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Man counters ex-Pizza Hut employee's claim about making MJ's pizza

Dick Raphael / National Basketball Association / Getty

Another person has come forward claiming to have details about the pizza that Michael Jordan says gave him food poisoning.

A Utah resident named Otto told "The Rich Eisen Show" on Tuesday that the pizza delivered to Jordan ahead of Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals came from a local bar in Park City, Utah - not Pizza Hut, as a former assistant manager of the restaurant chain stated.

"It wasn't Pizza Hut because Pizza Hut would have been closed," Otto said. "During 'The Last Dance' they said it was late night, nothing was open. Pizza Hut's closed early, everything closes early in Park City in '97, especially in the summer."

Otto explained that he was the head chef at a sushi restaurant in an outdoor mall beside the hotel where the Chicago Bulls were staying and said he was told the pizza came from a now-defunct bar in the same mall.

"I have a friend who's a bartender there, Chris, and he's told the story from Day 1 that late at night they got a call. The owner of La Coda delivered the pizza himself," Otto said. "I don't know if it was two, three, four, five people - I just know the owner of the restaurant went up there that night, late night with the pizza run. And the night before, or two nights before, they brought $3,000 worth of alcohol up (to) the room on a bell cart for those guys."

Former Pizza Hut employee Craig Fite told 1280 The Zone's "The Big Show" on Monday that he made and delivered the pizza to Jordan himself. He also disputed claims that the pizza gave Jordan food poisoning.

"(Fite) might have delivered a pizza on another night, but Pizza Hut would've been closed ... '97 in the summertime here, everything closes early," Otto said.

As for the pizza causing Jordan's food poisoning, Otto said the pie "wasn't specifically made bad," but acknowledged it could've made the Bulls legend sick.

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