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"The Last Dance"

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Steve_424

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What do you all think of the docuseries so far?

A few thoughts:

- It was pretty stunning to hear MJ say he thought Pippen was being selfish in regard to his contract dispute with the front office
- The game looks sooooo different compared to today in terms of strength and athleticism
- I wonder how his career would've played out differently in the social media era
- Wish they didn't jump around so much on the timeline
 
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What do you all think of the docuseries so far?

I'm enjoying it. So far, we have seen a lot of the Cavs playing the role of foil to the Bulls. We have seen Jordan and Pippen scoring over Nance, Hot Rod, and Ehlo. That isn't going to change, the Cavs along with the Celtics and Pistons will be obstacles not stars.

I do hope they dig deeper on Steve Kerr and Ron Harper in the future episodes. They weren't Cavaliers long, but I always felt they were extensions of the Lenny Wilkens era in Chicago. To be brutally honest, I also formed appreciation for Lute Olsen as a coach because of the quality play of his products in the NBA, including Kerr and Buchler. The Lute influence in basketball culminated for me when Channing and RJ saved the 2016 locker room.
 
As someone who just missed seeing Jordan play on the Bulls, this documentary is a blessing.

-Hearing the obsession with drafting Centers in the 80s is pretty hilarious given where the game is today.

-One thing I really learned last night was how much friction there was with Pippen. I had no idea he was that underpaid, and that he intentionally missed about half the final season as a "fuck you" to management. I'm not surprised Jordan took issue with that, to be honest. I know they say "don't talk about players' business" but there are certain ways to go about things...Pippen basically went through with the threat Kyrie made to us. That really fucks over the team, as we know all too well. With that said, Bulls management was and always has been a complete disaster, and treated Pippen like complete shit, so I can see why he was frustrated.

-On that note, it will always blow my mind that Reinsdorf allowed Krause to sabotage the dynasty. How in the world could you not ride it out? Like Jordan said, they should be entitled to defend their title. Jordan was 35 in 1998...same age as LeBron is now. Talk about a "what if" scenario...
 
Found the similarities between Pippen's situation and Kyrie's situation (in Cleveland) to be strikingly similar. Both guys were "Robin". Both guys felt under-appreciated. Both guys used injuries as leverage.

In Pippen's case he delayed surgery to start of season to not ruin his summer, and if he was going to be that underpaid, he wanted to sit out most of the season.

While Kyrie wasn't underpaid, he felt like second fiddle, and used an injury as leverage over the organization. If we held onto him, he was going to elect to have surgery that would keep him out a significant portion of season, and he held off on surgery once shipped to Boston.

I'm excited to see Episodes 3 & 4 which will focus primarily on Jordan overcoming the Detroit Bad boys. Jordan's ascension over Detroit is why he is the GOAT to me. Beyond the (6) titles to LeBron's (3), there's a level of appreciation you have to have for Jordan initially struggling with Detroit, and then elevating the Bulls over that mountain-top. After getting to the finals early in career with Cavs, LeBron hit a wall, and that is when he bailed to Miami and pretty much destroyed the Eastern Conference outside of Miami and Boston. It was really weak.....and he knew as much which is why he said "not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5.......".....That will always be the differentiator to me....
 
I think it's pretty hilarious that of all the money Pippen made in his career (nearly $110 million) he made more than 80% of it after he left Chicago.

The Bulls paid him peanuts.
 
This goes with the Ainge golf story a little bit:

 
Love it cause it just takes you back to an authentic better era.

The league was not loaded with 20 year olds who grew up idolizing OG's like James Harden & Russell Westbrook while wearing their shorts super short to bring back a retro look.

Pippen is my all time favorite so I can't get enough..
 
Love it cause it just takes you back to an authentic better era.

The league was not loaded with 20 year olds who grew up idolizing OG's like James Harden & Russell Westbrook while wearing their shorts super short to bring back a retro look.

Pippen is my all time favorite so I can't get enough..

I actually disagree. Watching old film made me appreciate today's game even more. They didn't show it in the doc (probably because it'd remove some of the aura from the moment) but the end of that national championship was embarrassing:


Guys were smaller, less athletic. We're blessed to see modern-day athletes in action.

I'm excited to see Episodes 3 & 4 which will focus primarily on Jordan overcoming the Detroit Bad boys. Jordan's ascension over Detroit is why he is the GOAT to me. Beyond the (6) titles to LeBron's (3), there's a level of appreciation you have to have for Jordan initially struggling with Detroit, and then elevating the Bulls over that mountain-top. After getting to the finals early in career with Cavs, LeBron hit a wall, and that is when he bailed to Miami and pretty much destroyed the Eastern Conference outside of Miami and Boston. It was really weak.....and he knew as much which is why he said "not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5.......".....That will always be the differentiator to me....

Jerry Krause is the villain of this series and a lot of it is warranted, but he did an excellent job of building a championship team around Jordan. He traded for Scottie Pippen (who MJ didn't want), drafted Horace Grant (MJ wanted Joe Wolf), traded for Charles Oakley and then used him to later deal for Bill Cartwright. He also added guys like Paxon, Armstrong, Hodges, King. And to top it off, he identified Phil Jackson as a future-great head coach and gave him his first shot.

What did the Cavs do for LeBron the first go-around? Antawn Jamison? Mo Williams? Old Shaq?

I was struck by how openly frustrated MJ got when he had to play a PARTIAL season without Pippen. That was LeBron's first 7 years in Cleveland. The Cavs failed to find that 2nd star that Chicago was able to find. Saying MJ "elavated them over the top" and that LeBron "bailed" is looking at it with nostalgia-covered glasses IMO. Give Pippen to LeBron in his first go-around here or take Pippen away from MJ in his with the Bulls and history would look a little different.
 
I actually disagree. Watching old film made me appreciate today's game even more. They didn't show it in the doc (probably because it'd remove some of the aura from the moment) but the end of that national championship was embarrassing:


Guys were smaller, less athletic. We're blessed to see modern-day athletes in action.
Yeah I’m just not buying it.

 
I actually disagree. Watching old film made me appreciate today's game even more. They didn't show it in the doc (probably because it'd remove some of the aura from the moment) but the end of that national championship was embarrassing:


Guys were smaller, less athletic. We're blessed to see modern-day athletes in action.



Jerry Krause is the villain of this series and a lot of it is warranted, but he did an excellent job of building a championship team around Jordan. He traded for Scottie Pippen (who MJ didn't want), drafted Horace Grant (MJ wanted Joe Wolf), traded for Charles Oakley and then used him to later deal for Bill Cartwright. He also added guys like Paxon, Armstrong, Hodges, King. And to top it off, he identified Phil Jackson as a future-great head coach and gave him his first shot.

What did the Cavs do for LeBron the first go-around? Antawn Jamison? Mo Williams? Old Shaq?

I was struck by how openly frustrated MJ got when he had to play a PARTIAL season without Pippen. That was LeBron's first 7 years in Cleveland. The Cavs failed to find that 2nd star that Chicago was able to find. Saying MJ "elavated them over the top" and that LeBron "bailed" is looking at it with nostalgia-covered glasses IMO. Give Pippen to LeBron in his first go-around here or take Pippen away from MJ in his with the Bulls and history would look a little different.
It's all how you want to spin it. You use that turnover as an example of bad basketball, PIP just used another example of bad basketball. Bad basketball exists in all eras. JR Smith went full dumbass in The Finals just two years ago. I would say that the average player is certainly better now than back then, though.
 
It's all how you want to spin it. You use that turnover as an example of bad basketball, PIP just used another example of bad basketball. Bad basketball exists in all eras. JR Smith went full dumbass in The Finals just two years ago. I would say that the average player is certainly better now than back then, though.

Yeah I’m just not buying it.


Imagine LeBron, in his prime, if opposing teams couldn't camp a big man in the paint to protect the rim. Think about how much he went off when Bogut went down in the Finals. Except that open paint is every game of every season.

P.S. As silly as that defense looked, it's curious to me that they don't finish the play in that clip...
 
Imagine LeBron, in his prime, if opposing teams couldn't camp a big man in the paint to protect the rim. Think about how much he went off when Bogut went down in the Finals. Except that open paint is every game of every season.

P.S. As silly as that defense looked, it's curious to me that they don't finish the play in that clip...
Imagine Jordan, in his prime, if opposite teams weren't allowed to touch him without getting called for a foul.

See how easy that is?
 
Found the similarities between Pippen's situation and Kyrie's situation (in Cleveland) to be strikingly similar. Both guys were "Robin". Both guys felt under-appreciated. Both guys used injuries as leverage.

In Pippen's case he delayed surgery to start of season to not ruin his summer, and if he was going to be that underpaid, he wanted to sit out most of the season.

While Kyrie wasn't underpaid, he felt like second fiddle, and used an injury as leverage over the organization. If we held onto him, he was going to elect to have surgery that would keep him out a significant portion of season, and he held off on surgery once shipped to Boston.

I'm excited to see Episodes 3 & 4 which will focus primarily on Jordan overcoming the Detroit Bad boys. Jordan's ascension over Detroit is why he is the GOAT to me. Beyond the (6) titles to LeBron's (3), there's a level of appreciation you have to have for Jordan initially struggling with Detroit, and then elevating the Bulls over that mountain-top. After getting to the finals early in career with Cavs, LeBron hit a wall, and that is when he bailed to Miami and pretty much destroyed the Eastern Conference outside of Miami and Boston. It was really weak.....and he knew as much which is why he said "not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5.......".....That will always be the differentiator to me....

Pippen and Kyrie were not analogous because Pippen was kind of right about being mistreated, and was also a much better player than Kyrie. So you have one situation where a truly great player was actually being treated badly, and another situation where a good but not great player was being treated extremely well. That's pretty different.

Also, Lebron's first tour in Cleveland was quite different than the Jordan situation in Chicago because the front office got Jordan help and in Cleveland Lebron didn't get any help. It's crazy how thin / bad those teams were behind him. Just look at what Chicago did the year Jordan went to play baseball.
 

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