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Jonathan White

“I guess that’s what’s unique,” says Steve Kerr, the Chicago Bulls guard who would go on to become the coach of the Golden State Warriors, “is that we’ve got Michael.”
Foreign fans tell of their admiration for Jordan before we see him wandering Barcelona looking at giant billboard with him on it while at the 1992 Olympic Games in the city.
“The most famous man on the planet is here,” Oprah Winfrey says by way of introduction for Jordan’s appearance on her talk show.
This all happens before the opening credits have even rolled on episode one of The Last Dance, the compelling new documentary on Jordan and the Bulls 1997-98 season.


His global renown is backed up quickly in the first of the 10-part series as we see Jordan and the Bulls in Paris for their NBA pre-season game.
The French newspaper L’Equipe declares him bigger than the Pope, the television crew want his autograph, and the fans pack out the stadium to see him. There’s not really anyone else to see – Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman were not in France – so Jordan put on a show, just as he always did.

A former Chicago resident weighs in on the #TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/eU57VRtLhq
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) April 20, 2020

He is certainly the star of this show. Former president Barack Obama is introduced on screen as a “former Chicago resident”.
“At that point Michael Jordan is already the ultimate sports alpha male,” Michael Wilbon, a 30-year veteran of the Washington Post and Chicago-native, says in his interview of 1997, when Jordan had five rings.
“The only comparisons I can recall being apt were to Babe Ruth and Muhammad Ali. That’s it, that’s the list. There’s nobody else on it.”
Netflix releases Jordan and Bulls series two months early amid lockdown
Jordan’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech in 2009 “proved that he is – forever and ever – the most competitive person alive,” according to ESPN. We’re shown evidence again and again.
His former University of North Carolina assistant coach Roy Willams says Jordan told him that “I’ll show you. Nobody will ever work as hard as I will” when challenged. His teammates back this up. Williams also describes Jordan as “the only player who could turn it on and off – and he never turned it off.”
Jordan fights the Bulls front office on playing when he returns from a foot injury in his second season at the Bulls. He’d been playing secretly at UNC playing and negotiates a deal to play seven minutes per half – and not a second more.


The Bulls sneak into the play-offs and then Jordan is unleashed, dropping 49 and then 63 on the Boston Celtics – the latter coming the day after Celtics forward Danny Ainge had talked trash to him (and beaten him) on the golf course. It was that performance that had Larry Bird say, “That was god disguised as Michael Jordan.”
It’s another quote that encapsulates Jordan best. “Michael played every game as if it was his last, Ahmad Rashad of NBC Sports, says. “Every single game. It was never a day off. He knew that there was someone in that crowd that never saw him play before.”
Jordan was quoted by series director Jason Hehir as being worried he will come across as a “horrible guy”. He has little to fear but he will come across as horribly competitive.


Even Jordan’s humour is competitive. Jordan dismisses talk of rebuilding the Bulls in an interview from the time with the swipe that “The Cubs have been rebuilding for 42 years.”
He also makes GM Jerry Krause the butt of many jokes. “So those are the pills you take to keep you short,” Jordan jokes to him, “Or are those diet pills?”
Krause is firmly cast as the villain of the piece and the internet has already responded to that. He was the one behind the desire to rebuild, he who told coach Phil Jackson he was out at the end of the year “even if he won all 82 games” and reportedly desperate for credit for his role in the Bulls’ first five championships.


“I was getting irritated,” Jordan says, “we were winning.” That is another comment as he looked back on the supposed need for rebuilding a team that had won five championships, including the last two.
It does not help Krause’s case that he was misquoted, as he claimed, to have said “organisations win titles not players” – he claimed in an interview that the word “alone” was left off the end.
“For him to say that is offensive to the way I approach the game,” is Jordan’s take. His approach is one that has been well documented, with Jordan reportedly schooling NBA players one-on-one as an owner.
Michael Jordan says he might seem a ‘horrible guy’ in Bulls documentary
It comes across that Jordan did not need really Krause as the bad guy, even if the rest of the team unified behind it. He could find a perceived slight in an empty room and draw motivation from that.
“My innate personality is to win at all costs,” Jordan says, “It drives me insane when I can’t.” We see it in his face when a teammate wants to celebrate winning the McDonald's Team Championship in Paris. “It don’t count.” The rest of the season (on the court and on film) will, as the Bulls look for a sixth ring, led by an obsessed Jordan.
The series title comes from coach Phil Jackson’s team handbook that he handed to the players in their first practice of 1997-98. Jackson phrased it as a question but there is no question that at this dance it is Jordan calling the tune.


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NBA (National Basketball Association)

The Last Dance: Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls documentary does not disappoint

Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan stands with the 1996 NBA Championship Trophy, his side’s fourth title. Photo: Reuters

Netflix’s Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls series The Last Dance gets April release

Chicago Bulls players Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman during the NBA Eastern Conference semi-finals in May 1998. Photo: AFP

Michael Jordan says ‘The Last Dance’ Chicago Bulls series might make him seem a ‘horrible guy’

Basketball legend Michael Jordan is worried about how he will be perceived after a new documentary about his incredible career airs on Netflix. Photo: Reuters

China sports firm illegally used Michael Jordan’s name but did not violate image rights, top court rules

Michael Jordan is a six-time NBA champion who most famously played for the Chicago Bulls. Photo: AP

A Qiaodan brand shoe is seen in a store in Beijing on July 29, 2015. A Beijing court has dismissed a trademark case brought by US basketball superstar Michael Jordan against Qiaodan Sports Co, which uses a similar name and logo to his Nike-produced brand, a report said. The former Chicago Bull is arguably the most popular international basketball star in China and is known in the country as "Qiaodan", a Chinese version of his name. He asked Chinese authorities in 2012 to revoke the trademark of Qiaodan Sports Co, accusing the sportswear firm of misleading consumers about its ties to the six-time NBA champion. AFP PHOTO / GREG BAKER

A pedestrian passes a branch of Chinese sportswear shop Qiaodan Sports in Shanghai on February 23, 2012. Retired NBA superstar Michael Jordan announced on that he has filed a lawsuit in China against Qiaodan Sports Company Limited over unauthorized use of his name as Jordan has been known in China by the name Qiaodan since he became a global basketball star in the 1980s. AFP PHOTO/Peter PARKS / AFP PHOTO / PETER PARKS

Michael Jordan’s Jumpman logo features the former Chicago Bulls shooting guard and a silhouette of the now-retired player performing a dunk. Photo: EPA

Sport

Basketball

Fears he would come across as a ‘horrible guy’ in the Netflix and ESPN series are unfounded – but he is horribly competitive
Jordan is the star of the show, as ‘former Chicago resident’ Barack Obama proves


Fears he would come across as a ‘horrible guy’ in the Netflix and ESPN series are unfounded – but he is horribly competitive.


Netflix

Michael Jordan

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Opinion