From MJ’s grudges to The Sniff Bros.
23 moments to watch for from ESPN’s ‘Last Dance’ documentary
His voice is starting to crack. Michael Jordan is struggling to fight back a tear. The 14-time NBA All-Star, a five-time league MVP and six-time champion is now in his mid-50s, reflecting on what it all meant to him.
In this particular moment, a defining scene within the ESPN Films documentary “The Last Dance,” Jordan is attempting to explain his wiring, ruminating on who he was and how he was perceived as a teammate.
“Look,” he says, his passion emanating. “Winning has a price. And leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn’t want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn’t want to be challenged. And I earned that right. Because my teammates who came after me, they didn’t endure all the things I had endured.”
Along the climb, along his taxing voyage to lift the Bulls to the grandest of heights and keep them there, Jordan set a standard that he expected everyone around him to adhere to.
“You ask all my teammates,” Jordan continues, “‘the one thing about Michael Jordan is he never asked me to do something that he didn’t (bleeping) do.’ When people see this, they’re going to say, ‘He really wasn’t a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant.’ Well, that’s you. Because you never won anything.
“I wanted to win. But I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well. … That’s how I played the game. That was my mentality. If you don’t want to play that way, then don’t play that way.”
The tear is clouding Jordan’s eye now. He needs a moment to gather himself.
“Break,” he says.
He stands and walks away.
End scene.
The Tribune obtained a sneak peek at the first eight episodes of “The Last Dance,” the 10-episode documentary series directed by Jason Hehir and produced by Michael Tollin, that will begin airing this weekend on ESPN with two episodes running each Sunday until May 17.
It’s a time capsule from the 1990s and the most impressive run in Chicago sports history. The film puts the slides of the Jordan-era Bulls under a microscope then turns it to high power, examining the catalysts of the team’s most exhilarating successes while exploring the tension and strains that brought the journey to an end.
As a primer for the premiere, here are 23 things to keep an eye out for in the weeks ahead.
1. Young M.J.: Before there was 1990s Michael Jordan, there was 1980s Michael Jordan. Baby-faced. Unproven. Just starting his climb and having no idea what all was ahead. Take a moment in the film’s opening sequence to soak in the excerpt of the mid-‘80s TV interview with Jordan expressing his youthful ambitions. “I just want the franchise and the Chicago Bulls to be respected as a team,” Jordan says. “Like the Lakers or the Philadelphia 76ers or the Boston Celtics. It’s very hard for something like that to happen but it’s not impossible. But hopefully, I can — and this team and this organization — can build a program like that.” OK, young fella. We’ll see.
2. In-his-prime M.J.: The playoff-record 63 points against the Celtics. The 55-point explosion at Madison Square Garden in his fifth game back from retirement. The flu game. The shrug. The first championship. The other five titles too. If you’ve seen the clips once, you’ve seen them a thousand times. Somehow, though, they never get old.
3. Old M.J.: Between June 2018 and December 2019, Jordan sat for three interview sessions with the filmmakers, providing more than 8 hours of on-camera storytelling and introspection. Said director Jason Hehir: “From the moment that I first sat down Michael, he was surprisingly forthcoming and candid and eager to discuss a lot of the topics that people are going to be interested in. In our first hour of conversation, he went places I wasn’t sure he would go in two years.”
4. ’90s rap: The documentary begins with a dramatic piano interlude, with video of a silhouetted Jordan as he looks out over the ocean. A caption alludes to the five championships in seven years the Bulls had won heading into the 1997-98 season. Yet, as the Bulls aimed for their second three-peat, the film emphasizes, “The future of their dynasty is in doubt.” A blink later, we see Jordan in November 1997 giving a speech at the United
Center ring ceremony for championship No. 5. Then, just a little more than 2 minutes in, suddenly it’s Puff Daddy, Ma$e and the Notorious B.I.G. providing the soundtrack for the introductory montage. “Been Around the World.” The beats provide the perfect tempo change. Just so fitting, so late-‘90s. This is indeed a period piece. And the music accompaniment consistently reminds us as much. LL Cool J. Coolio. Naughty By Nature. Big Punisher. Perfect.
5. The tension, the uncertainty: Five titles in seven years. The Bulls seemed cemented in the NBA mountaintop. Yet after the 1996-97 season, there was serious discussion at the top of the organization about possibly starting over. General manager Jerry Krause had an urge to. Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf didn’t immediately reject the proposal. Says Reinsdorf: “After the fifth championship … we were looking at this team and we realized that other than Michael, the rest of the guys were probably at the end of their high-productivity years. We had to decide whether we keep the team together or not. And we realized maybe this was the time to do a rebuild and not try to win a sixth championship.” This was the Bulls’ perplexing reality, the possibility of prematurely dismantling one of the greatest sports dynasties of all time led by arguably the greatest player in the history of the game.
6. The mindset: Questions about the Bulls’ uncertain future already were being asked before the spilled champagne had dried at the United Center on the night the team beat the Jazz 90-86 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals to win its fifth championship. Proclaims Jordan at that night’s postgame news conference, “We are entitled to defend what we have until we lose it.”
7. That sticky sentiment: Jerry Krause was skewered for emphasizing that organizations win championships, not just players and coaches. A misquote? “What I said,” Krause attempts to clarify after the firestorm had begun, “was that players and coaches alone don’t win championships. Organizations do. I do sincerely believe that organizations as a whole win. One part of it can’t win alone. The (reporter) left the world ‘alone’ out of there.” That word was significant. But it may not have helped to ease the strain between the front office and the team.
8. Poor M.J.: Literally down to his final few dollars. Jordan says so in a letter home to his mom from college at North Carolina, asking for postage stamps and to have a little spending money deposited in his bank account. Writes Jordan to his mother, Deloris: “I have only $20 right now. Tell everyone I said hello. And smile.”
9. The time machine: The smallest details quickly revive the excitement and the adrenaline rushes that were so prevalent during the Bulls run through the 1990s. The sounds of “Sirius” by the Alan Parsons project still pack a powerful punch. But other sights and sounds quickly conjure up the nostalgia as well. The “Charge!” horn piping from the United Center sound system. Johnny “Red” Kerr enthusiastically celebrating a big dunk. Cliff Levingston bellowing out “What time is it?!?” Even just the sounds of Marv Albert or Wayne Larrivee or Neil Funk from a game broadcast bring a little something back.
1 0. C a r me n E l e c t ra : Oh, yeaaaahhhh. Of course. Carmen Electra was once a part of the Bulls’ orbit, the girlfriend and eventual wife of enigmatic forward Dennis Rodman. When Rodman asked for a short personal vacation in the middle of the 1997-98 season, Phil Jackson gave permission despite the reluctance of at least one other key figure on the team. Says Jordan: “I said, ‘Phil, you let this dude go on vacation, we’re not going to see him. You let him go to Vegas, we’re definitely not going to see him (again).” Still, Jackson granted Rodman 48 hours to get away and reset. So off Rodman went for his escape. To Vegas. With Electra. “It was an occupational hazard,” she says, “being Dennis’ girlfriend.”
11. Scottie Pippen: With all of the spotlight on Jordan, the career arc of Pippen remains fascinating. From an unknown prospect out of Central Arkansas to a promising rookie to Jordan’s reliable righthand man to seven-time All-Star and Dream Team member to an underpaid and underappreciated star. Pippen’s all-around game was a huge part of the Bulls’ success.
12. The sparks of the fire: There’s footage of the late James Jordan, Michael’s father, from a mid-1980s TV interview offering a glimpse into his son’s psyche. “If you want to bring the best out in Michael,” James says, “tell him he can’t do something or that he can’t do it as good as someone else.” Roy Williams, an assistant under Dean Smith at North Carolina during Jordan’s three-year college career, offers his recollections of Jordan as a Tar Heel. “Michael Jordan was the only player who could ever turn it on and off,” Williams says. “And he never frickin’ turned it off.”
13. ‘The Sniff Brothers’: Jordan always had a sincere fondness for the security personnel at the Chicago Stadium and the United Center. It’s fair to say the affection was reciprocated. Get ready to meet “The Sniff Brothers.” Calvin Sniff. C.J. Sniff. Tom Sniff. John Michael Sniff. Brigadier General Gus Sniff.
14. ‘The shot on Ehlo’: Jordan’s hanging, buzzer-beating, seriesclinching jumper to knock the Cavaliers out of the 1989 playoffs remains iconic. As does the Bulls guard’s leaping, fist-pumping celebration. In many ways, it was the first truly significant postseason triumph for Jordan and the Bulls. But you might not remember Jordan already had hit a clutch go-ahead jumper seconds earlier to put the Bulls ahead 99-98 in that Game 5. Jordan’s bigger heroics were needed only after Ehlo beat the Bulls for a backdoor layup on a beautifully designed inbounds play with 6 seconds left that could have ended the Bulls season.
15. To the victor …: Barely a breath after the final buzzer of the Bulls’ tough-to-stomach 93-74 loss to the Pistons in Game 7 of the 1990 Eastern Conference finals, CBS sideline reporter Pat O’Brien stops Jordan on the court as he congratulates the Pistons. “All you can do is wish them good luck,” he tells O’Brien. “We fought hard. They were the better team. We want to be where they are. But we still have to wait our turn.” File that away. It’s important context for the following season when the Bulls are finishing a sweep of those same Pistons in the East finals. Yet Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Co. can’t get off the court fast enough, bolting for the locker room with 7.9 seconds left in the Bulls’ series-clinching victory.
16. The introduction of the triangle offense: Jerry Krause long had admired Bulls assistant Tex Winter for his strategic acumen, particularly drawn to Winter’s offensive ideas. Coach Doug Collins, however, wasn’t such a huge fan of the triangle system, his offensive philosophy jokingly summed up after Jordan hit a game-winning shot to beat the Pistons during the 1989 playoffs. “That was ‘Get the ball to Michael, everybody get the (expletive) out of the way and go to the basket,’ ” Collins cracked. Collins’ tense disagreements with Winter show in the responsibilities and in-game seating Winter was allowed to have. Still, Krause was encouraging fellow Bulls assistant coach Phil Jackson to pick Winter’s brain on the triangle offense. You know, just in case.
17. An icy reception to the triangle: Jordan, who won the
NBA scoring title in all three seasons he played for Collins, was resistant when Jackson became the new Bulls coach in summer 1990 and began installing the triangle system. Says Jordan: “He was coming to take the ball out of my hands. Doug put the ball in my hands. … Everybody has an opportunity to touch the ball, but I didn’t want Bill Cartwright to have the ball with five seconds left. That’s not an equal-opportunity offense. That’s (expletive).”
18. The swarms, the swarms, the swarms: Boarding the bus. Exiting hotel elevators. In postgame interview sessions. Coming off the bus. Wherever Jordan went, the mobs followed. The film offers a detailed reminder of the intense fatigue factor Jordan and the Bulls always were fighting.
19. Away from the swarms: The behind-the-scenes footage from the 1997-98 season that’s folded into the film isn’t all that earthshattering. But it doesn’t occasionally help set a mood. In one sequence, Jordan is chatting pregame with Ron Harper in the locker room. As the guards talk, Jordan, in full warmup attire, has a cigar in his mouth and is halfswinging a baseball bat while some gentle 1990s R&B plays on the sound system.
20. Those 1.8 seconds: It’s still confounding 26 years later that Scottie Pippen chose the final play of a tied playoff game against the Knicks in 1994 to sulk, refusing to take the floor because the Bulls’ final play was designed for Toni Kukoc to take the last shot and not him. “That’s strange, isn’t it?” Johnny Kerr notes on the radio broadcast. “That Scottie would sit on this.” Somehow, the Bulls quelled the intense friction of that moment with a buzzer-beating, game-winning bucket. Pete Meyers inbounds to Kukoc, who turns on Anthony Mason and fires a 21footer at the horn. All net.
21. The grudges: There never has been an athlete who has needed less to feel slighted or to spark extra motivation within himself. That much has been clear forever with Jordan. But the documentary drives it home with telling anecdotes about LaBradford Smith, George Karl and Hornets-era B.J. Armstrong.
22. Poor Dan Majerle: Krause deeply admired the Suns guard as a defender. Jordan? Well, not quite as much. That’s one reason the Bulls star felt extra driven to dump in 246 points over six games against the Suns in the 1993 NBA Finals. In that series, Jordan had his competitive fire turned on Charles Barkley. Barkley was the NBA MVP that season. Privately, Jordan felt like he was more deserving. Still, he let his friend have that honor. The only appropriate response: “OK, fine. You can have that,” Jordan says. “I’m going to get this.” This, of course, being another Larry O’Brien trophy. Perhaps Karl Malone should have seen the same thing coming in 1997.
23. The ending: With production of Episodes 9 and 10 of the documentary still wrapping up, ESPN has yet to offer an advanced screening of the film’s conclusion, which, in part, will chronicle the Bulls’ final two playoff series in 1998. Seven games against the Pacers. Six against the Jazz. It’s the home stretch of a grueling journey. We don’t want to play spoiler here. But we can tell you that with 41.9 seconds left in Game 6 of the NBA Finals in Salt Lake City, the Bulls trail 86-83.
It’s going to take something to special to rally and pull that one out. Stay tuned.