As lifelong basketball junkies, both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are well-versed in the greatness of Michael Jordan. However, perhaps what the Hollywood stars aren’t aware of is how equally legendary MJ’s verbal reflexes are.
It’s one thing to be in awe of Jordan’s game-winning shots and hang time plays, and it’s quite another to find yourself in the crosshairs of the six-time champion’s wit. That’s exactly what happened when Affleck once stood shoulder to shoulder with Mike and decided to audaciously confront MJ about his height.
Damon could still vividly recall how the banter played out. Affleck told Jordan that the NBA lied about his height. To their surprise, the GOAT clapped back with a short yet epic rebuttal.
“I met him at a golf course, and then we saw him once in Las Vegas and that was a really fun interaction where Ben stood next to him and stood as tall as he could,” Damon recalled in a talk with Elle Magazine. “And he looked at Jordan, who wasn’t that much taller than him, and Ben said, ‘You’re not 6’6″.’ Because he’s famously listed at 6’6″ and Jordan goes, ‘Yes, I am.’ Ben goes, ‘Maybe 6’4″ and a half and Jordan, without missing a beat, immediately goes, ‘Which made what I did all the more incredible’ [laughs].”
Ben agreed with Mike
That brief exchange with Jordan has since become a permanent fixture in Damon and Affleck’s memories. Whenever the topic is brought up, just the mention of MJ’s name is enough to make Matt and Ben laugh and reminisce.
In Affleck’s mind, he had delivered a perfectly timed, razor-sharp jab at the greatest basketball player of all time. However, in the end, both Affleck and Damon concluded that MJ spoke facts with his comeback, leaving Ben speechless and smiling at the same time.
“He had a point,” Affleck told Damon in the same interview as he reacted to Jordan’s reply at the time.
Ben knows how great MJ is to this day
Damon and Affleck forged a connection with Jordan through the 2023 film “Air,” a mainstream movie that chronicled the high-stakes gamble Nike took on a young MJ, directed by Ben himself.
Despite bonding with Mike, Ben deliberately chose not to include the real His Airness himself in the film, even though it would’ve made sense. In Affleck’s defense, he felt that Jordan had become such a mythical figure, and having him on-screen could result in an imbalance with what the movie aimed to achieve.
“Jordan is too big,” Affleck said of why he didn’t include Jordan in the cast of Air. “He exists above and around the story, but if you ever concretize him, if you ever say, ‘Yes, that’s Michael Jordan,’ we know it’s not, really. It’s fake. If the audience brought everything they thought and remembered about him and what he meant to them to the movie and projected it onto the movie, it worked better.”
All told, it’s safe to say that Affleck already knows what to expect from Jordan the next time they link up. Perhaps Ben might consider a different approach to engaging Mike in small talk, without mentioning anything about height.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Mar 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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