“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 10

Michael jamming out

For some reason, this is one of the indelible images of the documentary for me. Michael, wearing his funky hat and sunglasses, spinning his head around randomly and listening to music. Someone says something and he peels them off. Then he goes on to brag about how he got the album before it was released because he knew the artist. He looks loose, he looks stressed out, he looks in it. How does a guy like that blow off steam? At the time, they are sizing him up for his outside of the stadium statue, but he still has games to win. The future seems certain, but he still has to put in the work. The expectations and mystique couldn’t be thicker. Rock out Michael. Headbang away.

“I ain’t Shaq” lol

I just love how he just keeps repeating that he’s not Shaq. He’s better obviously. That a team slowed down Shaq, is irrelevant when you are talking to Michael Jordan. He ain’t Shaq.

Exhausted

Yes, there was talk of Michael and the whole crew coming back to go for their 7th championship. But I don’t know how realistic that was. Jordan especially looked completely wiped after hitting that last shot over Bryon Russell. Plus, there is the symmetry of 3+3. Perhaps a three-peat is the threshold of Jordan’s godlike basketball abilities. It seems like the lonely leadership role he assumed was especially taxing. He even gets emotional talking about it 20 years later.

I wonder what would have happened if Jordan would have shared the weight of his burden a bit more. I mean, Scottie was an all-world talent along side him, and had proven in Jordan’s absence that he could lead a team in his own way to the brink. Maybe if Jordan had stepped off the gas when it came to thrashing his teammates, there would have been legitimate reserve fuel to go for 7. Honestly, this feels like a fish story with Mike saying he’d come back for one more run. And there was the incident where he snipped the end of his finger on a cigar cutter. Another downside to that nasty habit. I remember at the time people were reporting that Jordan could no longer palm the ball after the cigar cutter thing. Cradling the ball with one hand and taunting defenders was such a big part of Jordan’s game, especially late era Jordan. Maybe the fingertip thing was the last straw for the last dance.

Crazy piano Mike

I like this image of Mike in his hotel room playing the piano as the paparazzi snapped photos. It isn’t really an interview. It’s just the cameras being there when Jordan is finally getting to take a breath. He’s crazy at the piano and saying all sorts of stuff. Unfiltered. I can’t help but see his behind the scenes personality as some kind of a late 1990s Denzel Washington character. Maybe it’s Training Day merged with He Got Game. Mike is just constantly running his mouth with supreme confidence. It forced his game to back up his enormous mouth. I guess that’s a decent motivating engine. Talk yourself into a corner so much that you have no choice but to come out and be the undisputed greatest of all time. King Kong ain’t got nothing on Michael Jordan.

I’d like to see some kind of fever dream film capturing this version of Jordan. Crazy piano, cigar Mike. I imagine a multi-perspective film like Todd Hayne’s near Dylan biopic “I’m Not There.” There could be half a dozen Jordan’s cast. Denzel Washington, Michael B. Jordan, and anyone else who can channel something about Crazy piano Mike. We’d follow these versions of Jordan around, betting on what color car was about to pass by, dancing extemporaneously to his own piano music and challenging everyone and anyone within earshot. Set it all to a late 80s, early 90s soundtrack and you might get something with visual poem aspirations like the Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience crossed with the Todd Haynes art house vibe.

Last thoughts on the Last Dance

Wow, I can’t believe that’s over. What a perfect time capsule of an era. I felt dropped right back into those NBA seasons in the late 90s. I remember how all the twists and turns and drama felt at the time. While there wasn’t much new for Jordan fanatics, the way it was stitched together and filled with all the main personalities was well crafted. It was an enjoyable experience. I can’t help but feel the heavy hand of Jordan’s perspective on the series, but as they say, winners write history. Maybe one day we will get a fair, balanced and contentious version of what happened with Michael and the Bulls. But as a Michael Jordan fan, I’ve always been here for Jordan propaganda. Especially when the footage is so ample and gorgeous. 

The lingering questions from The Last Dance remain unanswered and will resonate forward. What did the greatness of Michael Jordan mean? Did it have wider, inspirational substance that mattered outside of the game of basketball? Or is Jordan’s story a hyper competitive distillation of what happens when the American Dream crosses paths with Corporate America. The result of the non-stop competitive drive accelerated change in sport, media, business and beyond. One man was able to use the system to his advantage, paying some sort of untold price in the process. What happens to Michael Jordan the man? The man who traded his mortality on the promise of becoming a myth and a logo for excellence. After the transaction, what is left of the man? The brand and empire marches on, meaning different things to millions of people. But what does the legacy mean to Michael? Would he change anything about what happened on his journey? It all feels so carved in stone, now that the statues have been erected and armies of feet are clad in signature Air Jordans of every possible configuration. But what lies behind the myth? What is left of the young, bleeding heart of a skinny kid from North Carolina? What remains of the man after the music of the last dance has stopped? The simple, yet complex question remains: Was it worth it?

“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 9

“It became personal with me...”

When Jordan was playing, he was a living legend. Especially on his second three-peat. He was the pop culture equivalent of The Beatles. Sure players competed against him, but they were also clearly in awe of him. After the game Jordan would get approached by his opponents asking for an autograph, or if they were really brave, a pair of Air Jordans.

Reggie Miller was not like this.

Reggie Miller was a vaudeville villain on the NBA stage. He was an anarchist whose game was fueled by entire arenas booing him. He didn’t care about being likable. He was scrappy and deadly. A last second competitor who you’d want to take the last shot. Kind of like Jordan. While Reggie’s game wasn’t the mesmerizing air show of Jordan’s, Miller was a killer competitor. One of the few guys who would take it right at Jordan. He, like Jordan was also one of the legendary trash talkers of the 1990s. When these two guys clashed, there was no love lost. There were no sneaker exchanges. It’s a marvel they actually got Reggie to appear in this documentary. Ah, brings back the memories. When Jordan was out of the game playing baseball, Miller was one of the league’s brightest stars. He wasn’t going to give up the spotlight just because MJ was back in the building.

“Michael lived a different life than the rest of us,” Steve Kerr

Although basketball is a team game, Michael Jordan stood out too much to just be one of the guys. And by the end of the Bulls prodigious run, it was very much Jordan and the Bulls. You get the feeling from this documentary that it was a pretty solitary situation for Michael. He was going to the same practice gym as everyone else, but his net worth and cultural impact was on a completely different level. How could anyone relate to him at this point? Judging by the interviews with his teammates, they were always kind of kept at arms length. The weight of responsibility fell almost solely on Jordan. Sure the losses stung everyone, but Jordan was a myth maker, and he couldn’t risk a high profile failure or embarrassment. Now was no time to appear human. That’s what his 1995 comeback was about. A chance to see Jordan, the mortal. There was now no need to repeat that story beat in this myth. This was all about getting to the top of three mountains once again. There was poetry to it. There was a certain rhythm to it.

“We’re going to win game 7”

I’m struck by how sheepish and nervous Jordan looks when he makes his guarantee. It’s not supreme confidence. It’s not swagger. He is forced into giving an answer, and he tip toes into it. It’s kind of funny now to see the doubt on his face. He and the Bulls would go take care of business, but this series was clearly no gimme.

That Indiana Pacer team was a juggernaut too. They had a deeper, tougher bench than Chicago. They could keep sending big bodies at Jordan and the Bulls, and over a seven game series, it wasn’t inconceivable that they would be able to wear them down. Also, with Larry Bird as their coach, he held a psychological key that could used against Jordan. The series ended up going seven games and was riveting playoff basketball. The Bulls would advance in the last seconds of game 7, but as Jordan admitted, this Pacer team was their greatest obstacle in this three-peat. An exhausted Bulls team would advance to the Finals, again.

“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 8

“I’m back”

As baseball was put on indefinite hold, the NBA season moved forward. The Bulls, led by Scottie Pippen, were in striking distance of a return to their former glory. You know there was a part of Jordan that didn’t want Scottie to get all the shine of bringing the Bulls another title. Suddenly, you started getting Sportscenter nightly updates about how Jordan was seen at dinner with a former teammate, or how he’d crashed a Bulls practice session. The rumors started to grow, maybe MJ was going to un-retire and pick up where he left off.

Sure enough, he did return. And while he looked like the world’s best basketball player when he stepped back in the iconic red Bulls uniform, his game showed obvious rust. He’d been away for a year and a half concentrating on basketball after all. He looked human. And while it was fun to have him back, we were all left wondering if he would ever be the superhero we remembered him as.

Knocked out by Magic

Jordan was essentially returning to a post-Jordan version of the NBA. And the Orlando Magic were the rising team on everyone’s radar. They were powered by two of the leagues most dynamic personalities: Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway. It’s hard to remember now, but before injuries, Penny was a new kind of NBA beast. Long-armed and high flying. He was a point guard who could score on command. He and Shaq played the most entertaining brand of basketball in the league. Penny seemingly picked up right where Jordan left off. Even getting his own line of signature sneakers and iconic Nike commercials featuring a puppet version of him called Lil Penny. It was marketing gold. Penny kept winning and his sneakers became a cultural phenomenon. 

In a post-Jordan first NBA retirement, Penny Hardaway was king.

So it was only fitting that Jordan would return to take on his heir apparent. But Orlando was at the height of their powers when they met the Bulls. Chicago was still trying to figure out how to work Jordan back into their system, and he was still trying to turn himself back into an unstoppable force. It was simply too soon. And the Magic ended up knocking the Bulls out and taking the Eastern Conference crown.

There is a lasting image of a defeated Jordan, at the end of the Bulls’ bench, looking across the court at the celebrating Orlando team. He looks sickened. He looks furious. And you can tell there is something brewing inside of him. In defeat, his fires had been rekindled. His reaction and commitment to coming all the way back would lead to an era of dominance even more impressive than the Bulls’ first three-peat. But for now, the off-season beckoned.

But more specifically, Intergalactic basketball playing monsters beckoned…

Space Jam

Man, those pickup games during the Space Jam filming must have been legendary. I love how Mike extended the invite for everyone to come out and play. It was like his test drive to see where everyone’s game was really out. The ultimate scouting mission. He wanted to get comfortable with everyone before he had to face them in battle again. And he was establishing himself as the king by calling everyone out to come and kiss the ring before his comeback fully kicked in. 

And from an advertising and branding perspective, Space Jam was about 25 years ahead of its time. Talk about branded content. That’s the power of Michael Jordan and Nike to pull off a two hour shoe commercial disguised as a feature film. All based on an actual shoe spot from the year before. Talk about unstoppable branding power. I believe I can fly indeed!

Watching the best team of all time, live

I saw MJ and the Bulls play live during their mythic 72-10 season. They were in town to play the Portland Trailblazers and my Dad and I got tickets. Now I’d been to lots of games before and since then, but having MJ in the building was different. Even in a large space, even from the nosebleeds, you could feel his presence taking up the entire Rose Garden arena with its 22,000 person capacity. No one else had that kind of force with them. 

We showed up early to the game, because hey, Jordan was in town and maybe we could catch an extra glimpse of him. Sure enough we did. Hours before the actual game, MJ was out there on the court by himself. Before there was any sort of crowd assembled. When there was just media and team staff milling about. But MJ was out there on the court, putting in work. This wasn’t the playoffs. Portland wasn’t even good at the time. This was a “meaningless” game in February. But Michael Jordan was the only player on the court, hours before tipoff, working on his game. This stuck with me.

This was his first year after his baseball exodus, and watching him warm up, you could feel that he wasn’t satisfied with his level. Specifically, he was working on his post up and signature fadeaway. The weapon that would come to define his second three-peat. I watched as he repeated the same moves, over and over and over again. He would flip the ball up in the air, and let it backspin into him, like he was simulating a pass from someone else. Then he’d catch it in a crouched position, and take a series of dribbles. One or two shoulder fakes later, he would rise up, floating backwards and release the shot with a perfect arch and backspin. At one point, someone on the Bulls’ staff came out and fed him some passes in the post. But mostly, it was just MJ on his own, in an empty stadium. I kept wondering, if Michael’s the best, how come the guys who aren’t as good weren’t out there putting in work? Oh, this is the difference I remembered thinking. It would inspire me to love practicing on my own before and after games, and learning to feel those extra repetitions paying off.

I was literally at this game. And now it’s a GIF. Maybe I’m one of the specks in the background.

Hours later the game started, and Jordan was electric. Even on a meaningless February game. The Bulls’ offense was perfectly spaced as they had become masters of Phil Jackson’s triangle offense. The ball constantly kept moving. Around the perimeter. In and out. Guys finding the open man. The Bulls moved like the ultimate well-oiled machine. And every two or three times down the court, Michael would end up in the post, in the exact spot he had been practicing before the game. The results were the same too. Picture perfect fadeaways over JR Rider, or whatever Trailblazer defender was trying to stop him that night. Jordan cruised to about 30 in the Bulls’ win. Every time he touched the ball, the arena charged up again. This is what we were paying for. Even in the 300-level, you could feel Jordan’s signature competitive spirit. As he chomped through his gum and the Portland defense. This was basketball on another plane. And we were all witnesses to one of the greatest seasons every put together in team sports.

Giving The Glove a slap in the face

Wow, this segment about the Bulls versus Sonics series in 1996 has already turned into a meme. When Jordan was wiggling his head and cackling at Gary Payton claiming he “slowed Mike down,” is already plastered over the internet. I mean, the Bulls did win the series, but Payton was defensive player of the year. And it’s also true that the Sonics won two games as soon as Payton started guarding Jordan. The stats actually show that Jordan’s numbers and shooting percentages went down. That was the narrative at the time soon. With the media criticizing Sonics’ coach George Karl for not having Payton guard Jordan earlier in the series. I don’t know what Jordan attributes his dip in production too. But hey, champions get to write their own history and end up on the winning side of all the memes. 

Nevertheless, respect to Gary Payton and an additional shoutout to Shawn Kemp. Again, look at the YouTube highlights and Google Kemp’s stats. The guy actually made a case for being series MVP in a losing cause. He gave a gritty, iconic Finals performance.

“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 7

Pain of three

The game doesn’t look fun anymore at this point. At this point, after the Bull’s second title and Jordan serving as the international face of the Dream Team, we have reached peak Jordan-mania. He had conquered the basketball world and exploded the importance and profile of the game worldwide. In many ways, Michael Jordan was the NBA. He was existing on another plane. Playing a game beyond the game. On and off the court he had an untouchable aura. And you can see here, it was taking a toll on Michael Jordan the human at the center of the global phenomenon.

However the task at hand was to pick up the ball and keep on winning. With the entire league gunning against him, Jordan grew even more hardcore with his training and weights routine. The media smear campaign around his gambling and bullying of teammates would intensify. Michael prickled and recoiled from all the heat. Shutting himself off from the media and focusing on winning basketball games. As usual, he began taking all of these media slights personally, and churning them into his legendary fuel.

The biggest basketball slight of the season would be Charles Barkley winning the MVP award. Yes, Charles had an incredible season with the Phoenix Suns and was a legendary Hall-of-Fame player in his own right. But when the award was announced, it felt more like he was winning the “best player in the NBA whose name isn’t Michael Jordan” award. Predictably, Jordan took offense and powered his game in the NBA Finals to another level, which yielded the Bulls third straight NBA championship. Only at the celebration, Jordan didn’t seem overcome with emotion as he had after his first title and he didn’t seem overjoyed as he did in 1992. He seemed flat out exhausted. There was even talk of him retiring. He probably just needed a summer off. The dude looked flat our spent from being a living god slash superhero for the past three years.

Father’s death

The tragic news of his father’s murder came in the offseason. It was the final blow in a long run of tough times for Jordan. It also had the effect of turning him back into a sympathetic character. It was a reminder for the hype-crazed media that this global icon was indeed human. A son who had lost his father. It cast a further shadow over what had been an already subdued championship off-season. There would be no celebrations. Just reflection and meditation as Michael looked toward the future.

“I have nothing left to prove”

After the dour championship anti-celebration and his father’s death, it came as a shock, but not a huge surprise that Jordan would step away from the game. At the time, as a fan, it felt inevitable that the Bulls would keep on winning and had a legitimate chance to win four titles in a row. But we would never get the chance to find out when Jordan called it quits. While the sports world was robbed of the most iconic figure since Muhammad Ali, Jordan had already created a legendary career. From his perspective, he’d done it all. Proved himself as an individual dynamo, and then, three times over, proved that he had the ability to elevate his teammates and franchise into the stratosphere. He would leave a gaping hole in the sport landscape, but his legend was already assured of living on.

Why baseball?

As a young athlete in the middle of both a basketball and baseball career, Jordan’s devotion to baseball was a validating force in my own choice to play the game. I even opted for a “like Mike” semi retirement of my own from basketball as I went all in on baseball. (I would miss the game too much and rejoin the basketball team mid-season.) While the casual fan and media would criticize Michael’s “Detour” into baseball, I understood what it was doing for him as a competitor. For one, it lowered the stakes and profile of what he was doing. There were no expectations of the world’s best basketball player trying to give it a go on the baseball diamond. Secondly, it allowed Jordan to start at the beginning of an athletic challenge. The whole journey of building fundamentals, learning the mental game and challenging himself to move up the rankings on his team lay in front of him.

At first, it seemed like a media stunt. Or maybe even some far-flung marketing move by Jordan and super brand Nike. Eventually Nike leaned into these conspiracy rumors with a Steve Martin helmed Super Bowl commercial. But as Jordan stayed at baseball, the results and his game improved. His body even slowly started to morph into that of a baseball player as his training regime fully shifted to meet the demands of the game. He built more long term stamina and trained himself to adjust to the repetition of baseball. Eventually he got into a groove. He started stealing bases. His speed was still elite at this point. Baseball people speculated that he could possibly become a base-stealing specialist if he kept at it. He knocked a few balls out of the park. He moved up the minor leagues. His batting average rose as he entered the fall leagues.

As baseball entered the winter, it also entered into intense labor negotiations. The major leagues were headed for a strike and stoppage of play. The commissioner talked about starting the season with “replacement players.” Basically offering open tryouts to amateurs for the chance to officially play for big league clubs while the real major leaguers were holding out. For a fleeting moment it seemed like Michael Jordan could be the world’s most iconic replacement player. But he quickly came out and said he wouldn’t break the picket line, and that he stood with the major league players in their protest. 

“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 6

The price of Immortality

I remember watching along at the time, that Jordan seemed different after the 1992 championship. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was lacking in motivation. But he seemed meaner, angrier and with a much stronger physique. In 1992, it almost felt like he still had some child-like innocence about him. Like the game was a joy for him to play. He reminded me of the legendary baseball player Ken Griffey Jr. who was known for smiling and blowing bubbles the whole game. But in 1993, Jordan had some kind of shadow hanging over him. Even as a kid, I remember thinking that the game didn’t look fun for Jordan anymore. He was scowling, yelling more, getting more technical fouls. Something had changed.

Here we get to see the dark side of being Michael Jordan, the man everyone wants to be like. The doc shows take after take of Jordan delivering the same line over and over again in a high production interview session. Just imagine sitting in all those interviews, commercial shoots, media junkets, after practice talks, etc. Imagine having to be fully on and in character as super human Michael Jordan at all times. Think about how even celebrities and politicians were affected by Michael. This was never really about basketball. This was a grand business experiment in crafting an image. It was corporate politics. In an era before transparency and social media, with enough time and money, someone could create a sexy, mysterious, globally beloved image—and offer the public no real view into the human at the center of it. Michael Jordan’s life turned into a real life Truman Show level reality show. Only the cameras weren’t all access. We were flooded with the most premium images and videos in a high spending media era. The result was that we were sold an idea. The idea of the people’s champion. The idea that if you pursue greatness you have a fighting chance of achieving immortality. A 360 dunk here. A Big Mac there. Spike Lee holding up some Air Jordans over there. And Michael Jordan holding up another NBA championship trophy. Turning into the singular narrative arc in a team sport. He was marketed more as an individual athlete, like a tennis player or a golfer.

And then, at the end of the day, Michael Jordan would go back to his hotel room, alone. A human behind closed doors, taking a deep breath, puffing on a cigar and pondering the media monster he was complicit in creating. Was he driving the businesses surrounding him? Or were the business sucking him dry and driving him? As he deliberated, the mountains of cash piled up for everyone involved. And the trophies piled up for Michael. The Michael Jordan Project had reached peak saturation levels. Perhaps foreshadowing that the “first” end was near…

The Jordan Rules

I read the Jordan Rules book as soon as it came out. I was hungry to learn more about what made Jordan and the Bulls tick. All we got back then were nightly highlights and high production glimpses like Nike commercials and team highlight videos. On VHS. The Jordan Rules represented a fly on the wall view into the mystique of the budding dynasty. The press hype for the book was vicious, looking to take down Jordan as a bully. As a certified (certifiable?) MJ fan, I braced for the worst.

The accounts I found in the book were just a collection of anecdotes that just sounded like team sports. Players talking trash, fights breaking out in practice, alpha personalities exerting their dominance. All the episodes sounded like what I had already experienced on my teams. I breathed a sigh of relief. The Jordan Rules was shocking to non-competitive minds who believed that everyone deserved a participation ribbon. But to anyone who had ever dreamed of winning anything, there was nothing out of line. The only difference between what was going on between MJ and his teammates, and what happens in every high school locker room was that it was happening with famous millionaires. However, if the Jordan Rules were an attempted smear campaign, they seemed to have the opposite effect. They merely became another gospel account of Jordan’s legendary competitive nature. He was emerging as a kind of Steve Jobs of competitive sports. Stressing every detail. Demanding the best out of the weakest links. And as they say, you can’t argue with the results.

Going for 3 / The Knicks

The Knicks presented a more made-for-TV version of the Bad Boy Pistons. Pat Riley had stacked the Knicks with hard-nosed defenders who had crafted an identity out of slowing the game down to a wrestling match. The Knicks could control the pace and score of the game. They would be perfectly happy with a final score of 62-57. They weren’t going for highlights. They were playing the long game. They wanted to mentally and emotionally drain their high flying opponents.

There would be flare ups in the match up, but not to the Pistons versus Bulls levels. I think Jordan and Patrick Ewing were too good of friends for true hatred to spill into the series. Still, the series was a spectacle and felt vital with the key matches being played at Madison Square Garden. It was truly must see TV. The Bulls got down in the series, but Jordan willed them back after spending some late nights, soul searching, in Atlantic City. A foreshadowing of darker headlines looming on the horizon.

“I have a competition problem”

This episode fully slides into Michael’s well-publicized gambling hobby. He seems in full denial of having a problem—but as he says, he is well-funded and still more than able to provide for his family. Everyone has to blow off steam somehow. When your bank account has that many funds in it, even the side bets become shocking headlines. But taken in context, maybe it’s overblown. Of course, we don’t like our heroes to have vices, so it’s a reality we all must reconcile. To me, it seems huge and noteworthy that no one has ever accused Jordan of betting on his own performance on the basketball court. Maybe he has a gambling addiction, but it appears there are boundaries.

After months of not talking to the media, this is how Jordan dressed when he went on national TV to deny he had a gambling problem.

And yet again, we see how Jordan takes headlines and barbs thrown at him in the press and eats them for breakfast, as his fuel to power himself and his team to another victory. It’s almost like he needed to power up the Knicks to Bad Boy Piston levels, so he spent a late night gambling, created a media scandal around that, and then had a basketball team and negative press to overcome. As though he needed to get the last laugh. “Who cares if I’m up till 1am in the playoffs playing cards, my performance didn’t suffer. Maybe it was enhanced.”

Michael gets the last laugh. Again.

“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 5

“That Laker Boy”

Man, this is emotional seeing Kobe Bryant talking about his idol so soon after his death. Kobe is back to life, full of life, tickled to be talking about his hero and literal role and game model. I find this relationship fascinating. For such a vengeful person as Jordan, it seems surprising that he would have embraced Kobe and put him under his wing. And really, this relationship was a clandestine one. Until the memorial for Kobe, when Jordan detailed some of their connection and signed out by saying “Rest well little brother,” the world never really had an eye into what was going on between the two all-time greats. There could be a whole documentary examining what that mentorship was like.

It was also revealing to see the throwback footage of a veteran Jordan talking trash about “that Laker boy” in the lockeroom of the All-Star Game. Surrounded by the game’s elite, Jordan almost seems defensive in obsessively talking about Kobe. It’s like he realized the young Bryant was a formidable threat, even at age 18. It speaks volumes that the young gun Kobe could get in Jordan’s dish like that. If only we had that time machine that could let peak Jordan and Kobe go at it. You know they would both relish in the chance to prove themselves. And we would all benefit from the spectacle of seeing fierce competitors locked in a battle for securing their all time legacies.

It really seems like Kobe “got” Jordan, and vice versa. Kobe faced the ridicule of “copying” Jordan’s game. I’ve never really understood that criticism. Why wouldn’t you copy the greatest to ever play the game? And so what that Kobe had the physical gifts, and mental approach to emulate MJ better than anyone else. Kobe was a pure disciple of Jordan, and for everyone wishing for the second coming, I hope they enjoyed Kobe while he was here. There was a fluidity to the fire that both players played with. I won’t get sucked into the GOAT argument here. For me, Jordan is the unshakeable king. But I also hold Kobe and LeBron in high regard. It’s like appreciating the work of different artists. Just because I love Picasso doesn’t mean I must disrespect Van Gogh. Generational sport talent is no different. I will say that Jordan touched the psyche in a more mythic way than Kobe or LeBron ever did. Jordan was almost like living, flying pop art. He was a Warhol can of soup. He was a Darth Vader wielding a lightsaber. He wasn’t just a basketball player, he was an icon. A personification of greatness. Maybe Mohammed Ali was the only other persona from sport to ascend to this kind of rarified position. Jordan was the perfect storm of basketball talent and a sustained and genius image making experiment. He transcended the sports pages and became an indelible meme on our psyches.

Signing with Nike

It’s funny to see the whole Nike singing reduced to a simple “My parents made me do it.” It’s one of those great time machine moments, where you go back in time, have Mike sign with Adidas and see if the story and cultural storm reaches the same zeitgeist. I’m a longtime Nike and Jordan fanboy to believe that it was the particular fusing of the man and the brand’s DNA that created the cultural impact they did. Nike was taking big swings and risks to get their athletes into popular culture, before that was a given pipeline. Other brands celebrated sports stars. There is a key distinction there for those paying attention.

Being “bigger than basketball” is now a common mantra. Now every season a handful of athletes are tagged “game changers.” Top athletes are now expected to be singer brands—taking to social media with the eloquence and ambition of CEOs and global business moguls. But before Jordan, bigger than basketball wasn’t a thing. Yes, you could be very good at the game, and become a superstar on the court. But there was no pathway to connect sport stars with a global business platform. Jordan created that template. Jordan excelled at the game on and off the court. He showed up to the arena in a fine suit, in an era where everyone else was wearing baggy sweatpants and hoodies. He defined a whole other type of game. And that separation built an unshakeable image and eventually moved untold billions of dollars in products.

1992 NBA Finals 

This series was a watershed moment for me personally. It pitted my favorite player, Jordan, against my favorite team, my hometown Portland Trailblazers. All year long there had been growing hype that the dream Finals matchup would be Michael Jordan versus Portland’s Clyde Drexler. Time has faded Drexler’s star from popular memory, but at the time, it was a vital debate. Jordan and Drexler finished first and second in MVP voting. Their games were similar—both predicated on owning the airspace high above the rim and delighting fans with insanely creative dunks.

The Last Dance doesn’t delve very deep into this series, other than to highlight Jordan taking offense at being compared to Drexler. And as Mike says, “that’s all I needed.” However, the series, wasn’t a sweep. It was tied 2-2 after four games. The Blazers had a chance to send the Bulls to their first ever Finals game 7, when they took a commanding 15-point lead into the fourth quarter of game 6, at Chicago Stadium. Phil Jackson and the Bulls even seemed to concede the game, resting Jordan for the fourth quarter, as a bunch of Bulls scrubs and Scottie Pippin mounted a comeback that would result in Chicago’s second title.

Clyde Drexler was a great player—he was even certified as one of the 50 greatest NBA players of all time. He was a member of the legendary Dream Team alongside Jordan. However, in this one-on-one duel with Jordan on the highest stage, he couldn’t pull off the upset. Clyde the Glide was a soft-spoken assassin. He didn’t talk trash. He didn’t give memorable quotes. His value lay entirely on his other worldly athleticism and all-star abilities on the court. He seemed mild mannered. He was knocked for not having a killer instinct. In the end, Jordan’s force of personality and unwavering obsession to dominate won the day. I just history would remember how hard the Blazers pushed Jordan’s Bulls. It wasn’t a cakewalk, even though the series has turned into a footnote in the narrative of Michael Jordan’s transcendence.

The Dream Team

This was absolutely the moment Michael Jordan became the clear face of the NBA. And maybe the brightest that an American athlete could possibly stand on the world’s stage. Magic and Bird were alongside him, as the icons of the 1980s, to pass the baton and sit back and watch as MJ took the pedestal they built and elevated it by an order of magnitude. The Dream Team would captivate Europe and plant the basketball seed in the hearts of a next generation of talent that would turn the continent into a hotbed of talent. 

Here we get another tale of vengeance as Jordan and Pippen vilified poor Tony Kukoc who had been drafted by the Bulls. These kind of stories feel frivolous and childish taken one at a time—but seeing these beats of imagined revenge pile up, you really see how the motivational engine of Jordan’s psyche worked. It all seems like a ripple affect of Jordan being bullied by the Pistons. Once he conquered his demon, that bullying instinct worked itself into his DNA until he in turn felt the lust of “administering pain.”

All this Dream Team footage has been poured over and used in other docs before, and it’s also interesting to see how even at the time, all of the other stars clearly looked up to Jordan. Just how he wanted it. He had a magnetic aura that set him apart, even when he was on a team of the 12 greatest basketball players ever assembled. Jordan was something else then, and the legend has only solidified his differences since then.

“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 4

More Detroit beef

It’s funny how this Detroit versus MJ rift is getting dragged back into pop culture. To fans who lived during that era, this is nothing new. But it is interesting hearing from all sides a couple of decades later and seeing how much hate still festers. It’s dramatic sure, but after all this time it feels so petty. Detroit got theirs and then the Bulls figured out how to win. That’s history. I guess it shows you how intensely it stoked Jordan’s competitive spirit. It’s almost like he still seems himself as a victim of the Piston’s bullying. Even though he got the last laugh. And you’ve gotta love how Isaiah Thomas doesn’t give an inch. He just sits there smiling and saying “things were different then.”

It’s also funny how we learn that Jordan would get on his teammates for showing any signs that the Piston’s antics were getting to them. But here he is, going on and on about how much what they did bothered him. It seems like Mike could throw far more shade if he played the “Detroit who?” card. But that’s not how the melodrama of this series goes down. It fans the flames of a decades long feud. Horace Grant still seems particularly snippy about those battles with the Pistons. To be honest, it’s kind of off putting to hear the 6-time champion Bulls and undisputed owners of the 1990’s carrying on about the Pistons. Maybe it was a filmmaking call to crank the drama up this much. It’s just kind of like, we get it.

I do think Jordan has a fair point about sportsmanship. It was a low blow for the Pistons not to shake hands at the end of that series. But that’s who they were. They were like method actors. Living up to their Bad Boys moniker. But you know how much it had to hurt Jordan in the three years before, coming up to Thomas and the others, in the face of defeat and giving them a quick shout out. That would be enough to sway me, because you know how hard that must have been for Jordan. Year-after-year. A three-peat of failures at the hands of the same smug villains. But I do agree with Thomas, that it was a different era then. It’s not like today when all the players grow up playing traveling ball since they were 11. Back then, the money was less and the void was filled with pride and ego. Those were the table stakes. These days, even the 6th man might be making some sweet 8-figure deal. Who cares about an early exit when it also means early summer vacation. This wasn’t the case in the eighties or early nineties. You were playing for keeps. Playing to be remembered or forgotten. The money came later. Because these characters made the game so damn compelling.

1991 Finals: Magic versus Michael

Lifelong Blazermaniac here. This chapter of the story is hard to watch. It should have been Portland facing the Bulls in their first NBA Finals. Cue the avalanche of NBA conspiracy theories. But I remember the pain of watching the one-sided refereeing as the Blazers played the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers. It nearly went 7 games, but you could feel the whole country outside of Portland, and the world beyond, hoping for the marquee Magic versus Michael final. Michael versus Clyde Drexler would have to wait.

The Lakers weren’t even that great of a team at this stage in Magic’s twilight. Pippen easily found a way to shut him down by picking the legendary point guard up in full court coverage early in the game. Magic and his Lakers were knocked off balance and never really recovered. The league just needed the torch to be passed. Jordan was crowned king and a first time champion.

Original Jordan crying meme

The image of Jordan clutching the Larry O’Brien trophy, being consoled by his father, with tears streaming down his face—was an informative moment as a young sports fan. I’d gown more used to straight up meathead celebrations of NFL titans hoisting trophies and spraying Champagne with frat boy verve. Or baseball players shouting cliches about going to Disneyland. So, it was eerie and revealing as hell to have the postgame camera drift into the Bulls locker room and find the world’s most cutthroat competitor at his most vulnerable. Air Jordan had been reduced to a puddle after his achievement. 

I think this was one of my earliest indications that sport could mean something more. It could be something deeply personal and important. It wasn’t just playing a game. Or racking up wins and losses. There was something deeper going on here. And to see a hero like Jordan expressing this side of himself uncontrollably validated a single-minded pursuit of excellence in sports. There was something meaningful waiting at the end of the dark days and late nights of training. There was enlightenment or transcendence or something that my young mind couldn’t quite figure out. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of Jordan and what he was doing. His narrative locked in after that first championship. His quest for greatness became the defining narrative of the 90s. The whole world was along for the roller coaster.

“THE LAST DANCE” REVIEWED - EPISODE 1

OK here we go. I’m just going to be dropping thoughts and associations that hit me as I watch this thing. I grew up watching Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the 1990’s Chicago Bulls. Like so many in that era, their story became a part of my DNA. It shaped my mentality as an athlete. It gave me a framework to approach challenges. It gave me an attitude that carried me through high school and college. They were my Beatles. It’s the documentary we’ve been waiting to be released for over 20 years. As Michael Jordan has become a kind of generalized global meme for dominance, I think it’s good to look back at the details. I have distinct memories of watching Jordan throughout his career, and this is gonna be a treasured walk down memory lane.

No one had shown this kind of creativity and flair in basketball before. Young Jordan was a freak of athleticism that looked like nothing else in sport.

“Mike”

As a long time Jordan fan, I remember an MJ that was simply called Mike. Before the statues. Before the weighty legacy. Before the championships. Just from an aesthetic standpoint, he was a guy who jumped off the screen and into your living room. A guy who froze time and demanded to be put up on your bedroom wall. He didn’t look like anyone else. And he sure didn’t move like anyone else. Sure, basketball is a fun game. But culturally, it felt on par or maybe even behind other major sports, until Jordan came along and did his thing. Sure he had influences and peers, but the combination of his swagger, tongue wave, killer shoes, baggy shorts and game high above the rim, transcended anything we had ever seen before. He was different. He was new. He was important. He reached into a rarefied level of our collective imaginations. It wasn’t just basketball. It wasn’t just a sport. It was somehow bigger. And we all bought into it.

Who was this rookie that came out oozing with swagger? Who did this Mike kid think he was?!

Carolina Air

This is a nice refresher seeing all of the North Carolina footage. His championship winning shot over Georgetown gets reposted so much, that you kind of forget just how damn springy he was back then. Soaring into the air to block centers out of nowhere. Finishing two handed alley-oops. His game is rawer and more based on instinct, but you can see all the athletic building blocks that he will just keep accumulating talent onto as we move forward.

The dynamic duo

I know this whole series is about the 97-98 Bulls, but I just have to recount how I remembered them. I watched most of their games. I saw them play in person. And I watched every single playoff game. This is what I remember thinking. Jordan AND Scottie Pippen are unstoppable. Within the triangle offense, they had the two-man game on lockdown. On both ends. They toyed with opponents. It was the most fearsome full-court double team press I’ve ever seen. I mean, that’s not even a thing in today’s NBA. The Bulls pulled out a trap whenever they needed to make a comeback. They made their opponents so jittery. Especially the young teams, who couldn’t stand up to the aura of the mighty Chicago Bulls. But it never, ever, ever felt like a one-man team. Jordan was the global icon and transcended the sport into being a cultural icon, but in basketball terms, Scottie Pippen was a legit, MVP, all-world talent on his own. Hell, he was the second best player on the vaunted 1992 Dream Team. Pippen alone nearly took the Bulls to the championship when Jordan bowed out to play baseball for a season. I think that’s partly what spurred Jordan back to the Bulls. The realization that, damn, they almost won without me. Scottie Pippen was scary good. And I think Jordan himself feared what would happen to his legacy if Pippen were to win a championship or two on his own. So, back to basketball Jordan came. 

You don’t want to face this double team.

Jordan and Pippen as interchangeable parts. Bringing out the best in each other.

Superman, Batman and Rodman

This time, after the dust of the first three championships had settled, the world sensed what they were missing, and the final three championships became a farewell tour for this legendary team.  The media savored everyone moment of it. Sure the Bulls were iconic before. But from 1996 to 1998 they were legit gods, live on tour. Throw in Rodman, for some insane rebounding skill, the dated Madonna backstory and a healthy dose of what the hell is that guy doing here. And the Bulls were off and running once again. This time with a fully expectant, global audience. The Beatles of basketball. There has been nothing as culturally magnetic in sports for that prolonged period of time ever since. Sure teams have piled up great records and won fistfuls of championships. But they haven’t had that intangible, mesmerizing factor that those late 90s Bulls teams did. Everyone else is playing a sport, and maybe at an elite level. But the Bulls were engaging with destiny and legend. Modern myths using 90 feet of hardwood as their stage. This was not X’s and O’s. This was cosmic stuff.

Rodman demanded all the attention along with all the rebounds. His addition to the Bulls added toughness and a healthy dose of tabloid entertainment. The latter era Bulls had it all!

Oh boy, this series is gonna ruin me…