The Last Dance / Why Michael Jordan's scoring prowess still can't be touched

[sticky-fingers]

Article on ESPN : https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/290 ... ss-touched

[Andrew]

Fantastic read.

I read another interesting article recently: How the Point-MJ Experiment Foreshadowed the Modern NBA

It talks about MJ's triple-double streak and the experiment of making him more of a facilitator as well as a scorer in the 1989 season, when he averaged 32, 8, and 8. Aside from being a reminder that MJ was more than just a scorer, it's also a good example of how a lot of things are older than people think. Bigs being able to shoot from range, dribble, and facilitate/run the offense to some extent, would be another example of something that's considered a recent innovation, yet there were players that broke that mould decades ago.

Can't wait for The Last Dance!

[sticky-fingers]

I was aware of this streak but nice article too.
IMO, when P.Jackson took the Bulls, put the triangle offense, he put MJ as the center of a team system.

Nowadays, all those triple double are the consequences of superstar playing as the system, and a faster peace.
MJ didnt win in this way, nor LeBron, Harden, Westbrook. But it seems harder and harder to coach players in NBA.

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Remember the last time you saw current superstars cut like that on they're off the ball...

[Andrew]

Big numbers draw attention, doing what's needed to win is more important.

First two episodes of The Last Dance were indeed amazing. I'd forgotten all about Pippen's trade demand in November 1997.

[sticky-fingers]

Episodes werent available on Netflix this morning in France

[Andrew]

Oof, hope they're added soon. Well worth the watch, even though we obviously know how it ultimately turns out.

[Lamrock]

The Last Dance is cool to watch. For as obsessed as I am with the NBA, I'm *just* too young to remember the heyday of MJ and the Bulls. Even though I know the gist of the story and of course have seen the highlights, I hadn't realized the start of that season was that tumultuous. It's a good thing for the Bulls that social media hadn't come around yet.

[sticky-fingers]

Finally, i watched the first 2 episodes. "Thanx" Netflix, your search engine sucks

Lamrock, people think 97 and 98 Bulls were as dominant as 96 team.
It wasnt the case, specially in 98. Pippen played only 44 games, he was hurt in the Playoffs. And the others guys dont really show up. Rodman had dropped too.

Phil Jackson takes up the torch on ESPN/Details

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[Murat]

Big numbers draw attention, doing what's needed to win is more important.

First two episodes of The Last Dance were indeed amazing. I'd forgotten all about Pippen's trade demand in November 1997.

I think it was not the first time Pippen demanded a trade.

[Andrew]

It wasn't. I guess his return and the sixth championship ended up glossing over it; winning will do that, after all.

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[Andrew]

That's the one. There were also rumours of him being traded for Shawn Kemp, but the Sonics backed out of the deal.

[Jeffx]

There is one thing the late Jerry Krause was better at than Jordan....building a team.

[Andrew]

It's definitely easy to overlook the great moves Krause made. The problem is that it got to a point where the genius ran out, and his personality became a problem. He broke up the team in the worst possible way, and that didn't start the rebuilding efforts on great footing. His moves in the years that followed were nowhere near as brilliant as the ones he'd made in the 80s, and the way he alienated people clearly caught up with him as well.

His vision for blowing things up and starting over didn't seem to extend beyond "let's blow it up and start over". Imagine if they'd taken Michael Finley in 1995 instead of Jason Caffey. Would he have gotten a lot of playing time behind MJ? No, but he could've stepped into the starting role when MJ retired, or been a valuable player to trade as a key bench player with plenty of potential. His infatuation with Toni Kukoc led to a fascination with European players that saw picks wasted on prospects that were nowhere near as good as Toni, and they subsequently became busts.

It's not exactly fair to focus on those failures when the successes led to six championships in eight years. It is part of his legacy as well however, and it's important to note because it led to the dismantling of a dynasty; purportedly to avoid a similar fate to the Celtics of the 80s when their stars retired, but he did it in a way that led to such a fall anyway.

[Jeffx]

^ Yep, made no sense breaking up that team, which had one (maybe two) more runs left. Dude couldn't wait to hire Tim Floyd - TIM FLOYD??? Egos.....

Oh well, it's better to be great (and slowly losing it) than never being great at all ((cough)) Knicks ((cough))

[Andrew]

Man, Tim Floyd. To tell a coach like Phil Jackson that he's not coming back even if he goes 82-0, because you want to bring in Tim Floyd? As I said, the genius ran out, or gave way to ego.

Not to get too off-topic, but I think we've seen the same thing happen with GarPax in the years that have followed. Some really good moves followed by headscratching ones and a lack of shrewdness, cultivation of a toxic atmosphere, and egos getting in the way of basketball decisions. The sad thing is that John Paxson was there to see it as a player with Krause in the front office, yet he went down the same path when he took the role.

[sticky-fingers]

Of course, Krause was lucky or smart to pick MJ, made moves for Pippen, Cartwright...
But after all those titles, he wanted to be seen as the builder of the Bulls'dynasty, as one of the main contributor.
He made statement "organizations win championships", he destoyed the 95-98 team, he pushed MJ into retirement, and then we saw what happened...

[Andrew]

MJ's the one move he can't take credit for, as Rod Thorn was the Bulls' GM at that time. In that respect, he was lucky to inherit a team that had made that choice.

[Jeffx]

Man, Tim Floyd. To tell a coach like Phil Jackson that he's not coming back even if he goes 82-0, because you want to bring in Tim Floyd? As I said, the genius ran out, or gave way to ego.

Crazy thing is Phil Jackson did things as an executive that he would never allow a GM/team president to do to him when he was coaching.

[Andrew]

It's like Paxson becoming a toxic executive, I suppose. A different feeling when you actually have that role and the power that comes with it. Also, "rules for thee, not for me", and all that.

[sticky-fingers]

Is The Last Dance about 1997-98 season or about main actors of Bulls' dynasty ?!
Because after 4 episodes, it looks like more a resume but we havent seen a lot of rare footage.

[Jeffx]

It really annoys me seeing the Pistons getting disrespected on social media by the Jordan fanboys (not referring to anyone here lol). As if the Pistons were the first team with a "rough" style of play. Please...the Celtics played rough too - they invented the term 'hatchet-man' (see Jim Loscutoff). How about cats like Tommy Heinsohn, Dave Cowens, Paul Silas, M.L. Carr, Greg Kite, etc. Sh*t, you'd pay the price entering the paint against Silas. And let's not forget Kevin McHale clotheslining Kurt Rambis in the '84 Finals (and I don't think a foul was called). But the Pistons are the bad guys. Yeah, the Pistons should have taken the high road and not walked off in '91, but the Celtics did the same thing to them and the media loudmouths said nothing about it.

[Andrew]

The Player's Tribune has put together some noteworthy quotes about MJ: The Legend of Michael Jordan.

The animations they've used as you scroll down the page are pretty nifty, too.

[mp3]

I've decided to watch this now, I was going to wait mainly because I watched first hand Jordan kill the Knicks so bad we have never recovered lol

But in respect MJ is the greatest basketball player I have ever watched in my lifetime, Kobe was a close second and LeBron is a different monster completely but it's not about rating it's about the love of basketball so iam going to enjoy watching the first few episodes.

Also from a 2k standpoint when David Aldridge started speaking I half expected the screen to cut off the second he started speaking lol

[Andrew]

"And now let's hear from our Hall of Fame sideline reporter, David Aldridge. David?"
"Thank..."
"And thank you, David!"

Every game, mashing the button to skip through intros.