'Speechless': Sporting world loses the plot over Shane Warne photo

It's fair to say the sporting world can't get enough of all things Michael Jordan right now, following the release of ESPN's highly anticipated documentary series, The Last Dance.

Basketball fans lapped up the first two episodes of the Chicago Bulls documentary when they were released on Monday night.

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Two episodes per week of the 10-part documentary will land on Netflix over the coming months, giving viewers an unprecedented account of the Bulls’ last championship in 1998 - dubbed the ‘Last Dance’ by the coach Phil Jackson.

Cricket great Shane Warne is clearly among those who were enamoured with the first two episodes of the new Netflix series.

Australia's greatest Test wicket-taker posted an old photo of himself with Jordan, back when they were both in their playing days.

Warne captioned with photo with: “Really enjoyed the first two episodes of the (Michael Jordan) documentary and bought back some great memories of hanging with the great MJ at Nike in the states!”

Curiously, Jordan was wearing a Chicago White Sox top in the image, suggesting it was taken during his short-lived stint in baseball in 1994.

Less than two days after posting the picture to his Instagram account, Warne's throwback snap has received well over 48,000 likes and countless replies.

Many captioned the pic with the term 'GOAT' as Jordan and Warne are considered by many to be the greatest exponents of their respective sports.

Both men were famous for wearing the number 23 in their playing days, with Warne possibly adopting the number as an homage to the basketball legend.

Aussie fans loved the fact that Jordan was holding a Sherrin footy - no doubt given to him by the AFL-obsessed Warne.

Not surprisingly then, the image garnered plenty of response from the AFL community, with Josh Bruce and Patrick Dangerfield among those to express their love and Nick Riewoldt replying with a goat emoji.

One fan even asked Warne whether he could buy the vest that the King of Spin was wearing in the picture.

‘Travelling cocaine circus’ reference grips viewers

While The Last Dance chronicles the Bulls’ fraught final championship run that year, it also winds the clock even further back to explore Jordan’s arrival in the NBA - which included his introduction to what was, at the time, a thriving drug culture among players.

At one point Jordan is asked by an interviewer whether he’d seen an article from his rookie season, in which Chicago sports journalist Sam Smith described the Bulls’ travelling cocaine circus’.

Jordan burst out laughing, but gave more detail when pressed about the report’s accuracy.

“Look, guys were doing things I didn’t see (before),” Jordan said.

“I had one event, pre-season, I think we were in Peoria. It’s in a hotel, so I’m trying to find my teammates.

“So I start knocking on doors and I get to this one door and I knock on the door and I could hear someone say, ‘Shh, shh, shh, someone’s outside’.

“And then you hear this deep voice say, ‘Who is it?’ I say, ‘MJ’, and then they all say, ‘Ah f***, he’s just a rookie, don’t worry about it’.

“So they open up the door, I walk in and practically the whole team was in there. And it was like things I’ve never seen in my life as a young kid.

“You got your lines (of cocaine) over here, you got your weed smokers over here and you got your women over here.

“So the first thing I said was, ‘Look, man, I’m out’.

“Because all I can think about is if they come and raid this place right about now, I am just as guilty as everybody else in this room.

“And from that point on, I was more or less on my own.”

with agencies