NBA
The Best in Sports: Michael Jordan Ep. 1-2
Showcasing the best things to know from the Michael Jordan "Last Dance" documentary premiere
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‘The Best in Sports’ is a daily PSO original series showcasing the best highlights, facts, and stories going on in the land of the NFL, NBA, & MLB every day. This is a special Michael Jordan Edition for Episodes 1-2 of “The Last Dance’ released on ESPN April 19, 2020. Get a recap on EVERYTHING that happened yesterday here.
Here are the best things to know about Michael Jordan & the Chicago Bulls from Episodes 1-2:
Michael Jordan is the most legendary athlete in sports history. While his physical gifts certainly helped him reach an unprecedented level of greatness, it was his mentality that guided him most through his historic career. When he got cut from the Varisty Basketball team as a Sophomore, his Mom said, “If you want it so much, work harder over summer for it.”
So MJ did exactly that as he gained four inches in height and developed his game religiously to quickly go from not making the team to becoming THE best player on the team. That continuous improvement never stopped and elevated him to a god-level status where people were convinced, “if you don’t go see Michael Jordan, you’re missing out on life.”
Many basketball fans knew Jerry Krause’s name during the 1990’s, but “The Last Dance” is reasserting his name into the spotlight, mostly as the villain. When discussing the legendary Bulls dynasty, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Phil Jackson all get their share of credit, but the GM does not, and that bothered Krause significantly. Even during the fifth Championship ring introductions, Krause got by far the lowest reception from the fans.
Krause poorly handed his insecurities as it led to resentment from the other leaders in the organization with MJ making fun of him in public for being short and asking if he took “diet pills.” Not to mention Krause’s public stance on Scottie Pippen being ‘tradable’ which the 7x All-Star took as an insult and “didn’t respect” Jerry for that. Even during the team’s highest moments of celebrating a Championship, Jordan took the chance to take a shot at Krause, jokingly telling Phil in the locker room “Don’t let Jerry get the trophy.”
As Steve Kerr put it, Jerry “couldn’t get out of his own way” and declared before the 1997-98 season that it would be the last such season Phil Jackson would be the Head Coach. Keep in mind, this was after Michael Jordan went out of his way in a Press Conference to say “I won’t play for another coach besides Phil Jackson.” Whether it was orders from the top (owner Jerry Reinsdorf) or directly from Krause himself, the dynasty ended because the organization essentially didn’t want to keep the then 5x Champs together (Phil, MJ, Pippen) and made it clear the 1997-98 season was “The Last Dance.”
Michael Jordan is known as the GOAT in general terms. However, that’s still up for debate in some circles. Yet nobody can really debate who the GOAT scorer is (MJ’s 30.1 PPG is the highest in NBA history). Nobody could score at will from anywhere on the floor quite like Michael. His ability to put the ball in the basket in a variety of ways and from an abundance of angles along with his patented fadeaways are what truly made him special. While he only played 17 NBA games during the 1993-95 seasons, he won 10 consecutive scoring titles when he did lace them up outside of that from 1986-1998.
A major catalyst for his scoring prowess was his rare leaping ability that put him on a level with no other player. It was truly “next level” according to fierce rival Isiah Thomas. He had an impressive ability to hang in the air, which elevated his finishing skills to the cream of the crop while his mid-range floater game became the stuff of legend. People began to notice this special physical trait which led to the birth of “Air Jordan,” the greatest scorer to ever play the game of basketball.
Michael Jordan is undoubtedly the best player in Chicago Bulls history and possibly ever, but “there is no Michael Jordan without Scottie Pippen” according to Jordan himself. It was Pippen’s mental sharpness, court awareness, and basketball savviness combined with his own natural athleticism and scoring ability that made him the “Greatest #2 player ever.“
His athleticism sometimes gets under appreciated, but his college tape shows off how physically gifted Pippen really was. There was an interesting scene from Pippen’s rookie year of him getting bullied/slapped by veteran Charles Oakley, but Pippen quickly emerged as a leader of the Bulls organization over the years after that.
However, like everybody part of the organization, Pippen also had a tumultuous falling out. After his previously referenced disliking toward Krause (in section #2 above), he then voiced his frustrations about his low salary by delaying his inevitable surgery after the summer that forced him to only play in 44 games during the 1997-98 season. Pippen then officially requested a trade due to tensions with the front office which Jordan believed was “selfish” of Pippen.
It’s hard to blame Pippen for his displeasure considering he was 1st on the team in assists (as a very underrated passer) and steals (as one of the best defenders in the NBA) while putting up the 2nd most points and rebounds, yet was only 6th in salary among Bulls players and somehow just 122nd in the NBA, despite being a clear-cut Hall of Famer. Through all the adversity, what will be remembered most is his history of winning which made Pippen the “Best teammate I ever had” according to Jordan.
While the “Last Dance” documentary mostly focuses on the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season, it features plenty of flashbacks that provide insight into Jordan’s earlier years, including when he first became a legend at the University of North Carolina. His Collegiate career couldn’t have started any better considering he won a National Championship as a Freshman thanks to his game-winning shot in the Championship game against Georgetown, winning 63-62. He quickly became the top player in College, winning National Player of the Year before heading to the draft before his Senior Season.
After a dominant College career, Michael Jordan didn’t slow down much in the NBA. He even confidently stated the transition to the NBA was going “pretty easy” which is hard to dispute, considering he won Rookie of the Year and was an instant MVP candidate thanks to a 28.2 PPG average on 51.5 FG% with 5.9 APG & 6.5 RPG. It became clear that while Magic Johnson and Larry Bird currently held the right to be called the best player(s) in the world, Jordan’s time would come soon.
Michael Jordan was pretty much the savior for the city of Chicago and the Bulls organization specifically. Before Jordan’s arrival, the Bulls never made it to the NBA Finals and it even got to a point where Chicago’s indoor soccer team had more fans.
MJ was instantly inserted into Chicago’s 80’s culture which gets detailed in the documentary with a scene of a hotel room being full of pretty much all kinds of drugs and most of his teammates getting involved in the extracurriculars. Michael, of course, didn’t succumb to the peer pressure. Jordan was fully committed to being as great of a player as possible and made smart decisions to avoid drugs and depart from scenes like that since he would be “as guilty as anyone in [t]here if it gets raided.” The mid-80’s Bulls were infamously known as the ‘Bulls Traveling Cocaine Circus‘ for these type of occurrences.
The greatness of Michael Jordan is on full display throughout this entire documentary, but it also shines light on some of his overlooked obstacles. A main one being the broken leg he suffered during his Sophomore campaign in the NBA that forced him to miss 64 games. A famous line came from this situation when the doctor told MJ he had a 10% chance the injury would end his career if he came back too soon. However, Jordan wanted no part in load management theories and even rehabbed at UNC without the Bulls knowledge.
There was a philosophical difference that became evident as Jordan said “organizations should never try to lose” but by the team sitting Jordan, Chicago could get a higher draft pick to set themselves up better for the future since “they weren’t going to win the Championship that year anyways.” The organization decided to strictly force a 14-minute/game restriction on Jordan upon his return. However, MJ said “fuck these guys man, give me the most important seven minutes in each half you can think of” to the coaching staff.
During his return game, he made a crazy floater that he altered mid-air that made it clear he’s still the same Air Jordan. With the final stretch of the season still needed to be played out, and considering Jordan “vowed to make the Playoffs every year,” MJ wanted to do everything possible to win these games. However, the organization threatened to fire the coach on the spot if he played Michael a single second over the 14min minutes restriction, which forced him to remove Jordan from a very close game with just 30 seconds left.
Fortunately, John Paxson stepped up with a game-winner and the Bulls made the Postseason with a 30-52 record ensuring MJ would make the Playoffs every year of his Chicago Bulls career (1985-98), and he would go on to have a historically dominant series just weeks after coming back from a major injury…
With a 30-52 record, the Bulls earned the 8 seed (out of 11) in the Eastern Conference, getting the right to face the eventual Champion Boston Celtics. Boston was full of length and size with extremely versatile bigs (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish were all 6’9 to 7’1). The 1985-86 Celtics team was the “best team I ever played with” according to reigning 3x MVP Larry Bird.
In that series, Jordan didn’t care how great the Celtics were. He took them head-on each and every game, putting on a dominant display in Games 1 & 2 in the TD Garden. In Game 1, he dropped 49 points while in Game 2 his 63 points set the NBA record that still stands today for the most points in a single Postseason game.
However, the Celtics were so effective, they still won both games. Their strategy was simple: “stop Jordan and make everyone else beat us.” That sounded good in theory, but the execution was anything but simple. Jordan’s legendary performances led Bird to giving him an all-time compliment, saying “That wasn’t Michael Jordan. That was God disguised as Michael Jordan.”
Everybody has their own unique approach as a leader and some of the greatest ones don’t always have the most pleasant approach. Jordan was no difference as he often used tough love as a way to motivate his team. The documentary shows scenes of him getting on guys first-hand, hoping to inspire better play out of his teammates. Jordan commanded the very best from everyone he played with, especially when Scottie Pippen was out during the 1997-98 season. His tough love approach is one of the reasons why Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan.
It seems obvious to call the Chicago Bulls the best team of the 1990’s, but the impact and influence they had might be underestimated. The NBA Commissioner David Stern referred to the ’90s Bulls as the “unquestioned greatest team in sports” because that’s exactly what they were. Nobody could dispute that. Everywhere they went came along hundreds of fans and cameras. There was non-stop attention and judgment for every move they made as they were ALWAYS in the spotlight, even on international soil. They were so great, ESPN even predicted a documentary of this magnitude would be made all the way back in 1998 😂.The brilliant SportsCenter commercial that was shown during #TheLastDance! pic.twitter.com/Lgw05XcZNG
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) April 20, 2020
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