Michael Jordan has signed Lance Stephenson for three years, $27 million in order to bring a power house to his team, the Charlotte Hornets.

In an exclusive interview with ESPN's Darren Rovell, Jordan explained his reason for signing Stephenson. Where he commented that in order for his team to win a title, he needs to beat LeBron James. And the reason why he signed Stephenson is because he has a history of playing LeBron tough.

This is the excerpt of his conversation.

He said "We need someone that can compete against LeBron, simple as that. I don't know if the antics were one of those things. But the thing was, I love the way you compete against LeBron. To me that's a plus, because if you want to get out of the East, if you want to get past Cleveland - at the time it was Miami - you've got to beat LeBron. So we were willing to take a gamble on you if you're willing to take a gamble on us. Next thing you know he's with us."

Both players have met in the playoffs in each of the last three seasons. Stephenson's Pacers had lost all three of those series, but he played LeBron with a fearlessness you don't often see from young players.

The most popular antic that Stephenson did was to blew in LeBron's ear. Ray Allen has called the action as "buffoonery" while James, downplayed the incident.

He said "We put ourselves in a position to win tonight, and as competitors, as professionals , that's what we are. We need one more game to get to the Finals. All the extra, whatever Lance wants to deal with, I don't really care about that."

During an interview with Stephenson, he said that he regrets blowing in LeBron's ear saying "I feel like it overshadowed my play on the court. I bring more to the table than just blowing in someone's ear. I'm a great player."

He adds that he had gotten into LeBron shead as he started talking trash right after. He said "To me, I think it's a sign of weakness. He never used to say anything to me. I always used to be the one who said, 'I'm going to do something to get you mad.' Now he's trying to do it to me. So I feel like it's a weakness. I feel like I'm doing something right because I'm getting under his skin, but I've definitely got to keep stepping up to the plate and be more aggressive when he does that."