'The Last Dance': Michael Jordan is the documentary GOAT, too
Morning, friends. So ... seen anything good on TV lately?
Let’s not pretend here: The combination of nostalgia and quarantine virtually guaranteed that “The Last Dance,” the new ESPN documentary chronicling the Chicago Bulls’ final championship season, would be a runaway hit with fans of ’90s basketball. (’Sup.)
But even without the added baggage of hero worship and lockdown desperation, “The Last Dance,” moved up from its original scheduled June airdate, is (so far) a triumph at every level.
I can’t even begin to be objective about this: I, like everyone outside of Madison Square Garden, was a huge Jordan fan back in the ’90s. Even so, it’s clear this is a documentary that’s clearly going to hit some still-raw spots for both Jordan fans and critics.
Sunday night’s first two episodes rolled onto ESPN with all the attendant social-media nervousness of an NBA Finals Game 1. That was entirely due to the quarantine and the total lack of sports; we all got to watch something together again, and it was glorious.
Why this documentary? Why now? Because Jordan and the Bulls had granted access to filmmakers for the entire season — a season they knew in advance would be their last together — and only recently agreed to make those recordings public. This is like getting a listen to a lost Beatles album, or a look at a Star Wars movie never before released to the public. For basketball junkies, this is priceless footage.
When ESPN first announced the documentary about a year and a half ago, I remember thinking, “Ten episodes? Really?” All the best “30 for 30” documentaries tend to be done in under two hours, and we were going to get an entire Netflix season’s worth of shows on a season where we already knew the outcome?
After two episodes, my friends, I can tell you that I am now just fine with the 10 episodes. Hell, double that. Triple it. I’d love to hear from whoever designed the billboard-sized suits of the era. I want to know what it was like trying to get Jordan’s autograph, and I want to know what it was like for Jordan to try to escape autograph seekers. I want a deep dive on every player on the roster, from Scottie Pippen (covered in Episode 2) right on down to Joe Kleine.
The first two episodes came out of the gate hard, casting then-Bulls general manager Jerry Krause as a Bond villain with the worst scheme in history: destroying a world-dominating machine he already controlled. Krause, who died in 2017 and only shows up in archival footage, apparently decided that he wanted to blow up a team that included Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson and Dennis Rodman … a team that had won five of the last seven championships. It made no sense then, and it seems a fireable offense now.
Move over, Carole Baskin. We’ve got a new quarantine villain.
By the time the documentary begins in 1997, the then-five-time champion Bulls weren’t competing with the Jazz or the Sonics or the Knicks anymore. They were competing with Muhammad Ali, with the 1927 Yankees, with Bill Russell’s Celtics. They were among history’s greats, and as “The Last Dance” shows, Krause’s decision to sever the bloodline after the 1998 season is no more defensible in retrospect than it was at the time.
We’ll all have plenty more to discuss about the Jordan documentary — including Jordan himself, who’s already shown signs of just how difficult he was to play with — over the next four weeks. ESPN is showing two episodes a week over the next month. It won’t replace the playoffs, but it’s not a bad way to spend Sunday evening.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him with tips and story ideas at jay.busbee@yahoo.com.
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