The Last Dance continued last night with episodes seven and eight. These, to me, were the most interesting of the whole documentary. These episodes dealt with some of the more fascinating aspects of Michael Jordan‘s career. From his father’s death, to his departure from the NBA to play minor league baseball, to eventually coming back to the Bulls, these episodes delved right into all of that.
The thing that I kept wondering about is something that we do all the time in the year 2020. “Can you imagine if these things that Jordan did was happening the way social media is today?” The answer is it’s tough to think anything besides that it would be non-stop coverage of Jordan’s career moves. If Jordan was playing today and decided to hang’em up to play baseball, there would probably be another ESPN channel created following his every move. You can even make the argument that Jordan wouldn’t even want to follow his boyhood dream because of how much of a circus it would be in 2020. It was a circus in ’93. It would be a hundredfold worse.
Episode Seven
– Episode Seven opens up with Jerry Krause stating that there is no backstabbing going on with the Bulls. You know how I know that everyone in the locker room is at each other’s throats and that there is backstabbing? You get fired up at a Craig Sager question, freak out, and tell everyone that there is no backstabbing, and the notion that there is backstabbing is dumb.
– Jordan told people that he was going to retire and play baseball a year before he did. He wanted to play one more year, do the Olympics and that was it. So, that means that it wasn’t all due to his father’s death.
– Obviously, Jordan’s dad being murdered had an impact on him that shaped him even further as a person even more than he already was. I was seven when this was happening and I remember this being a major story that was all over the place. What I forgot was that Jordan’s dad was missing for three weeks. I can’t imagine what Jordan and his family were going through for those weeks. How can you not think the worst at all times? People don’t just go away for three weeks and then pop up and say that I was just hanging out.
– Turns out, Jordan’s dad, James, was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was robbed and killed by two 18-year-old pieces of garbage. It could have been any one of us. He wasn’t even targeted because he was Michael Jordan’s father. So fucked up. Credit to Michael and his family for doing everything they could to turn James Jordan’s death into a positive. I’ll never understand how anybody could be able to do that in these types of circumstances.
– The media, being the media, did the Jordan family wrong by insinuating that Jordan’s gambling issues were somehow responsible for Jordan’s father’s death. Shitty on them, but definitely in their wheelhouse.
– It wasn’t too long after Jordan’s father’s death that he came out and announced his retirement from the NBA and would now try and be a baseball player for the Chicago White Sox. I thought it was interesting that Stern was there. I don’t recall ever seeing any commissioner attend a player’s retirement press conference but this was Michael Jordan.
– During the press conference, Jordan flat out says that the door is always open for him to return. That pretty much told everyone that Jordan’s career in the NBA isn’t truly over. Here’s the whole thing;
– I’m glad they talked about the conspiracy that Jordan was being suspended by David Stern due to his gambling issues and that’s why Jordan left the NBA. I never bought this theory and I’m a guy who loves a good conspiracy theory.
This theory never jived with me because if you’re David Stern and you’re capable of pulling off shenanigans to land Patrick Ewing to the Knicks because the league needed to make more money, then why would you get rid of your biggest moneymaker? That’s it. That’s my answer to the conspiracy theory. I think the combination of Jordan having always wanted to play baseball, along with his father’s death and the fact that he was burnt out from the grind of the NBA is what led to him to this decision.
– Here’s me reacting to Jeremy Piven calling Tom Brady to the Tamp Bay Buccaneers;
– Jordan had to go AA because the lower-level leagues weren’t able to hold that much media. I didn’t know that. Makes sense.
– Jordan began his minor league career with a 13-game hitting streak. Then, the Pedro Serrano effect took over and it became apparent, that like the rest of us, it’s really damn hard to hit a curveball.
– Life without Jordan wasn’t terrible for Pippen and the Bulls. You could tell that everyone felt like the big bad bully was gone and now they can actually have fun at practice. The problem was, they weren’t anywhere near as good. Kukoc blossomed but it wasn’t enough.
– Holy Shit? Scottie Pippen took himself out of that playoff game. I never knew this and man it really paints Pippen even worse than he already looks in this documentary. Pippen didn’t like that Phil was drawing up a play for Toni Kukoc for the last-second shot. Scottie got all butthurt and refused to go into the game. It’s indefensible and the rest of the team never looks at him the same again. They may say they forgive him, but how could you really? If Jordan was there, no way that would happen but I guess if Jordan is there, Phil isn’t looking for Kukoc to take the last shot.
– Bill Cartwright addresses the team afterward and is in tears about what happened. I feel like Cartwright was more of a glue guy than he’s given credit. Oh yeah, Kukoc buries the shot and the Bulls win the game.
– This episode ends with B.J. Armstrong talking Jordan at practice. He says that Jordan being nice wouldn’t get the results that he wanted, which was to win titles. Jordan had to ride his teammates and figure out what guys he could trust in the big games. That was the point. Again, makes sense if you’re MJ.
Episode Eight
– Naturally, the episode starts with you guessed it B.J. Armstrong. B.J. was now on the Hornets and he apparently knew how to beat the Bulls. I wish he let everyone know what it took to beat them. I think it was the ultra-rare plan of making more baskets than the other team. Armstrong had that great game two. He made the final shot to seal the win and then stared down the entire Bulls roster.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsYall I remember when BJ Armstrong cooked the Bulls in game 2 of the 1996 playoffs? Then he would hit the entire bench with a stare down after every shot he hit! ??? pic.twitter.com/0ZcvBCNgdT
— MC (@djmontecarlo) May 1, 2020
– Jordan, who is constantly on the lookout for anything at all to motivate him, takes B.J.’s stare down to heart and precedes to kill the Hornets in the next three games.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMichael Jordan on Hornets guard BJ Armstrong’s shot to beat the Bulls in the playoffs in 1998: “I felt like BJ should know better, you know, I’m supposed to kill this guy, I’m supposed to dominate this guy. And from that point on, I did.” #LastDance
— WFNZ-AM/FM (@wfnz) May 11, 2020
Yeah, B.J. should have known better.
– B.J. should have known about Jordan’s career and his desire to be pissed off at stuff when he completely fabricated a story about LaBradford Smith telling him, “Nice game,” after he scored 37 points against the Bulls. Jordan said he’d score what Smith scored in the first half the next night when they played again. He scored 36 and I’m sure MJ was super annoyed. That’s what made Jordan so damn good. Finding different things to motivate after he already knew he was better than everyone else. To take a line out of George Costanza’s book;
– The episode cuts to ’95 and Jordan’s career is at a crossroads. He’s starting to attend Bulls’ practices and even plays B.J. Armstrong one-on-one. It was reported that he went to three practices in one week and yep, Michael Jordan has had enough of baseball and was going back to the NBA.
– The documentary doesn’t get into to much detail about what ultimately led to Jordan ‘s baseball career ending. I’m sure it was a combination of factors such as not being very good at baseball and knowing there’s a ton more money to be made playing basketball. I think one of the reasons that don’t get enough publicity is that Jordan knew the NBA was more watered down from when he left in ’93. Expansion diluted the talent pool and there were championships just hanging out there. Jordan saw that and pounced.
– In the midst of the Bulls not doing well without Michael, Scottie Pippen threw a chair on the court. They show just a small clip of it and never talk about it. If that happened today, Scottie would be suspended and possibly kicked out of North America. Here’s another video of it;
– Jordan’s career in the NBA begins again. he’s wearing #45 and his shorts are on backward.
– Jordan was nowhere near his 100 percent. He was at around 85 percent, which is still better than pretty much everyone else. The Bulls got to the playoffs and Jordan was getting back into a worthy rhythm. He dropped 55 on the Knicks in a playoff game. I loved watching the John Starks guarding Jordan highlights. Starks looks like me out there trying to guard MJ. He’s on skates the whole time.
– The Bulls eventually lost to the Orlando Magic. That Magic team was good. Early Shaq and Penny and they had former Bull Horace Grant who was starting to become a thing. He played very well against the Bulls. Nick Anderson stole the ball from Jordan and that was it. As you could imagine, Jordan used this as fuel the following season.
– If I had to pick an early winner from this whole documentary, I might give it to Horace Grant. Nothing too negative was said about him besides potentially being a snitch to Sam Smith and he’s being portrayed as a much better player than he’s been given credit for. On top of all that, he seems like a real nice guy that you most certainly don’t want to trifle with.
– Oh yeah, Nick Anderson saying 45 isn’t 23. Guess how Michael handled that?
– They cut to the set of Space Jam and they made Jordan an enormous bubble for him to practice in. Inside, Jordan invited a bunch of NBA players to come and play pickup games. That had to be awesome to see. I wish there was more footage of these games of the NBA elite playing against each other where they’re calling their own fouls.
– I wonder where they got the inspiration for the Danny Devito’s character in Space jam?
– We all were hoping that we would talk about the Steve Kerr Jordan fight and they did.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMichael Jordan breaks down exactly how he ended up punching Steve Kerr in the face during Bulls practice. Afterward we discuss the difference between then, when a fight could go largely unnoticed, and now, where if a guy subtweets his teammate, there is large-scale FREAKING OUT. pic.twitter.com/DHwcDQ2dnm
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) May 5, 2020
I’m fine with all of this. Jordan knew what he was doing and he knew he had to see if Kerr had what it takes. Jordan ends up saying that Kerr got his respect. Kerr said it ended up being a good thing. Not every one that Jordan rode in practice made it. Kerr did and it worked out for everybody.
– The Bulls are playing the SuperSonics in the ’96 Finals. He’s out to dinner and he sees George Karl and Karl snubs him and never says a word to him. You can guess what happens next. Jordan uses that diss as fuel to take out the Sonics. Shouldn’t have done that George.
– This may be the greatest sign of all time
– Gary Payton played pretty good defense on Jordan. It wasn’t enough but he played well on him.
With only two installments of The Last Dance left, I think we just saw the two best episodes. Episodes seven and eight dealt with stuff that we all wanted to hear and know. Jordan’s career took a complete 180 in ’93. We’ve only seen less than a handful of athletes career dramatically shit like Jordan’s career did. I’m sure this will end great next Sunday and then we’ll be back to doing nothing some more.
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