Some room for nitpicking in ‘The Last Dance’ series
Misses were hard to find in Bulls documentary
I was a college kid back in 2003 with a horrible-paying job working the front desk in my dorm building.
But that didn’t stop me from scrounging up enough money to pay for a train ticket into North Station and a balcony seat at the FleetCenter to watch Michael Jordan’s Washington Wizards play the Boston Celtics on April 6 of that year. It was a 1 p.m. tipoff on a Sunday, and it was Jordan’s last-ever game in Boston. It was gross and unnatural watching him perform in that Wizards uniform, but I didn’t care. I’d watch the dude play in a full-fledged space suit and be totally fine with it.
Jordan was 40 years old and didn’t remotely resemble the man who once displayed an otherworldly athleticism. Yet, he still put on a show. He played 47 minutes and had 25 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists in a 99-98 overtime win over the C’s.
Six games later, MJ retired from basketball for the third and final time. No more comebacks, that was the final curtain.
His two years with the Wizards weren’t discussed at all in the outstanding ESPN docuseries “The Last Dance,” which wrapped up last Sunday night.
It wasn’t an egregious omission because the 10 episodes told the fascinating story of the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls and their journey to a sixth NBA championship. Plus, nobody will ever associate Jordan with the Wizards, despite the fact he was a two-time all-star in Washington and averaged 20 points per game in both seasons.
Personally, I would’ve liked to have gotten a little insight into No. 23’s time with the woeful Wizards. Did the losing and lack of talent around him drive him crazy? Did he wish he never came out of retirement for a second time? Did he feel like he hurt his legacy at all, even slightly?
“The Last Dance” was a thoroughly enjoyable masterpiece, and that’s not just because we haven’t seen live sports for more than two months. It was a riveting watch for two hours for five straight Sundays. But there were a few subjects that certainly could’ve warranted a deeper dive.
Ehlo and Russell
Jordan tortured both of these dudes by making iconic clutch playoff shots right in their faces. He made “The Shot” over Cleveland’s Craig Ehlo in 1989 to win the deciding Game 5 of Chicago’s first round playoff series against the Cavaliers. Jordan drilled a game-winning shot over Utah’s Bryon Russell in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals to win a sixth NBA title. Both Ehlo and Russell took a beating in the docuseries, particularly Russell who wasn’t afraid to talk trash to Jordan and learned the hard way that MJ never forgets, and will always make you pay. I wish we could’ve heard directly from Russell and Ehlo to get some perspective on what it’s like to be on the opposite side of those heroics and to forever be known as the person Jordan hit the shot over.
More Rodman
I think we all can agree that forward
Dennis Rodman, a Hall of Famer and major player in the Bulls’ dynasty, might be worth his own 10-episode docuseries.
His personality truly was larger than life. Imagine a player today leaving his team in the middle of a season for a Las Vegas
party vacation, or skipping a practice during the playoffs to participate in a professional wrestling show.
Rodman got plenty of camera time in the docuseries, but he deserved more.
Jordan off the court
We know what made MJ tick as a basketball player. He’s likely the most competitive, confident, ruthless and hard-working ath
lete the world has ever seen. The man kept a list in his head (and maybe even on paper) of people who annoyed him or disrespected him. He had textbook bully tendencies, just ask Steve Kerr or Scott Burrell. That all contributed to his unrivaled greatness. But we still don’t know, and maybe never will truly know, who Michael Jordan the family man is.
We hardly heard from his kids
in the docuseries, and I really wish we had heard much more. It can’t be easy to be Jordan’s son or daughter — talk about the bar being set high. Clearly, Jordan’s motivation in this docuseries was to tell his own basketball story. He’s always been one to keep his personal life personal, and that’s admirable. But Michael Jordan is far from just a basketball player. He came from a great family, he’s well-spoken,
and he’s authentic. There’s got to be a softer side to Jordan that has nothing to do with basketball, and I’m sure only a select few in his inner circle have seen it. Hopefully we’ll get a glimpse into that someday.