During a special quarantine-themed live stream of People’s Party With Talib Kweli, the BKMC hit Instagram Live with co-host Jasmin Leigh streaming in via video call to have a one-of-a-kind interview with Wu-Tang founder and hip-hop pioneer RZA. Over the course of the hour-long conversation, the two Brooklynites talked celebrating hip-hop history via Swizz Beats’ Verzuz “battles,” RZA’s top five kung-fu movies, veganism, and more.

Among the “top five essential kung-fu movies any Wu-Tang fan must have seen,” RZA selects Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, 36 Chambers Of Shaolin, Five Deadly Venoms, 8th Diagram Pole Fighter, and Kid With The Golden Arm. RZA also reveals how he learned chess, how the Wu-Tang Clan ended up dominating a list of the best rappers (based on unique words) in hip-hop, and why competition can lead to stagnation. In another segment, RZA explains Five Percenter philosophy as it relates to the Hulu show Wu-Tang: An American Saga and why the show didn’t have enough time to explain the importance of the movement to the Wu-Tang Clan’s members.

Watch the full interview above and stay tuned for more.

People’s Party is a weekly interview show hosted by Talib Kweli with big-name guests exploring hip-hop, culture, and politics. Subscribe via Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

Those of us who desperately want something to watch that isn’t re-runs of whatever Netflix show we stumble onto are in for a treat this weekend. ESPN’s The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary that takes a look at the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, begins, with the first two chapters airing on Sunday evening at 9 and 10 p.m. EST.

Considering the fact that fans are captivated by that team — Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson’s last squad as members of the franchise — and the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has canceled sports and kept people worldwide locked at home, it’s not a stretch to say this is as highly-anticipated of an event that the basketball world has experienced in some time. It’s something that goes beyond hoops, as that Bulls squad was a cultural phenomenon, led by one of the most famous athletes to ever walk the earth.

On top of all of this, prop bets exist for the first episode of the series, which should surprise no one, because there is nothing to wager on right now outside of Belarusian soccer. These odds come via SportsBetting.ag, and only apply to the show’s opening hour.

Will “The Last Dance” documentary win an Emmy Award in 2020?
Yes +300
No -500

Will Michael Jordan cry?
Yes -120
No -120

Will LeBron James be seen?
Yes -120
No -120

Will Kobe Bryant be seen?
Yes -300
No +200

Will “gambling” be said?
Yes -200
No +150

Will “Space Jam” be said or clip shown?
Yes -120
No -120

Will “Sirius” song be heard?
Yes -500
No +300

When will Air Jordan logo be seen?
Before 10 minutes (+150)
After 10 minutes (-200)

Will Jordan’s game-winning national championship shot be shown?
Yes -300
No +200

Will impeachment trial of Bill Clinton be shown or mentioned?
Yes -140
No +100

Will Yankees World Series Championship be shown or mentioned?
Yes +100
No -140

Will Barack Obama tweet about the documentary?
Yes +200
No -300

First person to be shown?
Phil Jackson +300
Scottie Pippen +350
Kobe Bryant +400
Magic Johnson +500
Dennis Rodman +500
Deloris Jordan +800
Barack Obama +1000
Steve Kerr +1000
Bob Costas +1200
Charles Barkley +1400
Justin Timberlake +1400
Jerry Seinfeld +2000
Pat Riley +2000
Adam Silver +2500

Per an email, all of these apply for the hour in which the episode occurs, while the “First person to be shown” bet does not include Jordan. The most interesting wagers, in my opinion, are +300 that this will win an Emmy, and seeing how Obama appears in it, putting him at +200 to tweet about it seems like it could be free money. But of course, we will not know for sure until the first episode airs on Sunday evening.

In the no-brainer to end all no-brainers, Oregon standout Sabrina Ionescu went No. 1 overall in the 2020 WNBA Draft on Friday night. One of the greatest college basketball players ever, Ionescu had a decorated career with the Ducks and will now serve as the face of the New York Liberty’s youth movement.

While it was hardly a surprise that she went No. 1, it was still a gigantic evening for Ionescu, even beyond all the obvious reasons why this is such a big deal. Ionescu famously viewed the late Kobe Bryant as a mentor, while the soon-to-be Hall of Fame inductee cherished their friendship. During the early hours of Saturday morning, Ionescu posted a picture of herself with Bryant, saying that while there is “more work to do,” she know’s he’s “looking down on me smiling.”

Back on Jan. 16, Bryant praised Ionescu on Twitter following a 37-point outburst against Stanford that made her Oregon’s all-time leading scorer, while Ionescu spoke at Bryant’s memorial service at Staples Center in February.

Beyond Ionescu, Friday was a franchise-altering evening for the Liberty, which had six picks in the draft, including a trio of first-round selections. New York used the No. 9 pick in the first round to select Megan Walker, a small forward from UConn, then gave Ionescu a backcourt partner with the round’s final selection in Louisville guard Jazmine Jones. The Liberty weren’t the only team Ionescu joined on Friday, as it was announced that she signed a sneaker deal with Nike.

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“My favorite television show of all-time is still on the air, but it’s not my favorite current show.” It’s a riddle I like to ask friends, strangers, post office workers, fast food employees who just want to know if I would like medium or large fries with my burger, please, sir, there’s a line forming. After they all look back at me with a mix of confusion and annoyance, I answer, “It’s The Simpsons. The Simpsons is my favorite show ever, but even though it’s still on, my favorite show at the moment is Better Call Saul.”

This, I imagine, is a familiar refrain (give or take the Better Call Saul thing) for many fans of the long-running animated series, which premiered in December 1989 and has been on for 679 episodes. To say “The Simpsons isn’t as good as it used to be” has become a cliché. Of course, there’s usually some truth in every cliché, and that’s the case here. The Simpsons ISN’T as good as it used to be, but that’s because in its prime, it was working at a level of comedy and characterization that no show ever has, and it did it for approximately 10 seasons (or however long you consider the “golden age” to be). Besides, waving off the current-day The Simpsons is not only dismissive, it’s also wrong.

I’m not going to say The Simpsons is still consistently great TV, although it’s capable of great episodes (we’ll get there), but there are many reasons to still watch. Here are five.

1. It’s willing to experiment

Sometimes those experiments don’t work, like the infamous Moe’s rag episode or when the Simpsons went to Rigel 7 in a non-Treehouse of Horror episode (the AV Club recap is brutal). But handing off the couch gags to animators like Don Hertzfeldt and Sylvain Chomet was a stroke of genius, and showrunner Al Jean & Co. have allowed outside talent to write episodes, including Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg (season 21’s “Homer the Whopper”), Megan Amram (season 30’s “Bart vs. Itchy & Scratchy” and “Crystal Blue-Haired Persuasion”), and upcoming episodes from Round Springfield podcast host Julia Prescott and comedian Pete Holmes. Anything to shake things up. The Simpsons can’t help or hurt its legacy at this point — it should (to quote Mr. Holmes) make it weird.

2. “Wait, what happened to Milhouse?”

If you stopped bothering with The Simpsons after, let’s say, season 12, you’re missing a lot. For instance, did you know Horatio McCallister, better known as the Sea Captain, had a wife and they were both treasure hunters? Or that Hans Moleman used to be the mayor of Springfield? Or that Sideshow Bob used the “Face-Off Machine” to swap faces with another inmate at Springfield Penitentiary? One very specific joy of still watching the show is knowing all that’s happened to the plethora of side characters — the ones who put the spring in Springfield, so to speak — since millions of others tuned out. It’s a robust and ever-evolving canon. Artie Ziff married a robot Marge; Patty Bouvier is fluent in both Dothraki and parseltongue; Comic Book Guy (Jeff Albertson) is married to a Japanese woman named Kumiko Nakamura; Cookie Kwan is still number one on the west side, but she also had a baby with Mayor Quimby. Find yourself someone who still watches The Simpsons, and you’ll find yourself the winner of Simpsons trivia.

3. It’s still capable of very good-to-great episodes

It’s from a few years ago, but season 27’s “Halloween of Horror” ranks among the best post-season eight episodes. Season 25’s “Brick Like Me,” where the characters appear in Lego form, is another highlight, as is “Steal This Episode.” There’s nothing this season, the show’s 31st, that belongs on any must-watch list (so far), but “Livin La Pura Vida” (the Simpsons go to Costa Rica!) and “Thanksgiving of Horror,” a Treehouse of Horror-inspired spin on Turkey Day, are both pretty fun. Point is, The Simpsons is still capable of quality television, and even the occasional new classic.

4. The comfort factor

Growing up, Sunday night at 8 p.m. EST was both my favorite and least favorite time of the week. Favorite, because it meant a new episode of The Simpsons (assuming the late NFL game on Fox didn’t run over; no wonder I still hate the Cowboys). Least favorite, because I had school the next day. I no longer watch The Simpsons live (lol, imagine watching anything live), but I’m still ever-aware of when the clock hits 8 p.m. on a Sunday, even though I’m now in a different timezone. It’s comforting knowing that The Simpsons has had the same timeslot since 1994, and it will be extremely weird when another show eventually takes it. When The Simpsons is over, Fox should retire Sunday at 8 p.m. the way teams do jerseys when a Hall of Fame-caliber athlete calls it a career.

5.

You’ve made it this far. Why not see The Simpsons until the end? Whenever that is. Honestly, I hope it’s on for 40, hell, even 50 seasons. Come on, why not?

It can be awfully hard to remember that Emoni Bates is 16. People his age are not supposed to be as good at basketball as he is — the Michigan native is already being hyped up as potentially the best high school basketball prospect since LeBron James despite the fact that he’s only a sophomore.

Bates does have something on James, and Kobe Bryant, and every other boys high school basketball player ever. Earlier this week, the Lincoln High School standout became the first sophomore to ever win the Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year Award, beating out a pair of college-bound recruits in Oklahoma State commit Cade Cunningham and USC commit Evan Mobley. Per 247Sports’ Composite ratings, Cunningham and Mobley are the Nos. 1 and 2 recruits, respectively, in the class of 2020.

While Bates, the No. 1 player in the class of 2022, doesn’t know Mobley, he is friendly with Cunningham — they spoke on Monday, one day before Bates learned he won the award — and is a big fan of his game.

“Cade’s definitely a really good basketball player,” Bates tole Dime over the phone. “I like how he can play the game as a point guard, especially at his height, the real definition of a true point guard, he makes his teammates better.”

Cunningham is one of the favorites to go No. 1 overall in the 2021 NBA Draft, something that can also be said for Mobley. And yet a high school sophomore managed to beat both of them out, the latest example of how Bates could end up being the sort of generational prospect who forces NBA teams to consider — Adam Silver, please do not read the next few words — tanking in an effort to acquire his services as a potential franchise cornerstone.

It is, of course, completely absurd to talk about a teenager who has two more years of high school ball ahead of him this way. Bates is so young that when I asked what he is looking for in schools as he goes through the recruitment process, he swears he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. His mind is on the now, and the things he needs to work on to make his dreams of being the best basketball player he can be become a reality.

The thing with Bates is that he has all the talent in the world, and even at such a young age, that talent is able to manifest itself in impressive ways. Even beyond winning perhaps the top individual award a high school basketball player can win, Bates is capable of doing things like going for 63 points and 21 rebounds in a single game, so while everyone can improve as an athlete at such a young age, he is already remarkably good at playing the game. In fact, while Bates made it a point to emphasize that he thought he progressed as a player who can impact games by doing more than just scoring this past season, he believes his biggest step forward was becoming a better leader by filling a void left by a handful of seniors who graduated.

His next step is making everyone around him better. He cited “getting his teammates the ball” as the element of Cunningham’s game that he most wants to fold into his own, and when asked about his favorite player to watch in the NBA, he opted for Memphis Grizzlies rookie Ja Morant, citing the mindset the No. 2 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft brings whenever he steps on the floor.

“He doesn’t fear anybody, and he’s a rookie, and he came in and showed me a lot, especially being one of the youngest guys in the NBA,” Bates said. “He’s a real leader on the court, he knows how to make his teammates better and he plays with energy.”

This doesn’t mean he won’t try to refine other elements of his game. In the call where he learned he won the award, former Gatorade Boys National Player of the Year winner and current Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum stressed the importance of continuing to work. As such, Bates knows he has to spend as much time as possible in the gym. This is where his other favorite basketball player to watch comes in, and funny enough, it’s the guy whose game Bates’ is most frequently compared: Kevin Durant.

“I pay attention to how he makes the game look,” Bates said, referencing the way Durant can something as difficult as playing professional basketball seem so effortless.

Time will tell if Bates can get to that point. He’s quite the player, but by nature of how much harder being a professional is than being even the most promising of high schoolers, there’s a gap between where he is and where guys like Durant, Morant, and Tatum are. The good news for Bates, though, is that he’s at a point that none of them were at when they were 16, and with his mix of skill, drive, and lofty aspirations, he has what it takes to enter rarified air some day.

Previously on the Best and Worst of Friday Night Smackdown: I took a rare week off to move across the country during a global pandemic, The Stand-style. All you missed was Shinsuke Nakamura being a loser, Wayne Bloom’s son being kicked in the face by Sheamus, and THE FORGOTTEN SONS. Someone was like, “what would improve Smackdown,” and someone else was like, “how about the Forgotten Sons?”

Things to do: Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter. BUY THE SHIRT.

One more thing: Hit those share buttons! Spread the word about the column on Facebook, Twitter and whatever else you use. Be sure to leave us a comment in our comment section below as well. I know we always ask this, and that this part is copy and pasted in every week, but we appreciate it every week.

Here’s the Best and Worst of WWE Friday Night Smackdown for April 17, 2020.

Don’t It Make My Braun Eyes Blue?

Bray Wyatt threatened his old henchman, Braun Strowman, directly. Braun was like, “NAW, GET THESE HANDS.” Alexa Bliss brings Braun on her talk show segment and is like, “What about Bray Wyatt? You used to be his henchman.” Braun is like, “NAW, GET THESE HANDS.” But then a mysterious gift is delivered in the middle of the conversation which turns out to be Braun’s black sheep mask from when he was Bray Wyatt’s henchman, and Braun’s suddenly like, “oh no, something I WORE, this is getting TOO REAL.” I hope Wyatt fished that out of Matt Hardy’s Lake of Reincarnation.

That’s the whole segment, but I liked it for two reasons; it advanced the plot, simple as it is, and it continued Team Little Big’s friendship from the Mixed Match Challenge. The only thing I like more than friendship in pro wrestling is CONSISTENT friendship that REMEMBERS THINGS. Babyfaces especially never get to have friends or remember things. I hope Bray manages to successfully turn Braun back to the Dark Side, and Blake and Murphy have to run out to make the save for Alexa.

Worst: The Snuka Lounge

I’m honestly kind of concerned about Tamina. Is she okay? She’s only 42 years old — the same age as John Cena, Brock Lesnar, AJ Styles, Sheamus, Bobby Roode, and others — but she moves like a late 50s/early 60s WWE Legend who’s come out of retirement for a special match. She’s like Jimmy Snuka at WrestleMania 25. WWE’s releasing dozens of people and she’s out here not only getting built up for a WrestleMania appearance, but for a post-WrestleMania at the Smackdown Women’s Championship? I mean … all right?

Tamina wins thanks to an assist from Lacey Evans, who has Sasha Banks’ name with a Ghosbusters-style No Symbol around it drawn on the back of her hand like she’s the Demon Bálor at a debutante ball. Fun fact, honey, Lacey’s from the south. In the south, writing someone’s name on the back of your hand and drawing a line through it is a term of endearment. The assist is very WWE Creative Team, by the way, as Tamina was attacking Evans like two weeks before WrestleMania but now they’re suddenly celebrating together. Tell, don’t show, it’s fine.

Banks corpsing in the ring while Bayley gets laid out by Lacey Evans’ big-ass John Cena shoulder block off the steps was pretty good, at least. Sasha Banks should be able to beat Tamina 100 out of 100 times.

Best, But Also LOL: Money In The Bank Goes Full Donkey Kong

In case you missed the announcement, this year’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view originally scheduled for the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore but canceled due to “unique circumstances,” is now happening at WWE Headquarters in Stamford, CT. If you read that and were like, “isn’t that just a normal office building,” yes, you’re correct. They’re putting a ring on the roof like in the old Raw intro and attaching the Money in the Bank briefcase to a tower, so to win you have to fight from the ground floor to the top of the building. The sound you just heard is a millions of E-Feds crying out in terror, and being suddenly silenced.

I think they might have asked an actual child to help them design this match. This is straight out of every 6-year old’s action figure wrestling promotion. What’s next, a match where the winner is the first person to get to the top of the couch? Are we going to start having “the floor is lava” matches? I just hope that when they get to the top of the building, Brock Lesnar’s up there throwing barrels at them.

If Tamina going over Sasha Banks felt like a bad decision, wait until you see Dana Brooke defeating Naomi to qualify for the women’s Money in the Bank match! I’m hoping Naomi just didn’t want to have to fly to Connecticut. At least we got some Dana Brooke promo time with her thick-ass Cleveland accent, and there’s a chance Money in the Bank will end with Dana falling off the roof of Titan Towers and dying, only to return a few segments later alongside a mummy and win.

Serious note: If they have Big Show running secret pay-per-view main events and are running a pay-per-view on the roof of a tall building and don’t do a bit where he falls off and dies, what are we even doing?

In the men’s qualifying match, Daniel Bryan defeats Cesaro. There’s been a running bit in these columns where I type out “Daniel Bryan defeated Cesaro with a roll-up, and then the next week Daniel Bryan defeated Cesaro with a roll-up, and then for three more weeks Cesaro’s team lost everything BUT WHOOPS THEY WON AT WRESTLEMANIA ON A LARK and now it’s back to losing.” I’m not sure I’ve got the strength to keep that going for the entire quarantine, but don’t be surprised if three months from now I’m still typing “Daniel Bryan pinned Cesaro with a roll-up,” followed by some ridiculous modifier like, oh, I don’t know, “to set up an Elimination Chamber match at WWF New York.”

In the interest of positivity, this was the best thing on the show by a wide margin, and while I’m sad Daniel Bryan and Cesaro have to keep doing this one match in an abandoned laser warehouse, they’re as good at it as anyone could hope to be. At least we’ll get to watch Daniel Bryan try to win a cinematic ladder match where he has to battle through Dunder Mifflin.

Worst: Hardcore Hack

The mysterious hacker who is not Mustafa Ali is back, interrupting the Money in the Bank ladder match to remind us that the truth will be heard, and is also out there. My favorite part of this is that the hacker’s footage is all HD Smackdown footage from TV. Does he “hack the planet” by setting his DVR? Is he dramatically pressing a button to make Y2Mate.com download whatever clips WWE put on YouTube?

Anyway, I love that Vince McMahon finally got to write his own self-insert dream character: “guy who ruins tag team wrestling for everybody.”

Worst/Best: Mandy, You’re A Fine Girl, What A Good Wife You Would Be; By My Life, My Love And My Lady Is DZ

♫ doo doodoo doodoo, doooo doodoo doodoo ♫

On the topics of n00b teams ruined by The 1337, here’s Sonya Deville doing the best work of her career to try to get over that one goddamn promo they give every tag team when they break up. One of them is jealous! Actually THEY are the best person from the tag team! They carried the other person! But now they only care about THEMSELVES, and they’re going to make their old partner’s life a living hell, and so on. Sonya’s KILLING it here, but even Raul Julia can only do so much with the Street Fighter script.

Dolph Ziggler shows up in a Zack Ryder shirt (aww) to do that evil romantic comedy villain thing where he tries to appeal to Mandy’s empathy and belief that deep down everyone’s a good person (or whatever) after spending weeks manipulating and trying to hurt her. Not that Mandy’s ever been that kind of character before, but in WWE, love either turns you into Miss Elizabeth or an anime super villain and nothing in-between. Sonya attacks Mandy, Dolph’s mad at Sonya for ruining his swerve, Otis shows up to make the save, Sonya attacks Otis, Mandy attacks Sonya, and then Dolph attacks Otis, so Otis beats up Dolph. I don’t have a lot of faith that they know where they’re going with the story since they fired the lady who was writing it, but hey, mixed tag team match ahoy. Do it in the Boneyard, you cowards.

Best, But Extremely WCW: Big E Is Tag Team Champion Of The Singles Triple Threat Division

At WrestleMania, John Morrison defended the Smackdown Tag Team Championship by himself in a 1-on-1-on-1 ladder match because his partner, The Miz, showed up to the WrestleMania taping sick. This week we get a “rematch” of sorts featuring the three people from the teams who didn’t compete at Mania, including The Miz, and Miz not only loses the Tag Team Championship, he’s the one who gets pinned. Lesson learned: don’t get sick during a plague and make work mad at you. America dot GIF.

On the bright side, I always like seeing Big E win and do well. I was really hoping there’d be a story for the tag team division other than, “you’re the champions, now we’re the champions, oh no now you’re the champions again,” but it’s quarantine, man. Free and healthy Smackdown pretends a promo with an interruption to set up a tag team match is Shakespeare, we’re lucky the global pandemic version isn’t just two hours of Michael Cole sobbing in a janitor’s closet while side two of ‘The Razor’s Edge’ plays softly in the background.

Also On This Episode:

Whether they go back to taped shows or stay live, they should let Sheamus tape a bunch of these jobber squashes at once and give him a few months off. Somebody’s calling him up like, “hey fella, sorry to bother you, but we’re gonna need you to drive that hour and 15 minutes from Tampa to Orlando every Friday because if you don’t spend 55 seconds hitting Denzel DeJournette with forearms, it throws off our entire narrative.”

Finally, King Corbin attacks Elias backstage to keep that feud going, because God is dead, or he’s alive and hates us.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

LUNI_TUNZ

It’s always bothered me how, Michael Cole – a non-wrestling character – talks so much shit to the wrestlers.

Mr. Bliss

Me: “Oh this might be a good time for them to tell a strong LGBTQ+ friendly storyline. They won’t have to worry about juvenile crowd reactions, they’ll be able to treat it seriously and with some dignity and can plan out a beginning, middle and an end.”

Sonya: “You’re not even pretty!”

Me: “Never mind.”

Me: “Oh cool. They’re building a slow burn for a feud between Gulak and Bryan and eventually the hacker will show that Gulak has been working with Sami Zayn to help ruin Daniel’s confidence”

Next Friday

Gulak: “You’re not even pretty!”

troi

Did Sonya just imply that Otis is packing?

The Real Birdman

For consistency, the women’s corporate money ladder will only be 80% of the men’s

Strowman: “Yeah, I was a part of Bray’s Family”
Alexa: “Kinda weird your family was only two people huh?”
Nikki: “I definitely only counted two”
Strowman: “Correct. Just the two”

AddMayne

– a triple h appreciation night
– cole pointing out he’s never won MITB

i swear to god this better not be foreshadowing

Designated Piledriver

Big E and the tag titles were not on the board for who would recreate the Edge/Lita live sex celebration, but here we are.

Jae-Su

I wanna see Sonya beat Mandy with her Gadzooks wallet chain.

Baron Von Raschke

That they didn’t have Elias as a heel troubadour in King Corbin’s Court at the very start of this is a real missed opportunity.

To close us out, here’s the tribute video for Howard Finkel, which reminds us that he’s the greatest ring announcer of all time in a walk, and that any longtime employee’s In Memoriam video package is going to contain a montage of all the times WWE embarrassed them, set to Bulk and Skull high jinks music. When Jim Ross dies it’s gonna be him getting set on fire, kissing Michael Cole’s foot, kissing Mr. McMahon’s ass, and getting slathered in barbecue sauce followed by some SOARING MUSIC and some slow pans across still photos because we MISS HIM. They’ll be like, “Jim always liked to have fun,” because you can’t say, “a crazy old lonely rich man runs this company and has a cruel sense of humor about controlling the people below him, and folks need to work.”

Seriously though, the loss of The Fink is a big one. I only go to meet him once, but he was so gracious and kind. Rest in peace, Howard. Heaven needed someone to announce a title change.

That’s it for this week’s Best and Worst of Smackdown. As always, thanks for getting through this with us and checking out the column, especially during this pandemic. It’s hard to keep a lot of this in context, especially with what’s going on with the company in the real world. We appreciate you, as well as your comments in our comments section below, and your social media shares. It’s hard to stay employed and paid in new media when you write about sports, and then all the sports just stop.

Join us here next week for Dana Brooke’s run at the Women’s Tag Team Championship, Money in the Bank qualifying matches involving Lacey Evans and Baron Corbin, and TRIPLE H APPRECIATION WEEK. Get that Bulk and Skull music ready.

June 22, 2016 was a big day in the basketball world. There’s an obvious reason for this: It was the day that the Cleveland Cavaliers held a parade to celebrate the first championship won by one of the city’s teams in more than 50 years. The entire city seemed to turn out, J.R. Smith ripped his shirt off, and a whole lot of other extremely entertaining things happened as the Cavs were honored for knocking off the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

But down in Charlotte, something else was going on that ended up leading to the most highly-anticipated basketball documentary of our lifetimes. In a new piece by Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, we learned that Mike Tollin, who will serve as the executive producer for ESPN’s upcoming docuseries The Last Dance, was afforded the opportunity to sit down with Michael Jordan and map out the project.

“The universe has such a funny sense of humor,” Tollin said of the day. “Because when I woke up, I put on ESPN while I’m getting dressed, and there’s LeBron [James] and the Cavaliers parading through the streets of Cleveland with the trophy that they’d just won.”

The gist is that a film crew followed the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls around and captured their entire season on film. The condition under which Jordan was cool with this, however, was that the footage could not be used without his consent, and as such, Jordan and former NBA Entertainment boss Adam Silver agreed that they needed permission from one another to do something with it.

As Shelburne explained, plenty of folks tried to make something of the copious amounts of footage the NBA had in its archives in lovely Secaucus, New Jersey, but no one could ever get Jordan on board. However, after meeting with Jordan’s associates, Tollin got his foot in the door. He brought with him a number of documents with him. Jordan read all of them, and one bit in particular at the very end of the presentation caught his attention.

The last page of the presentation was a look at the documentaries, movies and shows Tollin and his company, Mandalay Sports Media, had done.

“So there’s Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], there’s Hank Aaron, there’s ‘Varsity Blues,’ there’s ‘Coach Carter’ and so forth,” Tollin said. “He’s actually looking at them all, and in the bottom right corner is ‘Iverson.’ He goes, ‘You did that?’”
…
Tollin mumbled a cautious, “Yes.”

Jordan took his glasses off, looked up and said, “I watched that thing three times. Made me cry. Love that little guy.”

It was quite the confluence of events, and fortunately, it led to The Last Dance finally becoming a reality. It also shows that LeBron James and Michael Jordan seem cosmically preordained to be tied to one another forever, which hopefully means LeBron will respond with a gigantic docuseries about the 2015-16 Cavs some day.

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