After ‘The Last Dance,’ the band broke up
Bulls’ final crowning glory preceded painful divorce
CHICAGO — The end was coming. The Bulls had known it for a long while, since the summer of 1997, when general manager Jerry Krause set coach Phil Jackson’s status in stone. One more season. No matter the result. And then? The end.
The end was coming. The Bulls were reminded of that at the first team meeting when Jackson distributed the team handbook with a laminated title page: “The Last Dance.”
The Bulls could be smothered by its presence and unnerved by the discomfort. Or they could acknowledge the end’s impending arrival, accept it and channel their focus toward winning another championship.
Michael Jordan had made it known he had no intention of continuing his legendary career with any coach other than Jackson. And, well, Krause essentially told his biggest star that was his own problem.
Thus, there was that attentiongrabbing story in the Chicago Tribune with Krause trying to defend himself but instead increasing the friction.
“If Michael chooses to leave because there is another coach here, then it is his choice, not ours,” Krause said.
The end stalked those Bulls for 5½ months and 82 regular-season games. Its presence only intensified during eight weeks of playoff series.
Nets. Hornets. Pacers. Then the NBA Finals versus the 62-win Jazz. But how would the saga end? With a repeat of the three-peat? With fatigue? With failure?
June 14, 1998
DELTA CENTER, Salt Lake City — Rewind to the final minute of Game 6 of an NBA Finals that had been fraught with suspense. Rewind to that slightly late defensive rotation; to that Karl Malone fastball from the left block to the right wing; to that catch-and-shoot dagger from John Stockton.
All nerve. All net. Jazz ahead 86-83. Only 41.9 seconds left. Timeout.
For those who might not have known better, the Bulls appeared to be in serious trouble. With seemingly little gas left in the tank and the daunting prospect of having to play their second Game 7 in three weeks. Against a spirited and fearless Jazz team that had gained full belief that the Bulls were vulnerable and beatable.
But then Michael Jordan did the whole Michael Jordan thing.
He knifed past Bryon Russell and rose above Antoine Carr for a layup with 37.1 seconds left. Bucket.
He sneaked up on Malone from behind and tomahawked the ball from Malone’s hands with 21.4 seconds left. Steal.
He dribbled the other way and let his teammates take position in the clear-the-hell-out offensive set. He caught Russell leaning, pushed off to create space off the dribble and fired a 17-foot jump shot. Conquest.
Aside from one Scottie Pippen inbounds pass during that sequence — from Bulls down three to in control of the championship — no other Bulls player touched the ball.
Finally, when Stockton’s potential game-winning 3-pointer just before the final horn caromed off the inside of the front rim, then off the backboard and was swatted away by Toni Kukoc, it was over.
Jordan thrust his open left hand and the index finger of his right hand into the air. No words were needed. Just fingers counting history. Six!
This was the storybook ending. The triumph. The joy. The relief. “Michael Jordan is as great a competitor as sports has ever seen,” Bob Costas said on the NBC broadcast. “He also has an uncanny sense of theater.”
Still, the euphoria of the moment lasted only seven minutes before the first questions about the future arose. The championship presentation stage was set up, and Ahmad Rashad took his “What’s next?” shots, one at a time.
Would the Bulls truly consider running it all back for one more season? Would they put all their effort and energy and resources into a reunion for 1998-99?
“On behalf of millions of Bulls fans all over the world,” owner Jerry Reinsdorf proclaimed, “I can only hope and pray that Michael and Scottie will come back and defend the championship one more time.”
Krause’s answer was less openended. “Well, tonight all I want to do is celebrate and have fun, and we’re going to talk later on,” he said. “But this is a great occasion.”
Jackson’s thoughts on a possible return? His squinty-eyed laugh said it all.
“Gee, that’s a great question, Ahmad,” Jackson said. “I’ll dodge that one right now. Thanks.”
That left only Jordan, who had scored 45 points and won his sixth NBA Finals MVP. He asserted this had been the toughest of his six championships and described how the Bulls had again escaped and prevailed.
“This team is one,” Jordan said. “Our leadership is strong. Our leadership is very positive, very determined, and it filters down to the rest of the players. We never let anybody give up. We believed in it and we kept coming for it.”
Still, Rashad had his obligation to press. He’d asked everybody if they’re all going to come around and try to do this again.
“I would love for that to happen,” Jordan said. “That’s something that’s going to have to be determined over summer.”
June 16, 1998
PETRILLO MUSIC SHELL, Chicago — The city still was intoxicated from the joy from two nights earlier. The mobs that turned out at Grant Park for the sixth NBA championship rally in eight summers mostly wanted to celebrate on a sun-kissed Tuesday morning.
The crowd, estimated by the mayor’s office that day at 300,000, sang along to that perfectly cheesy “Only the Bulls” anthem. They brought creative signs filled with rings and trophies. “Six of 1, a half-dozen of the other.”
They watched Jake and Elwood — the “Bulls Brothers” — alter the lyrics to “Soul Man.”
I’m a Bulllls faaannnn … They marveled at a flyover of military planes — six of them, naturally.
And they started a heartfelt chant of “One more year! One more year!”
The delight was still too fresh and too powerful to consider the possibility that it was all ending abruptly and awkwardly. Steve Kerr still cracked wise. Dennis Rodman said there was only one way he would give up his single status: “If I had to marry anybody, it would be these 12 guys right here.”
Quipped Jackson: “I volunteer Tex (Winter).”
Still, when the men who mattered most spoke, the messages felt mixed.
Jackson, who already had cashed in on borrowed time, felt no urge to beg for his job yet again. He threw a subtle jab at Krause, the general manager who had been nudging him toward the exit for years — after the fourth championship and again after the fifth.
Krause’s odd burning desire to start all over with a new coach and a new nucleus of players had been delayed for that 1997-98 season. The Bulls responded by winning another title.
“I want to thank Jerry Krause for giving us the opportunity to do it,” Jackson said. “He had another plan. But he put it aside. Thanks, Jerry.”
The sarcasm was thick. Jackson also left little doubt he was finished in Chicago.
“This was our last dance,” he said. “And it was a wonderful waltz. Thank you all.”
A few minutes later, Jordan couldn’t bring himself to fully lock the door his coach had just closed.
“I know a lot of people didn’t think we’d end up back in Grant Park this year,” Jordan said. “And nobody knows if we’re going to be here in Grant Park next year. But the one thing that I do know is my heart, my soul and my love has always gone to the city of Chicago. … I just hope and pray that we can have an opportunity to once again share this type of enjoyment in the city of Chicago.”
It was, at best, wishful thinking. Still, it triggered another chant in Grant Park.
“We want seven! We want seven!”
July 16, 1998
KEMPER LAKES GOLF CLUB, Kildeer, Ill. — Jordan spent that day puffing on cigars, enjoying the summer breeze and scrambling to an 84 at the Ameritech Senior Open Pro-Am. Thirtytwo days had passed since that magical, title-clinching night in Utah. But already so much had unfolded.
On June 22, Jackson made his latest departure declaration, clearing out his office at the Berto Center in Deerfield and riding his motorcycle from the Bulls facility for the final time.
“It’s my time to go,” Jackson told reporters. “It’s the right time.”
Nine days later, NBA owners implemented a lockout as salary disagreements with the players union escalated.
The Bulls, meanwhile, began interviewing potential coaches. Tim Floyd. Scott Skiles. Paul Silas. Ron Rothstein. Rick Carlisle.
Jordan could read the writing on the wall. He was no doubt headed for his second retirement.
“I feel that way right now,” Jordan told reporters at the golf course. “Ask me in two or three months and I may change.”
Jordan still had little interest in starting with a new coach or evolving to mesh with new systems or philosophies. His allegiance was to Jackson. And after 14 years, the disgruntlement and bitterness he felt toward management had become cumulative.
Just a year earlier, as Jordan had pushed for one more season with the Bulls, the contract negotiations proved alarmingly rigid. After the 1996-97 season, he simply wanted a bump in pay as a show of thanks.
Yet before Jordan and the Bulls finally agreed to a $33.1 million deal for the 1997-98 season, Reinsdorf had proved ferocious in the game of tug of war.
Later, in his book “For the Love of the Game,” Jordan bristled at that treatment and emphasized what his position had been.
“I’m not out here trying to rob you,” he recalled telling Reinsdorf. “I want you to know I have lived up to my end of the bargain. I did my job, and all I’m asking for is a raise. That could be a dollar or that could be $6 million. I just want an acknowledgement from you that I did my job.”
A year later, at Kemper Lakes, he was clearly leaning toward walking away.
July 23, 1998
UNITED CENTER, Chicago — Honestly, Tim Floyd was doing his best, an eager 44-year-old coach coming off a 12-18 season at Iowa State and trying to ease his way into an organization that had established itself as the gold standard in basketball but still was sorting through its internal drama.
Floyd was Krause’s latest discovery, courted well in advance of when he was actually needed. Now he was being introduced to the Chicago media. Jordan had no desire to play for him.
Best of luck, Tim. Knock ’em dead.
“Give me a chance,” Floyd told the gathered reporters on his first day as a Chicago Bulls employee. But in what role exactly? That’s where the day’s weirdness escalated.
Reinsdorf announced Floyd as the next Bulls coach, what had been assumed by so many to be a fait accompli for years. But wait …
Maybe Floyd wouldn’t actually be the coach for that next season?
That’s how Reinsdorf framed his opening remarks. That Floyd was the next Bulls coach — but not quite yet.
At that point, until the Bulls knew for sure what Jordan’s status was and where Jackson stood, Floyd was in limbo as director of basketball operations.
“The position of head coach of the Chicago Bulls is not going to be filled at this time,” Reinsdorf said. “It will be left open, perhaps until the end of the lockout.”
Wait, the news conference to announce the next coach was also to announce that the coaching position was not being filled?
Reinsdorf, with Krause as his right-hand man, was making a bold, last-second attempt to pitch the hot potato to Jackson or Jordan. The coach and the superstar, the Jerrys implied, would have to be the ones to officially pull the plug on the Bulls dynasty.
“If Phil Jackson changes his mind and decides to return,” Reinsdorf said, “Michael can have the coach that he and we have always wanted him to have.”
A year earlier, Krause told Jackson directly that there was no chance he would be back after the 1997-98 season. Just five months earlier, Krause went on record with an ultimatum for Jordan.
“We would like to have Michael back,” he had said. “But Michael is going to have to play for someone else. It isn’t going to be Phil.”
Suddenly, though, the Bulls brass pushed to imply that the ball was back in Jackson’s court. Or Jordan’s? It was a move widely identified as a transparent and tacky charade.
Said Floyd: “If Phil wanted to come back and coach this basketball team, I’ll step completely away. I know this much: I was not about to take this job if I thought that it would prevent in any way Michael Jordan’s return to the game.”
The next day, somewhere in Montana, Jackson provided yet another “Thanks but no thanks” rejection. “This story is sealed,” Jackson said.
Jan. 13, 1999
UNITED CENTER, Chicago — Before the news conference began, Dan Patrick said on ESPNews that it felt like a wake, “a televised funeral.”
Jordan joked that he wanted to start and finish his final news conference as a Bulls guard with just two words: I’m gone.
Instead, he announced his retirement and took questions for 45 minutes.
The NBA lockout had been settled the previous week. An abbreviated regular season was set to begin in early February. And, well, Jordan and the Bulls simply had to go their separate ways.
“This has to be the toughest day in the history of the Chicago Bulls,” said Reinsdorf, who seemed crestfallen. “It’s a tough day for Chicago. It’s a tough day for the NBA. It’s a tough day for basketball fans all over the world.”
Jordan proclaimed in that moment that he would remain in Chicago for the rest of his life and didn’t reject the possibility of aiding the Bulls in some capacity. At once, Jordan seemed both eager to move on and not yet ready to leave.
“You’re giving up something that you truly, truly love,” he said. “My love for the game is very strong. And it’s hard to give up that love.”
Jordan was asked what he saw ahead for the Bulls without him and whether they could possibly carry on the legacy he had established.
“It presents a challenge for them to live up to the standards that we have brought here in the city of Chicago,” he said. “It’s part of the challenge for Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf and Tim Floyd to maintain that. And I think they welcome that challenge. And that’s good.”
Feb. 5, 1999
DELTA CENTER, Salt Lake City — The Bulls began their first game of the lockout-shortened season on a Friday night in the same building in which the previous season had ended so triumphantly.
By that time, the only players remaining from the 1998 titlists were Kukoc, Ron Harper, Bill Wennington, Randy Brown, Dickey Simpkins and Rusty LaRue.
Jackson was secluded in Montana. Jordan was working on his golf game. Pippen was traded to the Rockets. Rodman’s contract expired. Kerr was dealt to the Spurs, Luc Longley to the Suns.
That post-Jordan era began with the Bulls aiming to build around Kukoc and Brent Barry.
Despite Kukoc’s game-high 32 points, the Bulls fell to the Jazz 104-96, their first loss in a 13-37 season.
Floyd made it only 25 games into his fourth season before he resigned with a record in Chicago of 49-190.
After taking that shortened 1999 season off, Jackson returned to coaching with the Lakers in the fall, won 67 games in his first season back and won five more NBA championships in two stints in Los Angeles.
Krause resigned from his GM position with the Bulls in 2003, citing health problems.
“I take great pride in what we’ve accomplished here,” he said in a statement. “… I’m very confident that we have assembled the key pieces so that the franchise can return to the NBA’s elite teams in the very near future.”
Since their last championship, the Bulls have missed the playoffs in 10 of 21 seasons (not including this one) and been as far as the conference finals only once.
For years now, there has been an acceptance that the Bulls were forced into their last dance, that management’s push to start anew created an unhealthy clash of egos and pride that prematurely ended the team’s reign. That, naturally, always has come with questions as to whether the Bulls’ six championships could have become, at the very least, seven.
For better or worse, that curiosity never will be satisfied.
Still, all these years later, the dynamics within that team seem to offer hints. With Jordan aging and tiring; with Krause and Jackson feuding; with Pippen feeling increasingly disrespected; with the energy required to pursue a championship, they seemed emotionally spent, like a group that had reached the end.
In January 1999, Reinsdorf openly wondered if the end arrived the way it was supposed to.
“On the one hand it’s sad to see it come to an end, but on the other I’d rather (it happen) that way than see us defeated. As a fan you have to really like that Michael retired as the equivalent of the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world.
“By retiring, the legend grows and grows and people will say we could have won nine, 10 championships in a row if he’d stayed. And the fact is we wouldn’t have. The dynasty would have ended some day with somebody defeating us. Now we can say the dynasty ended because we were done.”