There was a lot to unpack from the fifth and sixth episodes of The Last Dance, from Jordan’s rise to becoming the world’s most famous athlete to his relationship with Kobe Bryant to his “Republicans buy sneakers too” comment to his affection for gambling. It was quite the journey, and what we saw on Sunday night will surely lead the sports conversation for the coming days, but ESPN made sure to let us know we’re diving even further into the weeds next week, and getting to a story many hoped we’d see.
As the documentary backtracks and traces Jordan’s career, they will look at his retirement and how the Bulls navigated the 1993-94 season without him, but it will also bring us to the infamous practice fight between Jordan and Steve Kerr, where Mike punched Kerr in the eye.
ESPN teased a minute of that discussion out in a video late Sunday night, as Kerr and Jordan remember what led to their spat and Jordan ultimately punching Kerr and getting kicked out of practice.
“I just haul off and hit him right in the f—ing eye. And Phil just throws me out of practice.”
Episodes 7 & 8 air next Sunday at 9 PM ET on ESPN
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It’s far from the only practice fight the Bulls had — Will Perdue recalls being punched by Jordan too — but given Kerr’s status now as coach of the Warriors, this is the one most often referenced when discussing Mike’s intensity in practices. Hopefully there’s some footage of the fight that can accompany the accounts from the various parties, but whatever the case we’re going to apparently touch on his practice intensity more in the upcoming episode and those stories are always fun.
For how brilliant Michael Jordan was during the 1992-93 NBA season, his final one prior to his first retirement from the league, he was not named MVP that year. The honor went to Charles Barkley, who led the Phoenix Suns to a league-best 62-20 record while averaging 25.6 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game.
Jordan was, however, able to extract a measure of revenge by leading the Chicago Bulls to a 4-2 series win over the Suns in the NBA Finals, marking the third year in a row that Chicago won a championship. The Bulls knocked Phoenix off in Game 1, something Barkley chalked up to nerves. In Game 2, Barkley had an absolutely torrid performance, scoring 42 points and ripping down 13 rebounds.
The huge game was not enough — Jordan had 42 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists en route to a 111-108 win for the Bulls. During episode 6 of ESPN’s The Last Dance, Barkley explained that this particular game stuck with him, because it let a thought creep into his mind that he had never considered before.
“In Game 2, I played as well as I could play,” Barkley said. “And Michael just out-played me. That was probably the first time in my life that I felt like there was a better basketball player in the world than me, to be honest with you.”
To his credit, Barkley was quite good during these Finals, averaging 27.3 points, 13 rebounds, and 5.5 assists in 46.2 minutes per game. He just got out-played by someone better, which is hardly an insult when that person is Michael Jordan.
One of the threads that runs throughout The Last Dance is Michael Jordan’s intense desire to win at all costs and, on top of that, humiliate people he thought slighted him along the way. He’s detailed how his competitive fire was borne out of fights with his brother over winning and losing as a kid, and not only did he want to win, he wanted to bury anyone that he perceived as someone that threatened his spot.
Isiah Thomas received the brunt of this in Episodes 3 and 4, as Jordan made clear how much he hated Thomas and the Pistons and how cathartic beating them was in 1991 — their spat returns briefly in this episode in a discussion of whether Jordan was a driving force in Thomas being left off the Dream Team. While opposing players like Thomas could drive that fire, it was typically external forces that led Jordan to targeting a certain individual.
In 1992, it was Clyde Drexler that drew that ire because the media was comparing Drexler to Jordan, which he found “offensive.” That summer, it was poor Toni Kukoc who was targeted by Jordan and Pippen during the Olympics because he was Jerry Krause’s new favorite. Sticking it to Krause remained a theme in terms of who Jordan wanted to trounce in 1993, as he caught wind that Krause was fond of Bulls forward Dan Majerle’s defense, and took it upon himself to prove in the ’93 Finals that Majerle was not that good.
“I was a little bit upset that I didn’t get the MVP that year and they gave it to Charles Barkley, but with that said, OK you can have that, I’mma get this,” Jordan said. “I knew that Jerry Krause loved Dan Majerle, and just because Krause liked him was enough for me. You think he’s a great defensive player? OK, fine, I’m gonna show you that he’s not. I put it in my mindset that if I don’t do this, then they’re gonna consider him on the same level as me, and that motivated me to attack.”
It remains incredible to me that Jordan fostered so much hatred towards his GM that he would actively try to dominate players he knew Krause liked just to prove they weren’t as good as him. Poor Thunder Dan didn’t even do anything other than existing and being liked by a GM, and ended up having to deal with an extra-motivated Michael Jordan, hellbent on showing the world that he was an overrated defender.