There has been a lot of speculation of late that Michael Jordan's “flu game” didn't actually involve the flu.
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Michael Jordan's "flu" game is to basketball what the Trojan Horse is to Western civilization: a story of legendary importance and dubious details. (Did Aristotle actually jump out of an enormous hollow horse before defeating the Persians in a juggling competition? We'll probably never really know.) And recent revelations have once again raised the subject of why Jordan looked so near-death as he poured in 38 points to help beat the Utah Jazz by two in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals. Here's a roundup of the going theories.
He actually just got sick.
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By all accounts, the day of Game 5, Jordan was physically an absolute mess. According to ESPN, Bulls doctors diagnosed him with either food poisoning or an intestinal stomach virus, and Jordan claimed to be so sick that he felt like he was going to die. He lost several pounds that day; he could barely sit up on the bench; but in the second and fourth quarters, he scored 17 and 15 points, including the go-ahead three-pointer, which gave him 38 total and won the game for Chicago.