Mon, May 18th, 2020

“The Last Dance” aftermath — Reggie Miller — Poisoned pizza

May 18, 2020

Monday, May 18th, 2020

  The Opening Tip

  • A look at what happened to the cast of “The Last Dance” after the band broke up

  • “You bitch, fuck you”

  • Some love for Reggie Miller

  • Another basketball doc of interest ran this weekend

1. The Lead: The aftermath of “The Last Dance”    

“The Last Dance,” the Bulls' 1997-'98 season, ended like a supernova, scattering the coaches and players of the decade’s most iconic group to new destinations across the league.The course that GM Jerry Krause took -- deciding to end the great thing he helped build -- was always strange, but its rashness increased 100-fold last night, when, in the final minutes of TLD, Michael Jordan said this: 

"Would I have signed for one year? Yes, I would have signed for one year. I'd been signing one-year contracts up to that. Would Phil have done it? Yes. Now Pip, you would have had to do some convincing, but if Phil was gonna be there, Dennis [Rodman] was gonna be there, if MJ was gonna be there, to win our seventh? Pip is not gonna miss out on that."It's maddening, because I felt like we could have won seven. I really believe that. We may not have, but man, just not to be able to try, that's something that, you know, I just can't accept. For whatever reason, I just can't accept it."

It is haunting how helpless he feels, 22 years later -- For whatever reason, I just can't accept it; he is a prisoner to his own psyche. Watching that clip was one of the most rewarding and breathtaking moments of the entire 10-hour doc.Anyway, here’s what happened to TLD cast after the 1998 season: 

  • Scottie Pippen: Went to Houston for one year in a sign-and-trade, then got traded in 1999 to the Trail Blazers. Because people don’t respect history, no one understands how great that Portland team was. The ‘99-’00 Blazers were an experiment in basketball socialism: They had five players scoring between 11 and 16 points, won 59 games, and were beating Phil Jackson’s Lakers by 15 points in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, before ultimately blowing the game and Pippen’s chance at title No. 7. 

  • Phil Jackson: Said he was done coaching. Took one year off, then won five titles with the Lakers over 11 years. In the middle of his L.A. run, he also managed to squeeze another marketing opportunity out of the 2003-’04 season, which he labeled “The Last Season” and parlayed into a book deal.

  • Steve Kerr: Signed with the Spurs and won his fourth title in a row in 1999. Joined the “Jail Blazers” in 2001, then slowly backed away toward San Antonio and won his fifth and final ring as a player in 2003. 

  • Toni Kukoč: Played for the 76ers, Hawks and Bucks before retiring in 2006. 

  • Ron Harper: Stayed in Chicago for a few buckets in 1998-’99, then nestled himself onto the Lakers’ bench for another two rings before retiring in 2001. 

  • Jerry Krause: Finally hired his Rebuild King, Iowa State’s Tim Floyd, who went 49-190 over three-and-a-quarter seasons. Krause resigned from the job in 2003, and worked in scouting departments for the Yankees, Mets, Diamondbacks and White Sox before his death in 2017. 

  • Scott Burrell: Took a long and well-earned sigh of relief. 

  • Dennis Rodman: Played only 35 more games in the NBA, then retired and befriended a certain dictator.

  • Michael Jordan: There is this backwards dark web theory that MJ took three years off, then decided to play two seasons with the Wizards. Don’t worry. It isn’t even remotely true.

 2. Find the finger-flaunting Bulls fan 

Somewhere in that crowd is a little Bulls fan holding up a prophetic six-finger pose. Try and find him. (You’ll have to zoom in on mobile.)Hint: Upper half.Give up? Someone on Twitter did the work for you.

 3. Five more things from the final two “Last Dance” episodes 

  1. After Michael Jordan beat the Pacers in Game 7 of the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals -- one of three Game 7s MJ ever played in -- he met with then-coach Larry Bird and shared this heartwarming moment. 

  2. There was a lot of backlash on Twitter last night to the poisonous pizza story, which allegedly catalyzed Jordan’s sickness in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals. For the record, we absolutely believe a psycho pizza maker in Utah could have poisoned MJ with, for example, some raw chicken. 

  3. Scottie Pippen showed his human decency again by crediting Jerry Krause for being a great GM when no one else would. 

  4. How great was the vignette on Steve Kerr's father? It was quick but not rushed and poignant without being melodramatic.

  5. For someone so overwhelmed by his own fame, MJ’s vanity plates probably didn’t help his quest for anonymity.

4.  Where to read more great writing on Michael Jordan and the Bulls  

5. Reggie Miller was so damn cool 

His career accolades (18 PPG, 3 APG, 3 RPG, five All-Stars) don’t scream inarguable greatness, but Reggie Miller’s legacy was born from the way he puffed his chest in big-time moments, a little like Black Jesus.Not many players would have the gall to:

But Reggie did all of that, all while maintaining a geeky self-confidence completely unique to himself.

6. Kevin Durant’s home region was the focus of another basketball doc this past weekend

On Friday, Showtime aired Basketball County: In the Water, a documentary about Prince George’s County (Md.), the home region of Kevin Durant, Quinn Cook, Victor Oladipo, Markelle Fultz and Jeff Green, to name a few. Similar to way-smaller Kinston, N.C., PG County produces a disproportionate amount of NBA players to the rest of the country.Last week, the co-directors of the project discussed the making of the documentary on a podcast with the production company Green Buzz Agency.[LISTEN: The making of the new Kevin Durant documentary]