There is crying in basketball—much of it in the penultimate episodes of The Last Dance
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Time keeps on slipping (slipping, slipping) into the future in episodes VII and VIII of ESPN’s The Last Dance. The timeline that here begins with the Chicago Bulls coming off their third consecutive championship and Michael Jordan announcing his retirement is slowly but surely catching up to the 1997-1998 season and the Bulls’ attempt to repeat the three-peat, or, to use the very technical term, “six-peat.” In these penultimate episodes, Jordan retires, plays AA baseball for a hot sec, then—just kidding—writes his own press release in March of 1995 to say, “I’m back.” But first, in his absence, we get to see the Bulls run the triangle offense “to perfection” and Toni Kukoc hit a bunch of ragged buzzer-beaters. Other highlights include Jordan’s 1995 Double-Nickel Game against the Knicks, and a number of dudes crying. There is, seriously, quite a bit of beautiful crying here, which will preempt the crying to come once the final two episodes of the docuseries arrives next Sunday night. In this Bulls Session, The A.V. Club considers infinity by way of endless pancakes and breadsticks, and just how important TV editor Danette Chavez was to the success of the 1996 film Space Jam. Finally, we ask ourselves if the Bulls have what it takes to pull off the six-peat in 1998. Only a quick Google search and the city of Chicago’s collective memory can say for sure.
Laura Adamczyk: Okay, I think I’m ready. You ready? [The ref tosses the ball up between us.]
Nothin’ But Danette Chavez: Yep! [Whistle blows.]
LA: One of the most hilarious moments in these two episodes is B.J. Armstrong talking about meeting up with Jordan for breakfast, right before Jordan comes to a Bulls practice during the baseball strike, and they go to Bakers Square. Here are a couple of millionaires, old friends, and they go to Bakers Square. Danette, which kind-of crappy chain restaurant are you going to when you’re meeting back up with an old coworker, teammate etc. to possibly “get the band back together”?
DC: I’m going to go with IHOP, because the endless pancakes offer (assuming it’s around whenever this future meetup happens) will provide the perfect cover for a long discussion about our glory days, and how great it would be to saddle up again. How about you?
LA: Okay, I legitimately did not know what my answer would be when I asked this. Truthfully. But I am going to say something similar, in that I’m going to say Olive Garden. I love love love the salad (pepperoncini! That dressing!), and it along with the breadsticks are endless. Endless. It can be a long conversation, like you said, and, metaphorically, it suggests that the good times don’t have to end. There is a similar sense of ongoingness in these episodes. Jordan doesn’t have to stop being an athlete just because he’s not playing basketball anymore. Once the baseball strike happens, he can come back to the Bulls. I want to leave room to talk about Jordan playing baseball, but I also think it’s kind of boring. He can’t hit a curveball! What do you think about Jordan’s little baseball break?
DC: I totally watched NBC anchor Mark Suppelsa’s dispatches from the White Sox spring training camp in Sarasota, Florida, because, despite how odd the career change might have seemed, I figured someone as driven as Michael Jordan would make a decent showing. And from the sound of it, if he had stayed, he might have made it into Major League Baseball proper.
But in the context of The Last Dance, Jordan’s time in Minor League Baseball is like the more extreme—or maybe just lengthier—version of Dennis Rodman blowing off steam in Las Vegas between games. In 1993, he helped the Bulls accomplish something that, at the time, only one other team had managed to pull off. I suppose he could have viewed a four-peat as a challenge to rise to, but the press gauntlet he’d run through after the Atlantic City trip, combined with his father’s death in July of 1993, would be enough to make anyone, even someone seen as “superhuman,” want to take a breather. And, as he proved, the time off was helpful.
Do you have any recollection of people jeering at Jordan for “slumming” in the minors after winning three world championships?
LA: I honestly don’t have a very strong memory of him playing baseball or what people thought about it, beyond a general “what the fuck” kind of attitude. What I remember more is the remaining team members and how they played without him. In episode VII, Charley Rosen, Jackson’s biographer, says, “That was the season Phil did his best coaching… They ran the triangle to perfection.” You love to see it: Pippen stepping up to become a team leader and then new players like Steve Kerr and Toni Kukoc making names for themselves. They didn’t make it into the finals, but for a team adjusting as they were, they made a good showing. I just love to see all the passing in these archival clips! It’s like in Hoosiers, when Gene Hackman makes his team pass at least four times before they can take a shot. The ’93-94 Bulls did it naturally. In many ways, they became more of a team in Jordan’s absence. What stuck out for you about those Bulls? Either in the doc or while it was happening?
DC: Not to relegate Scottie Pippen to permanent “second man” status, but I’m not sure he ever led the team. I agree that the Bulls remained a great team in the absence of Jordan, proving once and for all that the triangle offense, not just one superstar player, wins games. But after all the contract bullshit and the overt courting of Toni Kukoc, I just don’t think the environment was ever supportive enough of Pippen for him to feel the kind of ownership of the team that Jordan did. The few seconds he sat out in game three of the 1994 playoffs against the Knicks will probably always haunt him. Again, I absolutely feel for him (and Kukoc, who just got caught in the middle); I’d probably be bitter, too. (Bitterness and pettiness abound, even among millionaires and tremendously gifted athletes). But while the Bulls found a way to keep going without Jordan, I don’t know that Pippen ever stepped into his shoes as the team leader. Can you imagine being read the riot act by Bill Cartwright?
LA: He got dressed down by Cartwright, but it sounds like it was in that way of a parent who is so disappointed in their child that they can’t even yell at them. What I love about this scene, and these two episodes in general, is all the crying. I love these dudes crying so much! Cartwright started crying when he said that Pippen let the team down, then Pippen started crying. Later, at the end of the episode, Jordan gets verklempt when he says, “If you don’t wanna play that way, don’t play that way,” about how passionate/mean he could get with his teammates. I love all the drama, and then later how they resolve it. Like when Jordan comes back to the team, and he and Kerr get into it one practice, and Kerr shoves him, but then Jordan hits him in the face. But then they make up, and they’re stronger than before. And then, oof, with Jordan just collapsing and sobbing at the end of the ’95-96 championships. So much emotion!
Speaking of the ’95-96 championships, time is collapsing here. The past is nearly meeting up with the present. The 1998 finals are beginning. What stuck out to you during those games and teams? A lot of that reinforced, for me, the way that Jordan can find motivation from absolutely anything—real or fictional.
DC: Sports are so emotional! I love that they put it all out there, even the less flattering footage and the more resentful comments. Will Perdue talks about Michael Jordan being a jerk; Jordan criticizes Pippen for taking himself out of a pivotal game at a crucial moment. The explosion between Jordan and Kerr (whom M.J. describes as “the smallest guy on the team”) during that practice was proof that Chicago might have missed Michael Jordan, but he still had something to prove to his new teammates.
I got chills when Bill Wennington told the story of Jordan telling him, “I want you to jump on the cape.” The boldness! But he obviously had some doubts: about getting his basketball body back (I wonder what the difference is—probably leanness?), about wearing the number 23 again. The fact that he wore his shorts backwards in his first game back was such a funny, down-to-earth moment.
Still, while it might have taken him longer than he initially anticipated to get back into his groove, this was the rally to beat all rallies. Here again, the familiar narrative structure of The Last Dance emerges. Jason Hehir and crew take a page out of the sports movie playbook—the darkest hour, quickly followed by the dawn, a.k.a. the return of the hero.
Rewatching the moment the Bulls made NBA history with their 72-10 season (a record that was broken in 2016 by the Golden State Warriors) was everything I hoped it would be. But we haven’t gotten to the elephant—that is, the cartoon bunny—in the room. Laura, it’s finally time to talk about Space Jam.
LA: What can I say about Space Jam except that I saw it in the theater with, I believe, my entire high school basketball team. What an important outing! Though, really, I’ve never been as taken with that movie as a lot of people seem to be. I mostly just recall it as being silly, yes? Yes.
I’m more interested in Jordan filming for something wild like 10 to 12 hours a day, taking a break somewhere in there to work out, and then doing shirts-and-skins pickup games with Patrick Ewing and fuckers like Reggie Miller until 9 or 10 at night. That part, to me, really solidified this point that was made during the 1992 Dream Team practice footage, where Jordan, and it seems a lot of other guys in the league, too, appreciated these unofficial all-league games more than actual official competition. Miller said it himself, “It was some of the best games.” Some of the best shit can happen when you’re supposedly just fucking around.
DC: The Space Jam shooting schedule and workout regimen sound absolutely bonkers to me, as do the pickup games. I wonder if Miller et al. considered these the “best games” because all the bullshit was out the window—the endorsement deals, the contracts, the reported rivalries. Keeping people employed and fans in the seats. For them, this was basketball in its purest form.
But Space Jam is a fascinating footnote in Jordan’s career. He’d always been viewed as having the looks and charisma of a movie star—this was his chance to prove it. And you know what? The movie’s not bad; certainly not Kazaam bad (if you’re reading this, Shaquille O’Neal, please know I think you were great in Blue Chips). Jordan is personable on screen, even if he’s no Brando or Bill Murray. I wasn’t over the moon about it or anything, but I will always have a sentimental attachment to it because, as I have already told you in our warmups, that’s my high school orchestra in the accompanying video for the soundtrack’s “I Believe I Can Fly.” We were set up with sheet music of an arrangement that approximated the real composition (because copyrights), and you can see the back of my head at one point, I think.
That song’s place in pop culture history is much more complicated now—you can’t talk about that song or video without noting the revelations and federal indictments against R. Kelly (I doubt it’ll come up in the docuseries proper). I certainly don’t want him to benefit from it any further at this point by cueing it up here. But we didn’t know then what we know now—in 1996, being a part of that video shoot just made me feel like I was, in some small way, in Michael Jordan’s orbit. But, more relevant to our discussion, Space Jam is interesting because it was just another fruitful detour for Jordan. A movie that grossed over $230 million globally was effectively marketing promotion for the NBA.
It was also essentially part of training for Jordan, who came back with a vengeance in the ’95-96 season. Let’s talk about that Bulls-Sonics matchup, which Ahmad Rashad recalls was framed as the greatest mismatch in NBA Finals history.
LA: Oh, I love Blue Chips! But I don’t have a ton to say about the Chicago-Seattle mismatch, except that for a doc that sometimes spends too much or too little time on certain subjects (too much time on Jordan in a Sox uniform, too little time on Scottie’s dunk against Ewing), it spends the exact right amount of time on that particular part of the playoff series. They kind of breeze through it. What’s to dig into there? It was way more interesting in these episodes when we see the Bulls face off against the Magic (in 1996) and the Hornets (in 1998), where ex-Bulls and former teammates of Jordan like Horace Grant and B.J. Armstrong show up, and where Jordan manufactures some motivation against them for deigning to think they can beat the Bulls. I love that game that Armstrong has though. He knew how to beat his old team, because he was once in that offense. And it worked! For one game anyway.
We’ve been ending these talks with favorite footage. Most of my favorite moments weren’t captured in video, only recalled (the crying, Bakers Square). So, I’m going to go with the Jordan-less Bulls and all the passing. And a current-day Kukoc, way too big for his chair, saying very dryly, “I did hit a lot of last-second shots during the season.” What do you have?
DC: Speaking of Armstrong, I do want to circle back briefly to something you said up top about Jordan always finding a way to stay motivated, whether he’s magnifying a slight or moving the goal posts (er, raising the hoop?). Armstrong was part of the team that thwarted his big comeback, so even though Jordan went after old B.J., it only got him so far.
I think the footage that stood out the most to me, aside from a sobbing Michael Jordan on the floor of the Bulls locker room after clinching the ’96 title, was from the retirement press conference in 1993. Everyone’s trying to keep a poker face (except Jordan, who often smiles), but you can tell they’re all wondering what they’re going to do now. The answer was, in part, keep up the triangle offense and otherwise do the best you can, but it’s one of the few moments of uncertainty in this docuseries.
I’ll have to wait until next week and the finale for my answer, but I’m interested to learn what you remember about the Bulls vs. the Pacers. Because there’s more than corn in Indiana (sorry, been dying to say that).
LA: But for hating Reggie Miller, I don’t remember much about the Pacers.
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These episodes were full of moments that played out like something out of horror movies: the hometown announcer’s quiet, frightened “uh oh” during the LaBradford Smith game; Armstrong and Horace Grant celebrating wins in Jordan’s house when we know they’re going to get wrecked as a result. (Glen Rice talked about the former like a man with regret — and this is a guy who dated Sarah Palin.) Frankly I’m surprised we didn’t get footage of MJ laying into his the Looney Tunes squad: “FUCKIN BUGS!”
I thought Glen Rice hooked up with Sarah Palin during the 1987 Great Alaskan Shootout
“From way downtown, BANG!”
At least Baker’s Square had good pie.
Man, that is a name I’ve not heard in a long time. We had two Baker’s Squares in our area; one is now an IHOP, another one of those dreaded business-area spots that is currently deserted because no restaurant was able to succeed there
“And from the sound of it, if he had stayed, he might have made it into Major League Baseball proper.”People like to hype MJs baseball career and I’m not really sure why (his basketball career was thoroughly impressive on its own, to put it mildly) but the reality is he was really bad at baseball. I’ll spare you the super nerdy statistical breakdown and just say He was the worst hitter on his team and one of the worst hitters in the league. And at 31 years old he very likely was not going to get significantly better. Now, it’s kind of impressive that he wasn’t absolutely embarassing out there but that’s a long way from potentially making MLB. To give Jordans baseball career some context, Tim Tebow has performed much much better at the same level (AA) at the same age (31) after also switching from a totally different sport. Yet, nobody in baseball regards Tebow as a potential major league player.The whole “Jordan is such an amazing athlete he could have made the majors” narrative needs to die. He was really bad at baseball.
The fact that he could perform at all against serious competition after a dozen years not playing is frankly amazing, though. I agree he was not a legit pro prospect, but I’d have a hard time arguing it wasn’t an amazing athletic feat.
Thats a hard thing to answer. Is it amazing compared to the avg person? Sure. The avg 31 year old off the street is not even touching the ball in AA. But Michael Jordan is also not the avg guy on the street. He is an elite, elite athelete. If you compare him other elite level athletes who did the same thing, his baseball career becomes much much less impressive. As I mentioned in the original post, Tim Tebow has actually put Jordan to shame in baseball under almost identical circumstances. And there are probably alot of former high school/college players out there who could do the same if given the chance. The truth is that ALOT of high level pro atheletes were multi sport atheletes in college. So, all things considered, I dont find it super amazing that Jordan was able to be a great basketball player and a pretty bad AA baseball player. I tend to think alot of his peers could (and some have) done the same or better. I think it largely gets blown way out of proportion because he is Michael Jordan.
Not to keep beating the same drum but if you want to talk amazing athletic feats, look at what Tim Tebow has done. Or someone like Mark Hendrickson (he had a 4 year NBA career and even longer MLB career). Mookie Betts is a MLB MVP and competes in professional bowling lol. Or any of a dozen or more examples. MJ being a pretty bad baseball player is pretty far down the list of amazing feats IMO.
It also shows how amazing Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders were. Not just to compete at both sports, but to be a top tier player in two professional sports is just 1 in a million out of a super small sub set of professional athletes.I always thought the baseball thing was, in part, to be mentioned in the same conversation with those guys.
Not to take anything away from Jackson or Sanders (although they really were not as good at baseball as many like to remember. Especially Deion) but I think it’s more that they actually got the opportunity to play both sports more than anything. I fully believe that there are many guys in all the major sports who probably could be two sport players if they wanted too and were given the chance because, as previously mentioned, many were legit two sport stars in college. I mean, just last year Kyler Murray was drafted 8th overall in the MLB draft and 1st overall 6 months later in the NFL draft. There is no doubt he could have AT LEAST been a minor leaguer and NFL QB at the same time. He basically was forced to pick one though.The amazing thing about Bo and Deion is they were actually allowed to do both.
Kyler Murray willingly chose to do Football over baseball and didn’t want to do both because he was worried that he was too short to be QB and was afraid of not getting drafted. Hypothetically he could have done both if he wanted to.
No he couldn’t have. No NFL team is going to allow their starting QB to play baseball in the offseason. Maybe a less important position (like CB or RB in the case of Sanders and Bo) but QB1? Not a chance. No matter how badly he wanted too.
Except that’s not how it happened. Again, he willingly said no and chose Football because it was more lucrative.
If you want to believe it was all Murray’s choice, fine. But it’s just not true. There was no actual choice to be made. He would have never been allowed to play baseball regardless.
I think you’re right, and though he willingly chose football over baseball that only happened when it was clear that he would be a top pick only if he stopped playing baseball. There was a lot of talk at the time about how QB is a year-round position; between that and the risk of injury to your QB1 there’s no way a football team would let him play two sports. I think his situation is rather closer to John Elway, who used baseball as a backup in case some dumpy team drafted him.
If you don’t want to believe it he didn’t have a choice, whatever. Especially since you don’t have any evidence to support that, whereas the MLB and the A’s are retaining his baseball rights going forward, as he is the on minor-league restricted list indefinitely. The NFL did not disapprove of that. He could go play for the A’s right now if he wanted to and the NFL and MLB won’t say no.
If you honestly believe that an NFL team would allow it’s starting QB to play baseball in the offseason I don’t know what to tell you. But I can only assume you don’t really follow football that much because it would be a insane decision. Russel Wilson had to fight his football coaches to play both in college (he actually gave up his scholarship) and he was a 3rd round pick who people seriously doubted could make the NFL. The idea an NFL team would let the 1-1 pick do it is not realistic at all.
The A’s keeping his rights doesn’t mean anything. That’s is what happens when you draft a player and he doesn’t report after signing. And the NFL has no standing to “disaprove” of it even if they cared (they dont). Jameis Winston (another two sport athelete in college) literally had a clause in his contract when he was drafted by Tampa banning him from playing baseball. According to pro football talk this type of clause exists in over 100 players contracts.https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/05/winstons-no-baseball-clause-isnt-rare/With all due respect, I don’t think you really know what you are talking about here. No team is letting their starting QB play baseball in the offseason.
Jameis Winston is not Kyler Murray who doesn’t have that clause in his contract or anyone or anything from the NFL stopping him from playing baseball in the offseason. He could theoretically but doesn’t because he just doesn’t want to play Baseball and prefers Football.
With all due respect, no amount of you hurling personal attacks makes you any more right here, especially since you don’t have anything to back up what is essentially your personal opinion and feelings that you’re trying so hard for almost two days now to push on a total stranger on the internet for the most pathetic reasons. Especially since you’ve made yourself the prime Football expert just to win an internet argument.
Lol I literally just showed you definitive proof that NFL teams contractually prevent players from playing baseball all. the. time. And you still claim that not only are you right but I’m being the unreasonable person here who refuses to acknowledge reality. Lol. I was kind of giving you the benefit of the doubt this whole time that MAYBE you might fly in the face of the typical internet commentator and actually admit you were mistaken when faced with overwhelming evidence. But as usual, i was let down and you are instead going to play the typical “who even cares? I don’t! You must be a loser” Card that people play when they are out of straws to grasp at.Cool.
“Lol” all you want and keep giving me your bullshit “benefit of the doubt,” you’re still wrong. And like a typical bad faith internet idiot, you didn’t give anything other than personal opinions you try to present as “facts” and “evidence” and when challenged on that, you respond back with bromides and ad hom attacks. Typical.
Three days later and you’re still running with this bullshit. Cool. Let’s see long you keep replying and insisting on being right, while acting like a child thinking that saying “lol” and hurling insults makes you the sports expert you wish you were. Keep going and grasping at your straws. I’ll say, 3-4 more replies?
Murray has the same clause in his contract. It voids all gaurateed NFL money if he plays baseball. Playing baseball would instantly lose him 23 million dollars in gaurenteed NFL money.You are unequivocally, unquestionably wrong. But you have been wrong this whole time and don’t seem to care so cest la vie, lol.Enjoy being a thoroughly awful person on the internet. I’m sure it will get you far.
Five days later and you still can’t let this go can’t you? You are truly a piece of work. I’m sorry that your life sucks so hard that pretending you’re some kind of expert at football and sports on the AV Club out of all places is the only thing you’ve going on in your miserable life.
Please keep this going though and enjoy being a thoroughly pathetic person on the internet. I’m sure its getting you far with all the ladies and making you lots of money telling everyone that you win all the pointless internet arguments with total strangers by hurling insults over a week long.
There’s also the money issue. Football for a high first-round QB pays a lot more than baseball, with the added bonus that you don’t spend multiple years working through the minors. You go straight to the show.
Jackson or Sanders (although they really were not as good at baseball as many like to rememberActually Bo Jackson had a lot of potential and showed flashes of brilliance in baseball. If injury didn’t cut short both careers, he would have been a decent power hitter/DH’er in his later years. He struck out a lot and was a bit shakey in the outfield, but the obvious speed was there and he had a cannon for an arm.
Jackson was a decent player no question. But time and nostalgia (and ESPN documentaries) has sort of made people think he was much more than that. That’s all I meant.
If he stuck strictly to football (barring the injury of course) he would have been a HOF’er for sure. I thought the two sport thing was a detriment as he never played a full football season. If he stuck to baseball, he would have had probably ten to fifteen competitive years with decent stats, but not good enough to get him into Cooperstown..
Bo struck out a lot? Nah, he was just ahead of the times!
I’m qualifying “top tier” more in the sense that they were legit major leaguers. Maybe on the lower end of that scale but major leaguers nonetheless. I think the reason that no one tries this anymore is because splitting training between the two kinda just makes you mediocre at both (or quickly wears out your body, in Bo’s case). Jordan is one of the top five athletes of all time and he couldn’t pull it off but I think the suggestion is that if Jordan set his mind to it he would’ve eventually accomplished it.
Brian Jordan suffered the same thing. He tuned his body to the very edge of failure to be in elite NFL condition, which turned out to be a problem when playing a 162-game baseball season. He ironically made himself too fragile to play every day.
Sanders played for 9 years and hit .263 against major league pitching with 186 stolen bases. That seems pretty legitimate, especially since he hit .304 against MLB pitching in his best season. He was certainly a better defensive back in football than he was anything in baseball, but those stats at the plate would have easily kept him on a major league roster for as long as he wanted to play or until his skills seriously started to erode.
SB and avg are very narrow stats. I’m not going to accuse you of cherry picking and beat you over the head with stats but If you take a broader look it is a much different story. For his career he was a below avg hitter and there are a few years where he was downright awful.
His career OPS is .771. That is considered to be in the low ‘above average’ range. He was definitely not worth the salary the Braves and Reds paid him, but he was also certainly not the ‘below average’ player you are describing and he was clearly a much better defensive back in football than he was ever a baseball player. He probably never would have been an all-star in the MLB, even if he had given up football and devoted his full attention to baseball, but a .771 OPS would have kept him on most MLB baseball rosters, especially because he also had enough range to cover center field, even if he was never a spectacular outfielder. He would have likely been the leadoff hitter for almost any MLB club in his more productive years (92-95). He only years he really had awful stats were his age 21-23 years and, to be honest, there are not many MLB baseball players that have awesome stats when they are that young. He might have become slightly better than the serviceable player he was in baseball if he devoted all of his time and focus to it, but I think there came a point where he realized that being an all-pro cornerback was probably the thing he needed to focus his attention on.
Brian Jordan!
How does Bo Jackson compare?
Bo tends to get overrated when it comes to MLB because he did crazy things people remember (like running up walls, breaking bats on his head lol) but really he was avg at best.That said Bo was light years better than Michael Jordan. It’s not even a comparison. Bo was a legit MLB player and Jordan probably would have been an avg player agaisnt college level competition. He could not hit like, at all (he was also pretty bad in the outfield).
I think part of the reason the MJ playing baseball thing get so hyped though it it’s not merely an “elite level” basketball player playing baseball but the possible world historical GOAT of basketball, which makes any achievement in a second team sport seem all the more impressive. The only sports I follow are basketball and soccer so the hypothetical I’d say would be it’s like if Cristiano Ronaldo (of a few years ago in his prime) briefly retired to play basketball and became a solid player in the NBA’s G League. Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson are close but neither were the all time great players in their primary sport that Jordan was
All those two sport athletes, and you didn’t mention Space Jam co-star Danny Ainge!
I’d say it’s impressive because baseball and basketball require two very different skill sets. Squarely hitting a baseball traveling 95 miles per hour is a rare enough talent. Finding someone who can do that AND has a 46″ vertical (never mind multiple MVPs) is a unicorn.
“Not to keep beating the same drum but if you want to talk amazing athletic feats, look at what Tim Tebow has done.”I feel like its worth pointing out though what Tim Tebow has done at the AA level came after he spent 2 seasons in lower level ball tuning his game before playing in AA. MJ had one season dropped immediately into AA. Tebow also spent the year before getting into baseball privately training and preparing for the switch, whereas Michael didn’t really start training for the sport in earnest until spring training. If you compare Jordan’s one season in AA with Tebow’s first season in single A, they aren’t that far off from each other, with offseason training and a more serious focus on the sport, Jordan likely would have improved to a much more competitive level in the sport.Though ultimately I agree, making the claim that he was going to be an MLB prospect is just conjecture tinted by GOAT-colored glasses. BUT I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that he was just plainly bad and hopeless at the sport either.
I think this is probably the fairest take. The doc was obviously heavily tilted to portray MJ in a positive light, but there certainly is reason to believe that he would have continued to improve.Physically, obviously, he was still in incredible shape. His body could have used more baseball-specific conditioning, to be sure, but the primary issue with baseball was his skills. And if you take more at bats, eventually you will improve. If you field more fly balls, eventually you will improve.I don’t think he could have ever made it to the Majors legitimately. Assuming the potential really was there, it would have taken too many years playing baseball full time to get his skills to that level that he’d have been in his mid-30’s and his body over the hill. But I think he could have become a solid AA player, maybe even a AAA player. He was never going to be a power hitter, so as long as his speed kept up and he improved his ability as a contact hitter, he could have been serviceable.
Yeah the truth is between both extremes. He was not good at baseball, as expected. But for a guy to literally walk into AA having not played since high school and hit .200 and steal 30 bags is still a crazy show off otherwordly athleticism. I played varsity ball for three years in high school and hit .340+ every year; even if I was in Jordan shape in my early 30s right now (Narrator: Batista Thumbs Up was never in Jordan shape), I don’t think I’m walking into AA Rancho Cucamonga and hitting .202 cold turkey.At best, he’s eventually becomes an average minor leaguer lifer that the Sox call up in September as a publicity stunt to pack the house while playing out the string a la what assuredly was going to happen to Tebow if the expanded rosters were still at 40 this year. But he was never gonna stick on a 25-man roster as a backup, certainly not at 30.So yeah, statistically, it was a disaster. Contextually, it just showed what a physical freak MJ was.
Anybody got a problem with Hehir allowing every source to talk about Michael, and when they have any tinge of criticism, the director giving the clip to MJ where he gets the last word. Jordan’s the greatest player ever, but can’t handle anyone hitting his legacy.I realize Jordan’s people are producing this. But just try for a moment to be real fellas. Fredrick Wiseman would barf on this documentary.
Nope. If anything its more authentic because we get to see his famed competitiveness still being exercised in present day. It’s also produced some great memes. Get over it. The Thin Blue Line this ain’t.
I’m starting to notice it more. I don’t know if it’s just I’m more aware of the controversies of Jordan producing the documentary so I’m seeing it more, or it was less noticeable in the first couple of episodes. It felt like the first couple were deeper dives on 1 subject, where as these later ones seem to breeze over a number of topics that seem interesting enough for their own episode, and when they reduce it to a 5 minute segment, it takes a far more “pro-Michael” lean. I’m not a sports fan at all, but I think 10 episodes is not enough.That last scene where MJ is on the floor crying and people are just standing around taking photos? Heartbreaking.
Yeah, the “let’s hand MJ an iPad with this former player saying something critical of him” moments are one of the things that will keep this from being a great documentary. Super cheap just to add a little drama and get social media buzzing about that stuff.
That was genuinely one of the conditions of MJ’s to OK the series, he insisted on having a chance to respond, if he wanted, to any of the 105 participants. This series was never happening without MJ, so him getting some stipulations like that I think are fine. I think some props to the director for letting it be transparent in the series, showing that Michael is genuinely looking at what the other person said and responding to it. I will say what may have made it a touch more problematic in this episode though was it wasn’t simply Jordan getting the last word, it shaped the episode narrative. Payton was talking about how his defense on MJ helped the Sonics grab those two games, and Michael responded that nope, Payton wasn’t the problem in those games, and then the actual narrative of the story shifted to match that to suggest the problem was Michael thinking about his dad. The episode didn’t really do much more than that to kind of reconcile to two points of view other than simply cede to what MJ said.
Just for the record, the Sonics did not get gentlemen swept in those Finals! They only showed one win, but Seattle won a game at home and in Chicago, so a whole two games!
Obviously Jordan is the headliner, but I’d love the docuseries to give everyone involved with the Bulls equal screen time for telling their story.
Seattle won games 4&5 at Home in the 1996 NBA Finals. The NBA FINALS from 1985-2013 had a 2-3-2 format because Red Auerbach complained about the travel during the 1984 NBA Finals.
I didn’t think I could dislike Krause more, then he went after Craig Sager.“……. Way to go, Craig”
Oh my god. F**k Jerry Krause forever
That “Way to go, Craig” was hilarious, tho
I love how awkward the Toni Kukoc press conference was, with Krause trying to pick up the table mic and Toni towering over him by about three feet.
I’m surprised that I’m surprised at the press accusing MJ of having something to do with his father’s murder. That’s low. I’d expect that kind of journalism in 2020, but not my precious 1993.
wait till you hear about what the press said about fatty arbuckle!
In fairness, the murder was around the time of the reveals that Jordan had lost a lot of money gambling with some shady dudes, so there was a real question about whether the two were connected. The press would have needed to report it, even if only to debunk any connection.
The real MVP is the kid in the blue shirt vigorously picking his nose at the table behind Scottie Pippen as the 1.8 sec drama unfolds. That kid is going for it!
One small shrapnel of history that came our way from the 95-96 season was that one of the ten teams to beat Jordan and the Bulls that year were the inaugural (and terrible) Toronto Raptors.
During the Raptors’ championship run, a Toronto reporter randomly lobbed Coach of the Warriors Steve Kerr a question about it, and he was as confused by it as he was diplomatic. It reminded me of the Onion article where Michael J. Fox holds a press conference and is interrupted by a question about hoverboards, but plays it cool as best he can.
That reporter had been holding onto that question for 25 years! Raptors haven’t exactly had a lot of positives to hold onto in their franchise history, so I don’t blame the guy.
about getting his basketball body back (I wonder what the difference is—probably leanness?)Different types of athleticism/conditioning. Basketball requires a lot of chest and shoulders for shooting, a ton of cardio ability, and good quad and calf strength for jumping. Baseball uses the hips and upper back a lot more, barely uses the chest, doesn’t use shoulders that much. And the way you use your legs is different because you want to create leg drive without actually jumping, so you need to send that force up from your legs into your arms for swinging/throwing.