With our ‘Shelter in Place – Lockdown Life’, there’s been a welcome respite that went on for the past five weeks on Sunday nights. Of course I’m talking about the ESPN Docu-series “The Last Dance” which covered the amazing Bulls teams of the 1990’s. Two new one hour long episodes each week made us forget the fact that we haven’t had real sports to watch in over two months.
I don’t need to re-cap what was shown but the online and radio & TV talk about this series has been a great vein of entertainment to tap into. The makers of the series have been interviewed often and each episode has been analyzed and dissected more than a bucket full of frogs in a high school biology lab.
There’s also been blowback this week from former team mate Horace Grant who insists he was not the blabbing source to writer Sam Smith and his book “The Jordan Rules.” Heck, there’s even been rebuttal from the guy who made the pizza that allegedly made Michael Jordan sick the night before his “Flu” game which was said to actually be food poisoning. That pizza maker claims to be a Jordan fan, named his son after number twenty three and personally delivered a carefully and healthfully made pizza to the Bulls star’s hotel room.
“The Last Dance” was a fun historical whirl around the NBA courts, locker rooms and other locales. And guess what? As satisfying as all episodes were, I can’t help but think we could’ve done with a few more installments. Yes, when we digest a great viewing meal like this one, some of us want more!
Like many, I graded “The Last Dance” an ‘A’ for excellence in content and presentation but it missed being graded an ‘A+.’ This is due to some glaring omissions in the coverage of the 1990’s Bulls. I had no problem with much of each episode being focused Michael Jordan but there were side tales that should have been brought to the forefront. Four more episodes in total would’ve rounded it all out.
So what was missing? How about Craig Hodges being the big story when the Bulls came to the White House after winning their first title in 1991? Hodges showed up to meet President George H. W. Bush wearing a full-length dashiki and bearing an eight-page letter covering issues of racism he felt should be addressed. There were the critical game contributions to the team by other players like Stacy King, Scott Williams, sharp shooting Bobby Hanson and forward Brian Williams. Brian Williams would go on to change his name to Bison Dele and ended up murdered five years after being part of the 1997 championship Bulls team. He is believed to have been killed at sea by his older brother plus Dele’s girlfriend and the boat’s captain were also presumed to have been killed by this same brother.
None of the players I listed were not nearly as well known as Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Grant, Paxson, Kerr and company, yet they offered special pieces to the Bulls title winning puzzles. Featuring these stories in segments would’ve offered an even more complete telling of “The Last Dance.”
The ending of episode ten of “The Last Dance” was a letdown. Sure, it was cool to see never before shown footage of the team at their Utah hotel and Michael Jordan sitting at a piano while basking in the glow of a second three-peat. And the final Bulls victory rally in Grant Park was fun to re-watch. However, the end, the last notes of the dance wrapped up with a quick text showing the dismantling of the ’98 Bulls. We read about Pippen and Rodman going to other teams, Michael retiring and Phil Jackson taking some time off. That was it, a dull thud of a close-out.
I was expecting an entire hour to be dedicated to more details on what the main principles in the story did in their post Bulls days. However, doing so would have included Jordan ending up on the Washington Wizards in what was an anti-climactic finish to his amazing basketball career. While not a major taint on his legacy, Michael would have been so much better off letting that last second winning shot in game 6 in Utah be his last pro shot ever. In Episode eight MJ even told Ahmad Rashad he wanted to leave basketball before his skills took the inevitable downturn all players face. I wish his Airness would’ve listened to his own original plan.
I feel the very best way to close out “The Last Dance,” would be to wrap up the players’ post Bulls epilogue first. Then for the very last segment, focus on coach Phil Jackson. That last segment would show the TV news footage of when Phil left the Berto Center for the very last time. Jackson parted ways with the Bulls the same way we’d all like to leave a company or a job, or a career; showing class, confidence and no regrets. Sitting on his motorcycle, Coach Jackson patiently answered some sports scribe’s queries on being done with the Bulls. He was calm as usual and explained it was time to go and he was happy to be moving on. With that Phil kicked that Harley into gear and drove off into the sunset.
Gentle visual fade, music swells and the dance is over.
NEXT BLOG- Reviewing other things I’ve been watching and listening to.