The Last Dance has right moves

I hadn’t planned on writing about the release of “The Last Dance,” chronicling Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls teams of the 1990s, but after viewing Sunday night’s first episode … well, I couldn’t help myself.

Big props to the folks at ESPN and Netflix for going ahead and releasing this 10-part documentary, which was originally going to come out in June. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, and with everything shut down, the bigwigs decided to let us get a glimpse of an era gone by.

Some context here: This documentary focuses on the Bulls’ last championship season — 1997-98 — of the Jordan era, but it really goes back to the very beginnings when Chicago drafted Jordan out of the University of North Carolina.

Some more context: In the 1990s, I was a huge NBA fan, having cheered for Michael Jordan’s return to the game in 1995 (wearing No. 45 instead of his usual No. 23) after a brief love affair with baseball. I also rooted against him in the NBA finals twice when the Bulls played the Utah Jazz in the 1997 and 1998 finals, mainly because I wanted to see the Jazz’s historic combo of John Stockton and Karl Malone win an NBA title. Thanks to Michael Jordan, they didn’t.

As of this writing, I’ve only watched Part I of the documentary. Part II is waiting on me later this week in the DVR. Two more episodes will air each week on ESPN the next several weeks until May 17 when the final two episodes run.

To show you that this is no normal documentary and how special it is, there have been many stories written about the documentary and some that are reaction pieces as well.

Included in that was the tremendous piece “Bulls’ last tango” written by Bob Holt in Sunday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in which he gives the Arkansas connection of these Bulls teams, including Hamburg native and Central Arkansas graduate Scottie Pippen, current UA basketball assistant coach Corey Williams, UALR head basketball coach Darrell Walker and former Razorback star and restaurant owner Joe Kleine.

If you’re a sports fan, a Michael Jordan fan, a fan of the NBA days of the 1990s, I recommend reading the article at www.nwadg.com, and then going and watching the documentary.

We haven’t had a lot to look forward to in the sports world in several weeks now, but The Last Dance is something that will touch people in ways you can’t imagine.

— Graham Thomas is the managing editor for the Herald-Leader. He can be reached at gthomas@nwadg.com. The opinions expressed are those of the author.