The Michael Jordan that Michael Jordan was afraid you'd see
A bleak night of life inside MJ's world.
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
Narcissus, Caravaggio
Sunday’s episodes of The Last Dance centered on two important facets of the story of Michael Jordan and the ‘90s Bulls: the exhaustion that being Michael Jordan created, and the controversy that sprung up around him. The first item is setting up both retirements, the first of which is certainly coming in the next episode and the second of which is likely holding for the last night of the run. The hotel room scene with MJ laying on the couch, bemoaning what he knows is coming when he exits, is one of the rare times in the six hours aired to date in which you feel sympathy for MJ. Being world famous seems lousy, except for the financial security.
The other stuff from Sunday night — the obsessive gambling, the Dream Team stuff about Isiah Thomas and Toni Kukoc, the unwillingness to dabble in North Carolina politics in service of ejecting a segregationist from the U.S. Senate — strikes me as exactly what MJ feared when he lamented before the doc premiered that it will change people’s view of him. Us obsessives knew all of this stuff about him. The fact that MJ still doesn’t have a good justification or, in the case of Isiah and the Dream Team, continues to change the story in service to obfuscation is a bad sign. MJ knew all of this was coming, he had favorable terms and a documentary team that only lightly challenges him, and MJ’s effort to defend his worst moments remains minimal.
It’s clearer with every segment that MJ is and has always really been concerned with himself.
This isn’t to say MJ is coming off as a bad person. But he’s certainly not a complicated person. Everything he does, every decision he makes just simply seems to come exactly back to him. He’s asked to join Team USA Basketball in Barcelona. He will … if Isiah isn’t there, because he doesn’t want to spend a month with Isiah. Will he gamble on golf with an unsavory character named Slim? Yes, because he’s addicted to gambling and unwilling to address that aspect of his personhood. Will he go to Atlantic City to gamble during a playoff series, justify it by saying he needs to blow off steam, freeze the media for two weeks because they dare ask about it and give an exclusive interview to his friend Ahmad Rashad to “explain” it away? Yes, all in service to himself and himself only.
The Isiah-Dream Team stuff is driving me nuts. Jordan and Rod Thorn had previously confirmed in Jack McCallum’s book on the Dream Team that MJ insisted that Isiah not be included! And the rationale, if self-centered, is valid: these guys are going to be together for a month to sell the game of basketball to the world … shouldn’t they like each other? That’s fine, again, though it fits MJ’s modus operandi: it’s all about Michael.
What’s much less honorable is to now … walk it back, or forget that you already once told the truth? And it’s very discouraging that the documentary team didn’t address this with Thorn or Jordan; it’s not like McCallum’s book is a rare tome. If you’re going to use your power to the detriment of others, as Jordan did, the least you can do is own up to it and be honest about it … especially almost 30 years later. By letting MJ elide the truth, Jason Hehir and the documentary team do Jordan — who came into this so conscious of how he’d be perceived — no favors.
On the other hand, a key omission by the documentary in the section on the infamous “Republicans buy sneakers, too” quote did serve protect Michael’s image for the masses who perhaps don’t know the name Craig Hodges. That piece of the episode seems tailored to absolve Jordan — it actually features one of MJ’s more poignant, self-reflective moments, when he ruminates on being a role model. (Of course, Charles Barkley said it better 25 years ago.) Casual fans watching The Last Dance might nod along — yes, MJ was right to reject pressure from his mom to endorse the candidate running against a segregationist in the year 1990, it’s complicated, he’s a basketball player, not a politician. The documentary then moves on to mention that Jordan skipped the (then-) customary White House visit in 1991 to play golf.
What the documentary didn’t mention that would have driven home Jordan’s social obliviousness is the fact that MJ also skipped the White House for golf in 1992, when Craig Hodges infamously wore a dashiki and slipped a letter advocating for the impoverished to President Bush. Hodges was then essentially blackballed from the league: he didn’t play another game in the NBA despite being just 31 and possibly the best pure shooter in the league.
Jordan wasn’t politically obstinate in a vacuum. He had a teammate much less financially secure risk his own livelihood is service of speaking out for others. Including that story in this broader MJ story sure would change the pallor of Jordan’s quote and defense.
If Jordan was afraid of how the world would see him differently after watching this documentary, these are the episodes that will do it. It’s (unwittingly?) a surprisingly bleak picture of the guy ever kid in the world wanted to be.
Links
Mike Prada has a newsletter called Prada’s Pictures where he provides the Xs and Os breakdowns you know and love. I highly recommend subscribing! Here’s his first issue on when Scottie Pippen caught Jordan.
Zach Lowe on the 1998 Game 7 the Bulls had against the Pacers. We’ll be seeing that game enter the story on the screen soon, and this is a great appetizer.
Some additional context on Sam Smith’s book The Jordan Rules.
Harvey Gantt feels no ill will toward Jordan.
Kevin Pelton ranks the top 74 individual NBA seasons of all time.
A huge compendium of Jordan gambling stories compiled by Matt Moore.
David Roth on the problems with Episode 5 and MJ as an autobiographer.
Kevin Kaduk declares Episodes 5 and 6 the best of The Last Dance so far.
David Thorpe on the Dennis Rodman gene.
Jeremy Gordon on the NBA’s odd historic relationship with rap music.
Kelly Dwyer on what was left out of Episode 4.
Nick DePaula on the sneakers that defined Jordan’s title runs.
Al Harrington wants to sell you weed.
Be excellent to each other.