as he relayed to reporters after Game 4, had no such issues.

“To be honest, I slept like a baby,” he said through team interpreter Hector Lebron. “You know, it was a long game. Yeah, it hurts when you lose a game like that, but I was so tired that I just went to sleep.”

Such is life when you’re numb to the weight of it all. Bearing his Hall of Fame father’s name, Guerrero exited the womb with expectations. He not only understands that burden but also welcomes it, proclaiming after his club’s ALCS Game 6 victory that he was “born for this.”

“I honestly don’t know how he does it,” Clement told Yahoo Sports. “I can’t imagine the pressure that comes with that. It takes a lot to carry that name and that pressure, making all that money, and he’s still doing it. He’s a special human being.”

Despite the half-billion-dollar price tag that was attached to his life in April, Guerrero this season has only solidified his reputation as a good teammate and a hard worker. It sounds cliché, but it’s crucial. When the richest, most famous player on any team operates with interpersonal humility and an unrelenting work ethic, it helps foster a culture built around those qualities. Guerrero perfectly epitomizes that dynamic, refusing to let the all of it all impact him.

“From my perspective, I don’t see all that,” Bo Bichette, who has been teammates with Guerrero since their minor-league days, told Yahoo Sports. “I just see one of my best friends, who I’ve learned a ton from. I see a kid who has matured greatly into being able to handle these moments, who just loves playing ball.”

“It doesn’t even register,” Max Scherzer noted of the expectations around Guerrero. “You’re just one of us in here, just one of the 26 in here to have a good time.”

The biggest difference?

“He’s got some nice things.”

But the indulgences — including the thousands of dollars dangling in his locker — are well-deserved. Guerrero has lived up to the promise of both his name and his contract. This postseason has elevated that greatness, spreading it to the masses. Many solid players have caught fire for an October: David Freese, Steve Pearce, Randy Arozarena. This is not that, not a hot stretch or a nice month. 

Guerrero at present is simply one of the top hitters on earth at his absolute best. Two more wins will make him sports-immortal — in the hearts of a nation and the eyes of a sport.

Yet no matter what happens, we are witnessing something special: the greatest hitter in the history of a franchise at his rip-roaring peak on the game’s biggest stage. One day, Guerrero will have a road named after him, a statue outside Rogers Centre and a bronze plaque in upstate New York. In the way that Gwynn is The Padre, Ripken is The Oriole and Jeter is The Yankee, Vlad will be The Blue Jay.

If he isn’t already.

LOS ANGELES — On the heels of an exhausting Game 3 that expended virtually their entire roster and ended in heartbreaking fashion, the Toronto Blue Jays were in dire need of a stabilizing force on the mound Tuesday as they sought to draw even in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Enter Shane Bieber, the perfect pitcher for the job.

Bieber does not thrive on outward ferocity and exuberant intensity like his rotation mate Max Scherzer. Nor does he wield the kind of stuff that jumps off the television screen or the Baseball Savant page like splitter specialists Kevin Gausman and rookie Trey Yesavage. Instead, Bieber is a calculated craftsman, deploying his five-pitch mix with thoughtful intent and relying on intelligent sequencing and location to compensate for below-average velocity. At his best, Bieber navigates lineups with patience and precision, providing the kind of steadiness that can put his manager at ease.

It is this calming presence that made Bieber the ideal starter for Toronto to turn to in a pivotal Game 4, though that plan was nearly jeopardized when the chaos of Game 3 came dangerously close to dragging him into the fray. A last-resort option had the game extended beyond 18 innings, Bieber got loose in the bullpen late Monday in case an emergency appearance was required.

“I was definitely amped up,” Bieber said Tuesday of preparing to enter Game 3 in relief. “You have to get yourself ready to pitch in the 19th inning of a World Series game marathon, and potentially, I was thinking about my first big-league save, and in the World Series — that would have been very cool.

“But I’m very happy with how things worked out.”

Here’s how things worked out: Bieber delivered 5 ⅓ innings of one-run ball in a 6-2 Jays victory in Game 4, earning the win in his World Series debut and paving the way for Toronto to tie the World Series at two games apiece.

“It didn’t impact him whatsoever,” manager John Schneider said when asked whether Bieber’s venture to the bullpen the previous night altered his preparation for Game 4. “He came in focused. He came in like a veteran pitcher should.”

Bieber’s most obvious obstacle entering Game 4 was the unique challenge of outperforming two different versions of the same player. He was tasked with matching Dodgers starting pitcher and two-way superhero Shohei Ohtani’s efforts on the mound while also taming Ohtani’s monumentally dangerous bat following a historic performance at the plate in Game 3. Despite that daunting prospect, Bieber eventually emerged triumphant on both fronts.

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The first inning did not spark early optimism for Toronto. Ohtani struck out Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on three pitches in a scoreless top half before making the quick commute to the batter’s box in search of some run support for himself. With Ohtani’s four extra-base hits followed by five consecutive walks to finish Game 3 fresh in everyone’s mind, no one was especially surprised when Bieber’s first three pitches sailed nowhere near the strike zone. Bieber then found two strikes to bring the count full, but his sixth offering — a changeup that might’ve caught the outside edge of the strike zone, though not quite enough to convince home plate umpire John Tumpane — ensured another free pass for Ohtani.

But that was the last time Ohtani would reach base in Game 4. Bieber worked around the leadoff walk to post a scoreless first, and after surrendering an early Dodgers lead on a Kiké Hernández sacrifice fly in the second, he cruised through the next three frames unscathed.

“I thought he settled into the game really well,” Schneider said of his starting pitcher. “After the run, I thought he kind of got a little bit better with his breaking stuff, and he made pitches, man. It was fun to watch him navigate that. I’m really happy for him for the last year-and-a-half journey he’s been on. To go out there and do that, that was awesome.”

Just 18 months removed from elbow surgery, Bieber is still figuring out how to utilize his arsenal in its current form, making each outing a session of self-discovery, even as the stakes continue to rise. On Tuesday, it was Bieber’s cutter that emerged as the go-to weapon once he realized his slider — his most effective swing-and-miss offering all season — didn’t feel quite right.

“I thought I used it really well tonight,” Bieber said afterward of his cutter, which accounted for a season-high 27% of his total pitches. “I think that came in lieu of not having a great slider tonight and kind of yanking and opening up early, and they weren’t chasing, and so I had to rely on something else. I think that’s the benefit of being able to command five pitches, for the most part, and you figure out pretty quickly what’s working, what’s not.”

Bieber’s second encounter with Ohtani came in the bottom of the third, this time with a lead afforded by Guerrero’s two-run home run in the top of the frame. On a 2-2 count, Bieber landed a perfect changeup on the outer half — virtually identical to the pitch on which Ohtani had drawn ball four in the first — and Ohtani swung haplessly for strike three.

Their third and final showdown came in the fifth, still with a narrow one-run Toronto lead and with the bases empty, enabling Bieber, in a groove at that point, to attack Ohtani with his stuff. That meant a sharp-breaking knuckle-curve at the bottom of the zone for strike one via foul ball, another foul ball on a high heater and then another knuckle-curve pinpointed brilliantly on the outer edge of the zone. That left Ohtani frozen, staring at a surprise strike three.

Ohtani later grounded out against reliever Chris Bassitt to end his night, marking his first hitless game since NLCS Game 1.

While Bieber ultimately did not record as many outs on the mound (16) as Ohtani did (18), his final line ended up notably cleaner. Beyond Bieber’s own work keeping the Dodgers’ offense at bay, his bullpen backed him up far more effectively than the Dodgers’ did Ohtani. Bieber’s night came to an end in the sixth inning, after Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández laced singles to put the go-ahead run on base with one out, prompting Schneider to turn to left-hander Mason Fluharty to handle lefty slugger Max Muncy.

Fluharty did just that, coaxing a harmless flyout from Muncy and striking out Tommy Edman to end the threat. Conversely, when Ohtani departed after allowing two hits to lead off the seventh, both baserunners eventually came around to score with Anthony Banda on the mound. Before the inning was over, two additional runs crossed the plate due to more shoddy work from Blake Treinen.

“These are the spots that we acquired him for,” Schneider said of Bieber, still just months into his tenure as a Blue Jay after arriving via trade from Cleveland before the July 31 deadline. “And it’s asking a lot of him, based on what he’s been through with the recovery from the surgery and stuff. But he’s enjoying it, and he’s embracing it, and he’s been a huge part of us getting here.”

Through four games, this year’s World Series has given us two Toronto wins featuring comprehensive contributions from up and down the roster and two Los Angeles victories headlined by historic efforts from a select few individual superstars. Which recipe for success will yield a championship remains to be seen, but we’re now guaranteed to see the action return north of the border regardless of Wednesday’s Game 5 result.

And for Bieber and the Blue Jays, a franchise he has quickly embraced in his short time on the roster, the opportunity to play at least one more home game at Rogers Centre is not taken lightly.

“They deserve it,” Bieber said of the nation of fans backing the Jays’ efforts to win their first title in 32 years. “To end it on our terms and in Toronto — I’m excited for that opportunity.”