Can I get a succulent on the side?

View Entire Post ›

View Entire Post ›

View Entire Post ›

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.

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.

View Entire Post ›

View Entire Post ›

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.