We’re About to See Michael Jordan Like We’ve Never Seen Him Before

ESPN’s Chicago Bulls 10-part documentary “The Last Dance” debuts Sunday. Michael Jordan makes the series MUST-watch…

MICHAEL JORDAN IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ATHLETES IN HUMAN HISTORY. There is simply no disputing that fact. Jordan retired almost two decades ago, but he remains one of the most recognizable athletes in the entire world. And as much as we’ve had every GOAT debate argued to death and eaten up every little Jordan tidbit story, there’s just so much we still don’t know about MJ.

That’s by design, of course. Jordan was his own brand, and he made himself off limits to just about everyone else. Growing up, when you played as the Bulls on video games, you never got to actually use Michael Jordan. You used BULLS23 or #23 or whatever they called the likeness of the bald dude that was the best player on the game, the only one without an actual name.

Jordan was always extremely particular about who he interviewed for, and since his final retirement, we barely hear from him at all as he keeps his distance from the media. That’s why we remember Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech so distinctly. That’s why MJ sharing at Kobe’s memorial was so significant. We saw real crying Jordan letting down his guard, letting us see the real Jordan that’s forever hiding inside.

Jordan doesn’t sit courtside and chat with current NBA stars. He doesn’t show up at Rucker Park in the summer and drop 50 on some poor soul, no doubt for fear that he might actually lose. He doesn’t drop by The Jump or pop in on Bill Simmons’s podcast. Michael Jordan remains mystifying and unknowable.

And that’s why The Last Dance is such an incredibly highly anticipated documentary series.

Technically, The Last Dance is about the 1997–98 Chicago Bulls. It’s about Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman and Jerry Krause. It’s about all of those guys, at least in theory.

But let’s be honest.

This is about Michael Jordan.

Were it just another docuseries about any other team or dynasty, there would be a small segment of sports fans excited. This could be a series about the Spurs dynasty, or about the 80s Celtics or Lakers or, someday, the Warriors. And it would be intriguing! We’d watch it, especially if it were released during Coronavirus quarantine.

But it wouldn’t be a major cultural event, not like The Last Dance.

The Last Dance matters because it’s Michael Jordan, like we’ve never seen him before.

A documentary crew followed the Bulls around all throughout the 1997–98 season, and 22 years later, we’re finally seeing this magnum opus. There will be so many stories, so many interviews, that we’ve never seen before.

ESPN has an excellent history with sports documentary. Their ongoing 30 for 30 series is exquisite and made countless many fall in love with documentary. Their O.J.: Made in America docuseries was the longest film ever nominated for an Oscar. It won that Oscar and remains the gold standard for anything ESPN has created.

And The Last Dance is already being compared favorably to O.J.: Made in America. It’s that good.

You know it’s that good when iconic basketball writers like Jackie MacMullan, Michael Wilbon, and Zach Lowe are practically buzzing with anticipation over the series, like a kid counting down the hours until Christmas. Jackie Mac wrote an entire piece anticipating the Jordan she knew being unveiled before the rest of the world.

Wilbon said on a recent podcast that he got the early presser but can’t bring himself to watch yet. He wants to experience The Last Dance in real time, with everyone else. This is an award-winning sportswriter and one of the biggest Chicago Bulls fans on the planet, a guy who literally built a career following and reporting on Michael Jordan. He’s that excited.

And I am, too.

We’re about to see Michael Jordan like we’ve never seen him before — both for better and for worse.

Jordan is one of the most maniacal, most ruthless competitors of all time. We know this. We heard it dripping from every word of his infamous Hall of Fame speech. We’ve heard the stories about the gambling and the competitions with teammates and “friends.”

Jordan spawned an entire generation of me-first win-at-all-costs players. We praised Kobe Bryant when he snarled and pumped his fist. We praised him because he was like Michael Jordan. We praised him because he competed above all else, above everything and everyone else. We praised him because Michael Jordan was that way, and if Jordan was the best, then the next best should be like Jordan.

We’ll see just how much we praise that same ultracompetitiveness today.

I will always believe Michael Jordan is the GOAT, but I must admit I’m biased: I have an inherent bias towards being right.

Jordan at his MJest wasn’t just the greatest — he was invincible.

Michael Jordan was inevitable.

When you turned on a Bulls game in the 90s, you weren’t tuning in to see if the Bulls would win. You were turning in to see how.

The result was already a foregone conclusion. The Bulls had Jordan; their opponent didn’t. What chance did they really have?

It sounds like hyperbole, but it really wasn’t. The Bulls had Michael Jordan, so they won. Every single time.

Remember watching the 73–9 Golden State Warriors a few years ago? Remember how certain you were that they’d win every single game? Remember tuning in giddily when the Warriors were down 15 at the half, because you were so excited for the hell they were about to unleash on their poor unassuming opponent in a certain, inevitable comeback?

Michael Jordan was like that for an entire decade.

Jordan’s Bulls came up short to the Detroit Pistons in three straight postseasons. In 1989, the 6-seed Bulls upset two opponents before pushing the eventual champs to six games. In 1990, the Bulls made it to Game 7 against the Pistons before coming up short. It was the only Game 7 loss of Jordan’s career, thanks mostly to his teammates completely crapping the bed. It was also the last playoff series Jordan would ever lose in his career, outside of one rusty 1995 return.

The following year, the Bulls swept the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals. They entered the 1991 Finals as a slight underdog to Magic Johnson and the Lakers but beat them anyway.

Michael Jordan was never an underdog again.

Jordan went 4–1 in Game Sevens, 2–1 as an underdog. He lost only seven playoff series his entire career, three of them early in his career with sub-.500 teams that should never have even made the playoffs.

Jordan played in six NBA Finals. He won all six and was named Finals MVP all six times. The Bulls trailed in a Finals series only twice ever in that stretch. They went 8–1 after those 0–1 starts and won both Finals, of course.

As a series favorite, Jordan’s Bulls played 81 games with a series lead. He only played five playoff games his entire career while trailing as a series favorite, and his teams won all but one of them. Favored MJ only ever trailed after two games once. He never trailed a series after four games. He never lost a series as a favorite, ever.

Michael Jordan as a series favorite is 27–0. TWENTY-SEVEN AND OH.

That is the very definition of inevitable.

Jordan’s 96 Bulls went 72–10 and are still considered one of the greatest teams ever assembled. The 98 Bulls completed Jordan’s second threepeat of the 90s. They were his fifth 60+ win champion.

Only 32 teams in NBA history have won 75 games in a single season, including postseason victories. Bird and Magic each had three such teams. Duncan had three. LeBron has one. Michael Jordan did it five times.

Heck, his Bulls went 4–1 against 75-win teams, too. He was the best, and he beat the best.

Michael Jordan led the NBA in scoring in 10 different seasons.

Those 10 seasons were consecutive Jordan seasons, not counting the year-and-a-half retirement… 10 consecutive seasons leading the NBA in scoring!!!

In the history of the NBA, only Wilt Chamberlain led the league in scoring more than four times. Jordan did it in 10 straight seasons!!

The leading NBA scorer was never supposed to be its best player too. Before Michael Jordan, only five leading scorers had also been league MVP that same season. Jordan did it seven times himself.

The leading scorer definitely wasn’t supposed to win the NBA title. Kareem did it once in 1972, but that was it until the 90s. And then Michael Jordan did it six times in a row.

Jordan averaged more than 30 points per game over his entire career. He averaged over 30ppg seven straight seasons at one point. He won five MVPs and should’ve won several more.

Jordan was also the first shooting guard ever to be the best player on a title team. It used to be that the best player on a title team was almost always a big man. Rick Barry and Dr. J broke into the list in the 70s and 80s, and the game began to move toward point guards with Magic and Isiah after that. But we’d never seen a non-big scorer lead a team to a title before MJ. Not like that.

Jordan played elite defense too. He made nine All-Defense teams and even won Defensive Player of the Year. That was in 1988, when Jordan became the first and only player ever to win both MVP and DPOY in the same season. He also won the scoring title that year, along with the All-Star Game MVP, plus the dunk contest for good measure.

Surprise, surprise. Michael Jordan wins again.

He always does.

The Last Dance premieres this Sunday, April 19, from 9:00 to 11:00pm. It will air on both ESPN and ESPN2, the latter a slightly censored version for language. The 10-part series will air two new one-hour segments each of the next five Sundays.

The series will re-air on ESPN networks if you miss it, and new episodes will be released at midnight on those Sundays on Netflix, if that’s your preferred method of viewing.

ESPN will also begin releasing new episodes of Detail beginning Sunday, with Steve Kerr and Dennis Rodman breaking down film from key games from the Bulls sixth and final championship run. Awesome.

The Last Dance is THE television event of the next month. You absolutely have to make time to watch it. This, finally, is our shot to see Michael Jordan and the Bulls as they really were in 1998.

You dare not miss your shot.

Jordan wouldn’t. ■

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