Episode 7&8 of “The Last Dance” left us all with many thoughts. These two episodes I thought were absolutely excellent. It really showed the emotional side of Jordan, the teammate side of him, and showed us the baseball side of him. I have lots of opinions to say about these two episodes, so let’s talk.
I think that these two episodes were probably the most emotional episodes. The death of Michael Jordan’s father, people accusing him on being a bad teammate, or people criticizing him on his gambling problem. Those were topics were tough on Michael Jordan to talk about, and at the end of Episode 7, you could see him get emotional and immediately call for a break.
The death of Michael Jordan’s father is really sad, it wasn’t just a death that he just passed away peacefully. This was a death that was a painful, and I can’t imagine the pain of what Michael Jordan was going through during that time.
One of the things that made me mad while watching the episode. They were talking about the media were writing these articles about how Michael Jordan’s fathers death was a possible set up by Michael Jordan because of his gambling problem going on at the time. As myself, a student studying to be a journalist, how could you write something like that about him? How does that person not get fired from their job? or how could someone even have the thought to write that for an article in their paper? It is messed up, and that is a sick mind to write an article like that. Like the guy’s father died in a tragic murder, and you go on writing article about a theory that Michael Jordan set it up to have his father killed? Just the thought of that makes me furious.
Anyway, I liked how he went to play baseball. I think Jordan found a little bitt of peace and happiness getting to play. I had no idea that Terry Francona was the manager for Michael Jordan’s Double-A team, the Birmingham Barons. I saw a report a few days ago that Michael Jordan had an offer from the Oakland Athletics to play for the actual MLB team, but turned it down because he wanted to actually earn it. I don’t know if that is true, but to be honest I don’t think it was true.
We got to see how the Bulls were without Michael Jordan, and they weren’t that bad. Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, BJ Armstrong, and Tony Kukoc seemed like really solid players for them at the time. Had no idea about the Game 3 Eastern conference semi-final game vs the New York Knicks where Scottie Pippen sat out the last few seconds of the game, because he wasn’t getting the last shot. Scottie Pippen was very selfish to do that, but I think he learned his lesson about it. I say it is selfish, because you are giving up on your team by doing that. No matter what it is about the team getting the job done, and when something doesn’t go your way, you can’t just quit on the team. You deal with whatever play is drawn up, and you go out on the floor and try to make it happen. I was glad Scottie learned his lesson, and that he learned he was wrong about doing that.
Last thing I want to talk about. People are accusing that Michael Jordan was a bad teammate, but I think he was a great teammate. People look at MJ being hard on his teammates, and may have gone a little over board sometimes. But he cared about his teammates, and anything he said was wanting to make them tougher players. There is some people that can take it, and there is some people that can’t. If you don’t want it that way then that’s ok, but Michael Jordan helped them win those six NBA Championships through his way. Without him, none of those players on the Bulls would have those rings. Michael Jordan yelling at his teammates, and being hard on him was not being a bad teammate at all. Jordan didn’t yell at those guys because he was a jerk, he yelled at them like that to make them tougher, and knew that they had more potential than what they showed. You can’t always be nice, and expect the team to play better and win. If you were a coach, you can’t just settle on the team’s performance after a win or loss, you have to find goals along the way to push your players to give more than what they showed and willingness to want to win. I do think that there may have been some things said that was over the top from, but if Jordan wasn’t pushing his teammates, would they be ready for the moment? Jordan got them to play and got the best out of them, and thanks to him Jordan won six rings with the Bulls. So how could be a bad teammate, when he helped them win six championships?
All in in all, great two episodes. Sad to see there is two episodes left, but I really got to know what it was like in Michael Jordan era through this documentary.
BTW, Jerry Krause was DEFINITELY backstabbing the Bulls.
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