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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.

One of the questions many had about The Last Dance, given Michael Jordan’s heavy involvement in the production of the documentary, was how much it would touch on certain subjects like his gambling and the controversy stories of how much and often he gambled sparked in the early 1990s.

Sure enough, the sixth episode focuses heavily on that, from the Atlantic City incident during the 1993 playoffs — which Jordan still insists was nothing and that he was back by around midnight — to Michael & Me, a book that came out during that time that alleged he had a gambling addiction. That’s something Jordan has refuted for years. He will happily tell you he enjoys gambling but says it’s not a problem as he’s not gambling beyond his means — his means are just far more than the average person and, as such, the sums he bets seem wildly irresponsible.

There’s a famous interview, shown in the doc, where he says he doesn’t have a gambling problem, he has a competitive problem, and, at the least, that is on display early in the episode. Jordan is shown gambling for $20 in the training room at the United Center with security guards on who can toss a quarter closer to the wall — which, to be honest, I could watch all day. Will Perdue also recalls card games on the plane, and how sometimes Jordan would leave the big money game in the back to come play $1 blackjack with the guys in the front of the plane who weren’t about to put up thousands of dollars — and why Jordan said he did it.

“Scottie, Michael, Ron Harper. These guys would play cards in the back of the plane for major money. I’m talking about thousands of dollars,” Perdue said. “And me, John Paxson, B.J. Armstrong, we would play blackjack in the front of the plane for a dollar a hand. He knows that we would never play with him in the back because it was just too much money. But he would come up to the front and he’s like, ‘What are you guys doing? You mind if I play?’ I remember John Paxson looking at him and going, ‘Why in the hell do you wanna play with us? We’re playing for a dollar a hand.’ And I remember he looked at him and said, ‘Because I want to be able to say I got your money in my pocket.’”

It’s a tremendous story and up until the end you might could’ve pretended Jordan was just trying to be a good leader and making sure he, as the star, was involved with everyone on the team. That is until you get to the part where he says he wanted to be able to say he took their money, even if it was just a few dollars. As someone that’s dealt $1 blackjack to friends, operating as the house, it is a very fun way to pass the time and, yes, it can be fun to take a few dollars off your buddies. I have to imagine Jordan is absolutely vicious as the dealer, trash talking whenever he rolls out to beat someone who has doubled down.

The interviews and stories told during The Last Dance have been fantastic, but the best part of the documentary has been the incredible footage, particularly the behind the scenes stuff of Michael Jordan and the Bulls on the plane, in the locker room, in the weight room, or at practice.

It’s a fascinating peek behind the curtain that few get to see, and it’s been fun to see how Jordan interacted with teammates and team workers, particularly the “sniff brothers,” the group of security guards that were regularly hanging out in the back with him. In the opening to Episode 6, which takes a look at Jordan’s gambling, they show extended footage of him betting $20 with security on who can pitch quarters closest to the wall.

At one point, when the security guard wins he hits Mike with the shrug in an elite troll move.

That, coupled with Will Perdue’s story about how Jordan used to crash the Bulls role player $1 blackjack game in the front of the plane just so he could “say I have your money in my pocket” sets the stage for a look into Jordan’s gambling, the controversy it created, and the continued question of whether it was a problem. It’s part of the Jordan lore — for better or worse — and the documentary looks into how it became such a big topic of conversation in 1993.

Jordan remains defiant it was ever a problem, and his point that it’s never led him to having money troubles is a pretty strong point in his favor. That said, even if not an addiction or problem, him grumbling about how the security guards stack the odds against him right before he agrees to take their bet shows that he remains one of the all-time degenerate gamblers sports has seen.

Michael Jordan stirred up a bit of controversy earlier in his basketball career with four words that have followed him around even after he retired. Jordan infamously once said “Republicans buy sneakers too” when asked about inserting himself into a United States Senate race back in North Carolina, a quote that came up during episode five of ESPN’s The Last Dance.

The backstory was that Jordan’s mother asked him to appear in a PSA for Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte who sought the Senate seat held by Republican Jesse Helms. Jordan explained that he did not know Gantt, so he was not going to do that, but he did make a financial contribution. Soon after, he was asked about this by a reporter, and in jest, Jordan responded by making it sound like he cared about money, regardless of where it came from, more than beating someone like Helms, a racist who proudly and vocally opposed LGBT rights.

Jordan was compared unfavorably to Muhammad Ali, whose years-long commitment to social justice was never up for debate. As he explained, Jordan believed that comparison did not hold water, because he is not the same kind of person as Ali.

“I do commend Muhammed Ali for standing up for what he believed in, but I never thought of myself as an activist, I thought of myself as a basketball player” Jordan said. “I wasn’t a politician when I was playing my sport, I was focused on my craft. Was that selfish? Probably, but that was my energy, that’s where my energy was.”

Shortly after, Barack Obama — who, as an aside, is no longer referred to as “Former Chicago Resident” and was referred to in this episode as “President” — was asked about the entire ordeal. He did give Jordan, who was in his 20s at the time, the benefit of the doubt to an extent, but still recalled his disappointment over the quote.

“I’ll be honest, when it was reported that Michael said ‘Republicans buy sneakers too,’ for somebody who was at that time preparing for a career in civil rights law and public life, and knowing what Jesse Helms stood for, you would have wanted to see Michael push harder on that,” Obama said. “On the other hand, he was still trying to figure out, ‘How am I managing this image that has been created around me, and how do I live up to it?’”

Jordan has largely stayed out of politics over the years, although in 2016, he did publish a piece in The Undefeated regarding “the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers.” He has, however, followed a similar playbook to the one he followed in 1990, as he’s donated money to assorted state Democratic parties over the years. Additionally, he was a financial supporter for Obama during his 2012 re-election bid, hosting a fundraiser and donating $5,000.

“The way that I go about my life is, I set examples,” Jordan said. “If I inspire you, great. I will continue to do that. If it doesn’t, then maybe I’m not the person that you should be following.”

Toni Kukoc was an invaluable member of the second Chicago Bulls three-peat. From 1995-98, Kukoc averaged 13.2 points, 4.3 rebounds, and four assists per game as a forward who complimented both Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen beautifully. It says a lot about Kukoc that he was able to turn into such an important contributor to the team, because his first introduction to Jordan and Pippen could not have gone much worse.

Kukoc led Croatia into the 1992 Summer Olympics. Of course, that was the summer that NBA players joined forces to participate in the games as members of the Dream Team, which rolled through the competition en route to a gold medal. This included a pair of games against Croatia, the first of which Jordan and Pippen used as a chance to make Kukoc’s life hell.

As episode five of The Last Dance explained, the Bulls drafted Kukoc in 1990. He opted to stay in Europe, both due to the country’s War of Independence and the fact that he was making good money where he was, but Bulls general manager Jerry Krause was enamored with bringing him over.

“Jerry went over to watch Toni play in what was then Yugoslavia, and said, ‘Toni Kukoc is gonna be the future of the Chicago Bulls,’” longtime reporter David Aldridge said.

“Jerry was fawning over Toni so much while our team here was winning championships, and it just rubbed a lot of the players the wrong way, unfortunately,” according to Bills executive Jim Stack.

Two of those players were Jordan and Pippen, the latter of whom was especially ticked off, because Krause cut short negotiations with him over an extension to go negotiate with Kukoc in the hopes of bringing him to the States.

“At that time, I had no idea what was going on with the Bulls,” Kukoc said. “I don’t know the frictions in between Scottie and Jerry, Michael and Jerry. So going to the Olympics, I kinda thought everything was ok.”

Unfortunately for Kukoc, this meant that Jordan and Pippen got the chance to introduce themselves to him on July 27, 1992, when the Dream Team squared off against Croatia. Jordan apparently told his teammates before the game to “leave him for Scottie and me,” and for the entirety of the game, the pair made it a point to hound their soon-to-be teammate.

Kukoc ended with four points, five assists, and seven turnovers as Croatia lost, 103-70. The entirety of the game, one of Jordan or Pippen — then the two-best perimeter defenders on earth — were on Kukoc’s hip.

“Toni Kukoc became a great teammate and I love Toni Kukoc for who he is,” Jordan said. “But the way he was introduced to me and Scottie, I didn’t appreciate that. It had drove my energy.”

“Jerry paved a way for a lot of hell for Toni Kukoc,” Pippen said. “Not only was it me and Michael, but every guy on the Olympic team looked at that kid and felt like he may not even think about coming to the NBA after he played against us. It wasn’t anything personally about Toni, but we were gonna do everything that we could to make Jerry look bad.”

Much of this ground was covered in NBA TV’s excellent Dream Team documentary a few years back, with this shining more of a light on the Bulls-specific tensions that existed heading into that game. The two sides would square off with a gold medal on the line, and while Kukoc had a much better game (16 points, nine assists, five rebounds, three turnovers), it was nowhere near enough, as the Dream Team came out on top, 117-85.

As The Last Dance winds ever closer to the end of the Bulls dynasty and Michael Jordan’s career in Chicago, we reached the summer of 1992 and the Dream Team in this week’s installment.

In it, they provide footage of the infamous practice game in Monte Carlo that remains part of basketball lore to this day. Magic Johnson and Rod Thorn provided the majority of the narration of that game, as Magic was leading the team playing against Jordan in that game, while Thorn was one of USA Basketball’s lead executives and was an impartial observer in the gym. As Thorn recalled, Magic and Charles Barkley’s team jumped out to an early lead, with both Magic and Chuck directing “real trash talk” at Michael.

Magic noted that he decided to call out Jordan, leading to the quick realization that was a mistake.

“We’re up about eight points, I think it was. Something like that,” Johnson said. “I went up and tapped him, ‘Look man, if you don’t turn into Air Jordan, we’re going to blow you out.’ … Man, what did I say that for.”

“Michael proceeded to score every time down the court,” Thorn said. “It was like, OK, you wanna know who the guy is, here’s who the guy is.”

“He broke the huddle and hit a three. Bam. Came back down, hit another three. Bam. Came through the middle and just shook everybody. Bam,” Johnson recalled. “Before we know it, they was up two.”

The footage, coupled with the narration, offered a glimpse into just how competitive they took those practices — particularly Magic and Jordan — and also is a reminder to a generation (like mine) that while Magic is outwardly one of the friendliest superstars in league history, he too was an incredibly intense competitor who ran hot on the court. The best example of that came towards the end when he’s going off on the refs for calling a foul on him, launching the ball to the top of the stands and saying it’s “just like the NBA” where Michael gets all the calls.

The competition between Magic and Michael extended to off the court, where Magic remembered nightly card games that would go into the wee hours of the morning because Jordan wouldn’t let them end if Magic was up — or Mike wasn’t up enough.

“Man, I had some of my fondest memories just hanging out with Mike,” Magic said. “We played cards every night against each other, and if I had the upper hand, he wanted to play another hour…ANOTHER hour. And then he never wants to just beat you, he wants to put his foot on your neck and just [growls]. You’re not satisfied with beating me, you wanna crush me too? Yep.”

That intense drive to win at everything all the time was both Jordan’s greatest asset on the court, as it created his work ethic that helped him become the best ever, but was also his downfall at times and got him into the most trouble, most notably with his gambling — which is explored further in the documentary.

It’s been over a month since Tiger King first took the quarantined nation by storm, and it’s still going strong, which is to say it’s still yielding more content. While much of the attention has revolved around its “star,” zookeeper-turned-convict Joe Exotic, second place goes to his nemesis, Carole Baskin, and not exactly in a good way. In fact, some people, Joe included, believe she had some hand in her husband’s disappearance, though there’s no hard proof behind that claim. On the lighter side, she got pranked into giving an interview she thought was for The Tonight Show. Ron Howard on Arrested Development voice: It wasn’t.

This comes from Entertainment Weekly, who showcased a new video by YouTube pranksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners, who conned Baskin into granting what she thought would be her first major interview since the show came out, having so far only spoken to local reporters.

In the video, entitled “We Tricked Carole Baskin into Giving Us Her First Interview Since Tiger King,” Pieters and Manners show their work, tracing how they managed to school their prey, mainly by exploiting Zoom and its various technical loopholes. For instance, they were able to take audio clips from old Jimmy Fallon interviews and play them back to her while his video screen was allegedly off, fooling her into believing she was talking to one of late night kings.

You can watch the full video above, and remember: Be careful when you’re chatting on video streams. You never know who’s up to what on the other end.

(Via EW)

As we saw in episodes three and four of The Last Dance, Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas had a whole lot of beef with one another. Thomas, the leader of the Bad Boys-era Detroit Pistons, physically and mentally beat the hell out of Jordan during their various playoff battles, and when the Chicago Bulls finally toppled them in the postseason, Thomas and his teammates left the floor without shaking hands.

This tension was once again on display during episode five of the docuseries, which spent time focusing on the Dream Team. Thomas, famously, did not make the squad, a curious decision given the fact that he was certainly deserving of a chance to represent the United States at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

“I don’t know what went into that process,” Thomas said. “I met the criteria to be selected, but I wasn’t.”

“Before the ’92 Olympics, Rod Thorn calls me and says, ‘We would love for you to be on the Dream Team,’” Jordan recalled. “I says, ‘Oh, who’s all playing?’ He says, ‘What does that mean?’ I say, ‘Who’s all playing?’ He says, ‘Well, the guy you’re talking about, or you’re thinking about, he’s not gonna be playing.’”

The camera then cut to an interview Jordan gave back in 1992, and before the cameras started rolling, Jordan made clear he wasn’t answering and questions about Thomas. A separate interview featured Marv Albert asking Jordan about Thomas’ snub, although we do not hear MJ’s answer from back then.

“I respect Isiah Thomas’ talent,” a modern-day Jordan said. “To me, the best point guard of all-time is Magic Johnson, and right behind him is Isiah Thomas. No matter how much I hate him, I respect his game. Now, it was insinuated that I was asking about him, but I never threw his name in.”

Jordan was hardly the only member of the team to have their issues with Thomas. Scottie Pippen, another Bull, went through those various battles with Thomas and the Pistons at Jordan’s side, while Magic Johnson and Thomas’ friendship featured a falling out. And as Jordan explained, something at the center of the Dream Team’s dominant gold medal run was the sense of brotherhood that existed among all the players, something he believes might have been jeopardized had Thomas made the roster.

“The Dream Team, based on the environment and camaraderie that happened on that team, it was the best harmony,” Jordan said. “Would Isiah have made a different feeling on that team? Yes.”

Things ended up working out pretty well for the Dream Team, as we all know. The team blitzed the competition in Barcelona en route to a gold medal, earning the title of the greatest international basketball team that has ever existed.