DOESN’T SIT WELL
Pizza story and other upsetting items from ‘The Last Dance’
The Michael Jordan documentary wrapped up Sunday and here’s the final verdict: good, not great. Charles Barkley, not Michael Jordan.
The highest bar for recent documentaries is HBO’s “Diego Maradona,” which complemented its tremendous footage with a fearless and honest look at a megastar’s vast indiscretions. “The Last Dance” spent more time (10 episodes) covering less. It was the Disney version — a fitting ode to the greatest basketball player of all time, with little desire of attacking his human flaws with meaningful investigation.
Again, it was highly enjoyable and, for the ’80s babies like myself, nostalgic. Oftentimes the classic games and footage are under- whelming, leaving us to wonder whether the finely-tuned modern athletes would simply physically overwhelm their predecessors. Not with Jordan. He would dominate today’s NBA and tomorrow’s. The documentary served as a reminder.
But as “The Last Dance” earns its widespread praise and a new generation learns Jordan was more than a sneaker, I do want to highlight four disappointing aspects about the ESPN production, with an emphasis on the last four episodes:
NO MENTION OF JUANITA
How can you do a 10-part deep dive into a person without mentioning his home life? A small cameo for his adult children in the final episode and that’s it. There are many reasons Jordan wouldn’t have wanted to go in that that direction. In 1985, Jordan’s eventual wife – Juanita – was pregnant and filed a paternity suit against the basketball star because he denied being the father of the unborn child. Then they were married for 17 years, amid rumors of Jordan’s rampant infidelity. He admitted paying an aspiring actress $250,000 in hush money. He allegedly taught Tiger Woods how to womanize.
“I told (Woods), ‘Stay away from that son of a b—— [Jordan], because he doesn’t have anything to offer to the f—-ing world in which he lives except playing basketball,” John Merchant, who was Woods’ former lawyer and advisor, told Vanity Fair.
This side of Jordan wasn’t mentioned, let alone detailed, in the documentary. Juanita was never brought up. She wasn’t interviewed and barely seen. Instead, “The Last Dance” tried to force Jordan’s emotional and compassionate side by diving into his relationship with a security guard. His children made brief cameos in the final episode.
PIZZA STORY
The unchecked claimed that Jordan got food poisoning from Utah pizza before the NBA Finals has more holes than White House press briefing. According to the documentary, five people delivered a pizza to his Utah hotel room in the middle of the night. The implication was that these man – perhaps Jazz fans or affiliated with the Jazz – poisoned this pizza.
“I ate the pizza,” Jordan said. “All by myself. Nobody else ate the pizza. I wake up about 2:30 throwing up left and right.”
Jordan then famously dominated Game 5 of the 1997 Finals, obviously ill and near collapse. He was deemed a hero for the “Flu Game” effort, but the story about the pizza wasn’t told until the documentary.
So first of all, it’s hard to believe Jordan used his real name at this hotel and five employees from this anonymous pizza parlor all showed up at his door. Second of all, Jordan is now claiming that he was poisoned – perhaps purposefully – and there was never an investigation? Never a mention until 23 years later?
It sounds unbelievable, and convenient. The documentary didn’t offer much beyond the interviews of Jordan and his trainer.
KNICKS SLIGHT
Jordan buried the Knicks on the court and dunked on them in the documentary.
“If I had to pick a team that gave us the toughest time in the East, Indiana was probably the toughest, outside of Detroit,” Jordan said.
Admittedly, this line isn’t a big deal and doesn’t detract from the documentary. But as a native New Yorker, it’s offensive. There’s no way the Pacers were a tougher out than the Knicks.
Yeah, the Bulls-Pacers series in 1998 went seven games, but few thought Indiana could pull out the decisive contest. The Knicks took the Bulls to seven games in 1992, and, a year later, became the only team to hold a 2-0 series lead over the Bulls during their championship runs.
A Charles Smith layup would’ve effectively buried the Bulls in 1993. The Pacers never came that close.
Give them their due!
GLORIFYING OF JORDAN’S BULLYING
We all knew Jordan being a demanding teammate. We knew he was an insanely intense competitor. Sometimes that meant he was a jerk, and we don’t know much about Jordan being a jerk.
But just as the documentary began diving into his tyrannical side, it turned into a sneaker ad.
“That was my mentality. If you don’t want to play that way, don’t play that way,” Jordan said before tearing up. “Break.”
End scene.
Okay, calling a teammate a ‘ho’ and punching Steve Kerr is not some great burden worthy of sympathy. There are different ways to lead and some of the greatest champions – Wayne Gretzky, Pele, Steph Curry and Tim Duncan, for instance – didn’t feel the need to humiliate others.
There’s no problem with Jordan busting chops. It was entertaining and revealing. But the fact that the documentary tried to fit it in the ‘Be Like Mike’/Gatorade/ Nike/Space Jam persona was the biggest indicator that the subject had editorial control.