Being a basketball guy, I have had a lot of questions from friends about my thoughts on the latest ESPN/Netflix documentary regarding the final year of the Chicago Bulls dynasty. The season of 1997-98 season was certainly a tumultuous one for the franchise and its main players and cast of characters surrounding it. It was fascinating theatre to watch in the way it weaved its way through MJ’s entire career arc while tying it back towards the storylines of the 97-98 season. I was a fan of the era and a fan of the players and I learned more than I thought I would over the series.
There are hundreds of breakdowns of the series, episode by episode, that will give you a much better breakdown than you will get here. My take is that even if you are a modest basketball fan, not a fan of the Bulls, or not even a sports fan, you will get something from this series. There is something for everyone. Of greater value is to watch it with younger sports fans in the home with you. My younger boys, who knew nothing about Jordan other than his “greatness” and his shoes, were captivated from start to finish and I sucked up every moment I spent with them, explaining the nuances of these rivalries and the relationships with the other players they only knew by name. If marketing was MJ’s plan with the documentary, it was pure brilliance on his part as he will capture a whole new group of NBA2K aged fans through this.
In typical Rewindables fashion, we will use the same category structure that we have used for other movies etc.
Our categories for the golden Rewindables include:
- Most Rewindable moment – the moment where you are flipping the channels and you catch this part only to be sucked into rewinding to the start of the documentary.
- The “Did you touch my drum kit” award – not necessarily the quote that the world remembers but the one that someone who has seen the movie 25 times would know exactly what movie this is from. Bonus points if you know which show this quote is from.
- Best “microwave” actor – the actor who hits the screen with their hair on fire and owns their scenes in such a dominating fashion. Small scenes, big value.
- Best “Over the Top” acting moment – the actor who dials it up like this is the moment that he/she wants on the “In Memoriam” snippet at the 2044 Oscars.
- The “What show have I seen him/her in before” award – you know, the actor who you’ve seen in 100 shows and never know their name. Every movie has that person.
- The “That makes no sense moment” – You know what I mean when you see something that makes no logical sense. That moment.
- Bonus category – Unanswerable questions – I love this stuff where the movie ends but the questions linger on. I have no answers but lots of questions.
Most Rewindable Moment
I couldn’t get enough of the detail of the NBA Finals series vs the Seattle SuperSonics in 1996. I was following that series closely but didn’t fully follow the nuances that were happening during that series, specifically regarding the matchups that were or weren’t being played during the series. That was a great Seattle team who just peaked at the wrong time in their era and had to run up against the greatest team in the history of the sport.
The series was ugly at the start where the Sonics went down 0-3 and were home fighting for their lives when Coach George Karl changed his matchup to have Gary “the Glove” Payton matched up against Jordan. This was widely contested at the time as Payton was a much smaller but tenacious defender who should have been no match for Jordan’s size and skill. The Sonics handily won games 4 & 5 and it set up a game 6 showdown where the Bulls were reeling. The Rewindable moment from the documentary-series came with the split banter from the egregious “Glove” talking frankly about the matchup and his banter with his coach and MJ’s rebuttal. Watch this instant classic moment from the series here.
The “Did you touch my drum kit” award
There were some great quotes throughout the series. Some classic characters from the 80’s & 90’s NBA lore had their say on what MJ meant to the league and the sport. Some of them were brutal in their approach to his style of play, trash talking and commitment to being a team player. Will Perdue
“Let’s not get it wrong. He was an asshole. He was a jerk. He crossed the line numerous times. But as time goes on, and you think back about what he was actually trying to accomplish, you’re like, ‘yeah, he was a hell of a teammate.'” — Will Perdue
Others were more succinct about his possible baseball career. I’m sure Tito Francona will live by this quote but won’t live it down either.
“In my opinion, with 1,500 at-bats, he wou’d’ve found a way to get to the major leagues.” — Terry Francona
The best quote came from Reggie Miller who rationalized that while the Indiana Pacers thought they were perched to knock off the Bulls, he realized that MJ was simply not going to let that happen. After taking a royal hammering from the Bulls in that stretch he summed it up with the infamous “Black Jesus” quote here.
My rookie year we were playing the Chicago Bulls, and this is Michael Jordan’s third or fourth year in. And we were playing an exhibition game…most veterans do not like to play in exhibition games, they want to get to the real thing. I’m a wide-eyed, energetic rookie and…Michael’s going through the motions. And Chuck Person—who’s on my team—who is a trash-talker as well, is like, “Can you believe Michael Jordan, the guy everyone’s talking about, who’s supposed to be able to walk on water? You’re out here killing him, Reg! … You should be talking to him!” And I was like, “You know what, you’re right!” “Michael…who do you think you are? The great Michael Jordan? That’s right, there’s a new kid on town!” He kind of looks at me and starts shaking his head. So at half I have 10, and he has four points…end of the game, the second half, he ended up with 44 and I ended up with 12. So he outscored me 40-2. And as he’s walking off, he’s like, “Be sure, and be careful, you never talk to Black Jesus like that.”
Best “microwave” actor
There is no question that very scene that Dennis Rodman is in continues the legacy of the man. When ever he talks, you pay attention just to see what he will say next. What ever he says is more captivating than the sentence prior. There is no end to the mystery around Rodman and there is no doubt that they don’t win the last 2 championships without him in tow. This would have been a very different series without him on the broadcast and the fact that he vanished during the 1995-96 season for a 48 hour Vegas blowout will live on in sports infamy.
Best “Over the Top” acting moment
There could have been several members in this category. Jerry Krause had passed away by the time this was filmed but his demeanour and legacy was all over this thing. He was the architect of the roster, other than Jordan, and continued to add the true antagonist to the organization. Having someone to hate is a powerful motivator for a team. Rodman supplied his own level of drama and there is no doubt that he was generally, over the top in everything he did or said. All that aside, the most over the top moment of the series was the Food Poisoning Game versus Utah in the 1997 championship. Jordan was incredibly sick overnight and barely could get his shoes on to play. The crazy part that was exposed in this series was that his reason for sickness was related to a 2am pizza that he had ordered because he was so distraught about his performance from the previous night’s game. The issue: speculation was that the Salt Lake City pizza joint had “poisoned” the pizza to make him sick. Their strategy worked except they didn’t know that MJ could play through anything to win and poured in 38 points on no sleep and low energy. Truly incredible.
This is not really the kind of show where you don’t know who the actors are but there were a few “new” characters introduced in the series, who the world never knew:
Gus – the fatherly, trusted security man. Jordan loved him so much he brought him to the ROAD games too.
The perm haired security guard – named as the “Sniff Brothers” for the way they sniff the jocks but full of colour in the way he roams the old Chicago Stadium. He is also one of a few people in the world who successfully trolled MJ enough to become his own meme.
Scottie Burrell – He’s a rookie in the second of the 3 championship and the constant whipping boy for MJ’s threats and barbs. He needed to voice his frustrations at parts of the team and had to pick his victims well. The constant there was that Burrell was calm and cool under the heat of the spotlight and though Jordan tells him after the 6th championship that he better not see him again in the future, deep down Burrell gave the greatest gift to these teams, an outlet for MJ to bully and an outlet that he could sound off to.
The “That makes no sense moment”
It comes from the most shocking revelation in the series. Dennis Rodman left the team for 3 days to go on a binge or whatever the hell he wanted, in Vegas, with Carmen Electra, during the middle of the season AND MJ had to go to Vegas and pull him out! What the hell just happened!
Can you imagine the chaos that should hav created on a normal team? The all-star and future HOFer going AWOL on a drug and sex filled binge on the greatest sports team of all time and only topped by the fact that the greatest player bails him out. Can you imagine the conversations that were being had in that Vegas hotel room between he and Jordan. You could tell that MJ had a smirk on his face while reflecting on his moments getting him out. I’m sure Jordan has his own skeletons to hide but that one may have even impressed him. It’s worth the watch again.
Unanswerable questions & Conclusions
I have one amazing takeaway from the end of the series. Jordan swears they could have won their 7th chip if they had come back but the world will never know. Jordan feel robbed of the opportunity even to this day. Would they have won if the came back?
I speculate that they would have been back in the finals, had they put the band back together. A few reasons:
- The 1998-99 season was strike shortened with a lockout. This would have helped the old guy Bulls get some rest and come back for the sprint that a 53 game season provided.
- The East was a mess. Miami was the best team but was knocked off in the first round by New York, who ran the table to the finals thereafter. Indiana took a step back and Orlando was a year away. It was there for the Bulls to run that table.
- San Antonio was good, winning it all, but young and soft. They would have had a hard time taking the pounding from the veteran Bulls. The mauled the Knicks in the final as NY was softer than they were.
All in all, this was basketball royalty gold. Sure, I’m a round ball fan and would probably watch a 3 show series on almost any NBA start from 1970-2000 but there would be very few that could fill in the basketball story with more commerce, scandal, death, gambling and passion. He had it all and they told most of it here. MJ is no dummy when it comes to marketing and you couldn’t pick a better time to remind the world of your importance to it, than to hit us during a lowdown. He pulled the strings to launch early and the rest is COVID history. We are all better for the decision.