Opinion | ‘The Last Dance’ answering a lot of questions about Michael Jordan, but what about his alleged gambling problem?
- The MJ conspiracy theory around his notorious habit is likely to be downplayed in miniseries
- While never substantiated, rumours have circulated for years he lost millions and was a gambling addict
ESPN’s The Last Dance is already a beautifully crafted and compelling retrospective miniseries, and we’re just two episodes in. A glimpse back to an era of basketball well known on the surface, now finally revealed as the most iconic team of the ’90s – the Chicago Bulls – get the insider treatment. Lifting all the rocks, airing out the grudges and pulling back all the curtains – well, most of them.
There are some burning questions many NBA fans want answers to: how close was Scottie Pippen to being traded from the Bulls during the 1997-98 season, how did Steve Kerr get that black eye and what the heck happened with Dennis Rodman in Las Vegas?
Two of 10 episodes in and we’ve already got some great answers and clues to eventual reveals, but the one question I can’t stop thinking about is the one we probably won’t get a legitimate answer to: just how bad was Michael Jordan’s gambling problem?
During the second episode we got the first glimpse of Jordan’s love of gambling when it was revealed he lost a large sum of money to Boston Celtics guard Danny Ainge during a round of golf. Ainge, who is now the president of basketball operations for the Celtics, explained how he beat Jordan before a match between the Celtics and Bulls in the first round of the Easter Conference play-offs in 1986.
“I took a few bucks off Michael that day,” said Ainge with a smile, before realising what he’d done. “We were trash talking to each other ... that might have been a mistake.”