Lasting thoughts on the last episodes of “The Last Dance” …
• In the final minutes of the Bulls/Michael Jordan documentary, there is much talk about whether the club could have run it back in 1998-99 with the same cast to take a shot at a seventh championship. Michael says he believes that, if the organization was willing, he could have gotten all the players and coaches to come back.
From the look of things up close at that time, I’d have to rate that possibility as highly doubtful. Too many trust bridges had been burned. Nuked even. Owner Jerry Reinsdorf had the power to make general manager Jerry Krause go back on his preseason statement that, no matter what the season’s result, this would be Phil Jackson’s last year as head coach. But could Jordan really have gotten Scottie Pippen to sign a one-year deal when there was so much more to be made elsewhere? Hard to see that happening.
Krause eventually helped Pippen by making it a sign-and-trade move with Houston, which got Scottie significantly more than he would have received in a straight free agent transaction.
Jordan already had his money. Pippen, through his own choice to take longer deals for security rather than being able to negotiate new contracts when his leverage improved, had yet to have his most serious payday. So, easy for Michael to say.
But even Jordan was wary of the situation in Chicago. The mistrust ran deeper than Lake Michigan.
The documentary shows Michael watching on a tablet the interview in which Reinsdorf states that bringing back the same team would have been “suicidal,” because “their market value individually was going to be too high. They weren’t going to be worth the money they were going to get in the market.”
Jordan watches this with a facial tone of both doubt and bemusement.
And that feeling was heard well before the end of that season.
Michael was preparing for another contract when I approached him with an idea. Before I laid it out, I got him to promise only that if he used the plan, the Herald would have the story. The idea was that he would play for the NBA veteran minimum that year in order for the Bulls to properly pay the players he needed around him. Any money lost in direct contract dollars would be more than balanced by even greater endorsements in his enhanced status as a team player.
Jordan pondered the concept for a few seconds and said, yeah, he’d be willing to do the contract thing, but he couldn’t be sure the club would spend the saved money.
Clearly there were some larger issues in play here.
So while Krause was the most convenient target, at least partially because of what he brought on himself through insecurity and some poorly chosen remarks, the dismantling of those Bulls ultimately wasn’t his call to make.
Former Celtic GM Jan Volk missed the first episodes of the documentary and chose not to watch the rest after hearing how the now-deceased Krause was being portrayed. I told Volk my Jordan story and what it seemed to indicate about the situation going beyond his peer’s purview.
“General managers don’t break up teams on their own initiative,” Volk said. “Somebody above their pay grade makes the decision that we need to restart, we need to reset. The general manager may participate in it, but they don’t make that decision.”
• The Bulls got to air their anger with the Pistons throughout the docuseries, while Isiah Thomas, clearly stung by his omission from the ’92 Olympic Dream Team, never hit back in the same way.
But I can tell you those Bad Boys teams had just as much dislike for the Bulls as vice versa. They thought Chicago a whiny bunch who never showed proper respect.
It’s not hard to read between the lines in a discussion with Thomas conversation that ran in the Herald a few years ago.
“I hope people in Boston realize how much we learned from the Celtics and loved the Celtics,” said Isiah. “They were great teachers.”
He went on later, “If you watch the ’30 for 30 Bad Boys,’ every person that talked about the Celtics, they gave them tremendous respect, huge respect. And to this day, any time you talk to one of us about the Celtics, we thank them and we credit them, because while we were competing, they were teaching. And it was great.
“We were a really completive group of guys, and I think they loved that competition – and they loved teaching us lessons. And we wanted to win, so we kept learning and we kept coming back.”
• Those 1998 playoffs hold special memories for some, but they’re a bit hard to forget for me, as well. According to my travel and assignment calendar, I flew out to Chicago on May 16 for the start of the Pacers-Bulls conference finals. After Game 7 on May 31, I skipped the first two games of the Bulls-Jazz finals in Utah and stayed in Chicago to cover Celtic interests in the predraft camp. I picked up that series when it returned to town for Games 3, 4 and 5 and followed it back to Salt Lake City for the Bulls’ Game 6 clincher on June 14.
The next day was my 31st straight day on the road. Not being particularly conscientious on some matters, I’d maybe thrown a few bills on the kitchen counter a while back, so I returned home to find my cable TV service suspended and the electricity about to be shut off.
So while many look elsewhere for the greatest invention of our lifetime, excuse me if I cast my vote for online banking.
• The Bulls won their last three championships as residents of the United Center, but I retain a soft spot in my heart for Chicago Stadium. It had the dive bar charm of the old Garden here, only with a better seating configuration.
But when I first started covering games there, things were done on the cheap. They used to put the court down right on top of the ice, no plywood or other insulation. From the court to the hockey boards, there was just rubber-backed carpeting beneath the chairs. Sitting at the press table, you could get some seriously cold feet. After the first visit, I switched from shoes to sneakers … with two pairs of socks.
“That place was freezing,” said Kevin McHale. “That and the Philadelphia (Spectrum) – those two places were so cold. That’s honestly what I remember about both those places. It felt so cold when you went up at first, and then it started to warm up a little when the fans came in.”
Fun fact: The gates of the old Stadium were numbered 1 through 3 on one side and 4 through 6 on the other. So when they decided a name was needed for the press gate by the loading dock, it was named 3 1/2.
Keeping with tradition, the media entrance at the United Center, though up on the main street, is also designated as Gate 3 1/2.
• Prior to Sunday’s final installments, I tweeted my firm belief that Phil Jackson had chosen “The Last Dance” for his 1997-98 season folder based on the title of The Band’s final concert/documentary, “The Last Waltz.”
The CBS crew in 1989-90 had used the latter as an internal motto for the final season of its 17-year run as the NBA’s main network partner. There were some T-shirts created to mark the occasion, and one gifted by legendary producer Mike Burks remains a prized possession.
• Don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to ESPN’s documentary on Lance Armstrong that begins airing next Sunday.
Can’t wait to see how they figure a way to blame Jerry Krause.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
