Is Michael Jordan A Cheapskate?: Former Co-Worker Recalls His $5 Tips

Michael Jordan has built a reputation for a lot of things over the years. Winning. Competitiveness. Sneakers. Gambling. Being absolutely ruthless to anybody standing between him and a championship. But apparently, generosity at the tip jar might not always have been one of his strongest attributes. A resurfaced story from Jordan’s brief baseball career has people once again asking an amusing question that has followed the billionaire for years: is Michael Jordan cheap?

The latest story comes from Ken Dunlap, who worked as the visiting clubhouse manager for the Birmingham Barons when Jordan played Double-A baseball in 1994. Jordan famously stepped away from the Chicago Bulls following their first three-peat and spent the season trying his hand at professional baseball, hitting .202 with three home runs, 51 RBIs and 30 stolen bases. While Jordan was adjusting to minor-league life, Dunlap was one of the people behind the scenes handling some of the less glamorous responsibilities that came with having the most famous athlete in the world suddenly playing Double-A ball.

According to Dunlap, those responsibilities included making food runs, dealing with the enormous demand for Jordan autographs and even separately washing an old University of North Carolina undershirt that Jordan liked wearing underneath his uniform. But despite all the extra attention surrounding Jordan, Dunlap said MJ wasn’t exactly throwing money around afterward. Asked years later whether Jordan was a good tipper, Dunlap replied, “Michael was not a big tipper….if he tipped at all, it was $5.” He added that, relative to how much Jordan was making, he considered him a pretty bad tipper.

And if that story sounds familiar, it’s because Jordan has heard this accusation before. Charles Barkley famously told Conan O’Brien years ago that there was “nobody cheaper” than Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Barkley, who has long been known for leaving huge tips himself, even joked that Jordan and Tiger Woods stayed rich because they refused to tip like everybody else. Barkley also recalled Jordan discouraging him from giving money to homeless people, another story that helped build the image of MJ being a little tighter with his wallet than people might expect.

Wayne Gretzky reportedly got on Jordan about it too. According to former Hard Rock Hotel executive Rich Strafella, Jordan once gave a Las Vegas cocktail waitress a $5 chip while playing at a private table. Gretzky allegedly grabbed the chip, returned it to Jordan, took a $100 chip from Jordan’s stack and gave that to the waitress instead, telling him, “That’s how we tip in Las Vegas, Michael.” Whether Jordan appreciated the impromptu lesson is anybody’s guess, but the story has become one of the most famous examples used whenever his alleged cheapness comes up.

To be fair, there are plenty of stories pointing in the complete opposite direction. Former New York Knicks ball boy Chris Snowden has said Jordan was actually the best tipper among NBA stars he encountered and regularly took care of the ball boys when Chicago came to Madison Square Garden. Jordan also reportedly left more than $11,000 for the staff at a restaurant in Greece in 2025. And on a much larger scale, his charitable giving is undeniable: Jordan donated $10 million to Make-A-Wish in 2023, at the time the largest individual donation in the organization’s history, after working with the charity for more than three decades.

So is Michael Jordan actually a cheapskate? The answer probably depends on who you ask — and apparently what year you caught him. There are enough $5 tip stories floating around to understand where the reputation came from, especially when multiple people who spent time around Jordan have told similar tales. But there are just as many examples showing that MJ has been incredibly generous. Maybe the safest conclusion is that Jordan has always been extremely particular about where his money goes — even if, back in his Birmingham Barons days, that sometimes meant the clubhouse manager was only walking away with five bucks.

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