Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Now that the Tiger King phenomena has subsided, America is tuned into The Last Dance, an 10-part lovefest of Air Jordan, who apparently wants to make clear to everyone why he is the GOAT.

I've avoided this documentary, largely because I find myself nonplussed by the snippets I pick up via Yahoo!  The documentary focuses mostly on Jordan's second run with the Bulls, when the team racked up an impressive number of wins and three NBA titles, leading many basketball pundits to label him and the Bulls the greatest of all time.

We are now sufficiently enough removed from the Celtics dynasty of the late 50s and 60s that racked up 11 titles in 13 seasons, led by Bill Russell, that few can remember them.  Los Angeles wasn't too shabby during this era either, but they just couldn't get past the Celtics even after they brought Wilt Chamberlain on board in an attempt to level the playing field.  This was how good the Celtics were.  They beat LA each and every time during that incredible campaign.  But, we are told players of that era couldn't compete with players of this time.

Actually, the game of basketball hasn't changed that much.  Yea, we see greater physical specimens today, given all the time they spend in the gym, but even LeBron James says Jerry West could still put up big numbers today.  Imagine what Bill Russell could do, unquestionably the greatest center of all time if not the greatest player of all time.  He had more moves than even Hakeem Olajuwon, which is why bigger stronger men like Wilt Chamberlain had such a hard time containing him.

The Last Dance wants us to forget about all that, even if Air Jordan himself tipped his hat to Bill Russell.  After all 11 is bigger than 6, the number of rings each player accumulated.  Like Jordan, Russell didn't do it alone.  He was part of a great team, led by a great coach, who knew how to outsmart his opponents.

If anything was different about the two eras it is that it was much easier for an owner to keep a team together in the 60s than it is now.  Free Agency coupled with salary cap limits make it very hard for a team to put together more than 4 or 5 good years in a row.  LeBron has switched teams four times during his tenure in the league.  Now with the Lakers, he quite possibly would have won another ring had not coronavirus wiped out the season.

Chicago had to find creative ways to form two championship runs.  The second run was probably more impressive as Jordan, Pippen and Rodman were fetching top dollar, which meant the GM had to fill the roster with rookies and journeymen in order to stay under the cap limit.  Whether it was Jordan or Phil Jackson who got the most out of these unsung players is anyone's guess, but given Jackson was able to repeat his achievement at LA with Kobe and Shaq, I would give the nod to Jackson.  His famous triangle offense was pretty hard to crack and Steve Kerr essentially replicated it at Golden State during its recent run of 5 NBA finals, winning three of them.  Kerr was a key member of that storied Chicago Bulls team.

Maybe if I watched the series, I would hear more about how Jordan deferred to other players, but by all accounts this documentary is mostly about him.  The semi-reclusive player likes to keep to himself, so much so that he even had arranged times to go shopping so that he would have the grocery store largely to himself.  It is understandable in part since he was one of the most recognizable faces in the world at one time, but this says more about the rarefied air he created for himself, much like a crime boss would separate himself from the world.

Am I being mean, maybe, but we are talking about a guy who constantly built himself up at the expense of others, starting with his infamous feud with Isiah Thomas, who many said Michael personally kept off the Dream Team in 1992.  This was largely refuted in the documentary, as it turns out other players also hated Isiah, which is kind of hard to believe.  Isiah doesn't seem to remember it that way.

I think this is more about Chicago finally overcoming Detroit in the NBA East.  The Pistons were the reigning "Bad Boys," and Michael found out the hard way he couldn't beat Detroit on his own, so bit by bit a team was built around him to challenge this arch-nemesis, and eventually sweep the hated Pistons on their way to their first NBA title in 1991, which the Bulls greatly relished.  It was kind of like one gang taking out another for supremacy of the league.  Now that Michael was the kingmaker, he could rub Isiah's nose in the hardwood.

It is also worth noting that Dennis Rodman was part of that Detroit team.  He would eventually join Chicago when Michael came out of his brief retirement in 1996, to help lead the Bulls on their second run.  For the record, Dennis thinks highly of Isiah.

For Michael, this documentary helps cement his name in NBA history, but will it lead to a blowback?  After all, he hasn't been very kind to other players as well, notably Craig Hodges, his own teammate.  I guess Michael would like us to know how much he had to overcome to pull this team together on their way to its first three-peat.

Mostly, I think Michael would like to steal some of the thunder from LeBron, who was well on his way to achieving a fourth NBA title with a third team before coronavirus hit.  If LeBron had achieved this milestone, many would be talking about him as the greatest of all time, even if it would have only been four rings to Michael's six.   Only Robert Horry can claim to have won rings with three different teams, but he did it as a journeyman.

What I like about LeBron is that he is a giver, not a taker.  Not only does LeBron contribute generously to his community, starting schools for the underprivileged in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, but he's not afraid to take a political stance, even if it means he will sell a few less sneakers.  Of course, Jordan now dismisses his infamous quote as a joke, but the fact he couldn't even bring himself to support Harvey Gant for the Senate against an inflammatory incumbent like Jesse Helms speaks volumes to his character.

Jordan claims he was all about basketball and that he had no time for politics, but that simply doesn't wash.  More likely, Jordan shared many of the same conservative views as Republicans but at the time it wasn't such a highly charged political climate as it is now.  Yes, Helms was a racist, but Jordan didn't want to ruffle any feathers in his home state of North Carolina, where he is considered a hero for helping lead the Tar Heels to an NCAA championship in 1982, even if he played behind such greats as James Worthy and Sam Perkins on that team.

Sadly, Jordan rarely makes a political stand, even when it would be no skin off his nose to do so.  He likes playing politics right down the middle, making as few enemies as he can so that he can continue to cash in on his highly lucrative Air Jordan brand, which has made him worth a staggering $2.1 billion, by far the richest athlete in the world.

Through it all, Jordan has always been in this game for himself.  This is why the best he has been able to garner is a begrudging respect from his peers.  When he took his show on the road to Washington he failed to make the playoffs, lighting up the scoreboard at the ripe old age of 38 to show everyone he still had game.  He continued to toy with a comeback years later, not content to sit on the sidelines as the new kids took the floor, namely Kobe and LeBron, both of whom surpassed him in terms of point totals, but he still has more rings than either one of them.

There is something distasteful about this display of hubris.  If you are going to make a documentary about Michael Jordan then put his achievements in context, not just contribute to his hagiography.  BTW, even the logo is not original as Julius Erving could hang like this long before Michael.