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Jordan: 'I don't know if I could've survived' playing in Twitter era

Jamie Squire / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Michael Jordan rarely shows any vulnerabilities, but the NBA legend says the current social media climate would be challenging if he was playing today.

"Tiger (Woods) played at his peak somewhere toward the end of my career," Jordan told Cigar Aficionado recently. "Then, what changed from that time frame to now is social media, Twitter, and all those types of things that has invaded the personalities and personal time of individuals to the point where people have been able to utilize it to their financial gains and things of that nature."

Despite being one of the world's biggest celebrities at his athletic peak in the 1990s, Jordan was still afforded a level of privacy by virtue of not being online - or being discussed online - 24 hours each day.

"For someone like myself - and this is what Tiger deals with - is that I don't know if I could've survived in this Twitter time, where you don't have the privacy that you would want, and what seems to be very innocent can always be misinterpreted," he said.

The Charlotte Hornets owner added that he wouldn't have the patience to be an NBA coach.

"For me to ask an individual to focus on the game the way I played the game, in some ways would be unfair for that kid to have to endure that," Jordan said. "And if he didn't do it, there's no telling where my emotions would be."

"In essence, coaching is something I've never really felt I could do from an emotional standpoint because I'm much different and I have a different perception about things than the kids do today," he continued.

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