OT- The Last Dance documentary

[dice]

bulls vegas percentage chances of winning series along with results, pippen era:

1988 bulls (3) cavs (6) 73 3-2
1988 bulls (3) pistons (2) 31 1-4
1989 bulls (6) cavs (3) 19 3-2
1989 bulls (6) knicks (2) 19 4-2
1989 bulls (6) pistons (1) 15 2-4
1990 bulls (3) bucks (6) 85 3-1
1990 bulls (3) sixers (2) 60 4-1
1990 bulls (3) pistons (1) 29 3-4
1991 bulls (1) knicks (8) 91 3-0
1991 bulls (1) sixers (5) 81 4-1
1991 bulls (1) pistons (3) 71 4-0
1991 bulls (1) lakers (3) 65 4-1
1992 bulls (1) heat (8) 99 3-0
1992 bulls (1) knicks (4) 95 4-3
1992 bulls (1) cavs (3) 85 4-2
1992 bulls (1) blazers (1) 69 4-2
1993 bulls (2) hawks (7) 91 3-0
1993 bulls (2) cavs (3) 81 4-0
1993 bulls (2) knicks (1) 58 4-2
1993 bulls (2) suns (1) 68 4-2
1994 bulls (3) cavs 6) 69 3-0
1994 bulls (3) knicks (2) 37 3-4
1995 bulls (5) hornets (4) 76 3-1
1995 bulls (5) magic (1) 64 2-4
1996 bulls (1) heat (8) 96 3-0
1996 bulls (1) knicks (5) 97 4-1
1996 bulls (1) magic (2) 81 4-0
1996 bulls (1) sonics (2) 89 4-2
1997 bulls (1) bullets (8) 96 3-0
1997 bulls (1) hawks (4) 93 4-1
1997 bulls (1) heat (2) 93 4-1
1997 bulls (1) jazz (1) 83 4-2
1998 bulls (1) nets (8) 96 3-0
1998 bulls (1) hornets (4) 94 4-1
1998 bulls (1) pacers (3) 83 4-3
1998 bulls (1) jazz (1) 53 4-2

31-5 overall vs expected result of 26-10

2-4 series record when underdogs (expected 1.5-4.5)
29-1 when favorites (expected 24.5-5.5)

observations:

didn't realize cavs were heavily favored in first round in '89. notable was that the bulls had a chance of putting away the series in game 4 at chicago stadium. jordan had a big game but couldn't put it away in regulation, requiring his game 5 heroics. skip to 40:00 minute mark, where it gets juicy:

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also heavy underdogs to knicks, but like w/ the cavs series, stole game 1 on the road and had a chance to put it away in game 6 to avoid game 7 on the road. skip to 1:45:00 mark for final minutes:

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bulls yet again stole game 1 on the road in pistons series, making the club's first ever finals appearance a distinct possiblity. here was the game 3 fourth quarter rally in front of a feverish chicago stadium crowd (skip to 1:20:00):

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unfortunately, the pistons swept the next 3 games

also interesting that the bulls were bigger favorites against the suns in '93 than they were against the knicks despite the suns having a slightly better regular season. the suns did struggle in the playoffs, though: lost games 1 AND 2 at home vs 39 win lakers team in first round before sweeping games 3-5.

[MrSparkle]

How the hell did it take 20 years for this footage to come out? This is gonna be a wild ride. The director sounds like a talented guy.

Anyway, I love how much national scrutiny this FO has gotten since the all-star game. This documentary isn't going to paint them in a great way. At best, it will chuck just Krause under the bus and protect Reinsdorf, but we'll see.

Or who knows? This is gonna be an inside look at Jordan's intensity.

[Bullflip]

How the hell did it take 20 years for this footage to come out? This is gonna be a wild ride. The director sounds like a talented guy.

Anyway, I love how much national scrutiny this FO has gotten since the all-star game. This documentary isn't going to paint them in a great way. At best, it will chuck just Krause under the bus and protect Reinsdorf, but we'll see.

Or who knows? This is gonna be an inside look at Jordan's intensity.

I think it took so long to come out because I read somewhere that it took a while for Jordan to sign off on it. He is worried it might show him in a bad light with how intense he was. I think that’s why Jordan is doing some interviews before the documentary to kind of lay the groundwork before it comes out

[HomoSapien]

Really looking forward to this....

Really wish ESPN would’ve played some of the seasons Bulls Games leading up to this doc and continue to play them on the days they’ll play more or even on days they would have had NBA games/playoff games.

Thinking about it, it would’ve been kind of cool if ESPN/TNT kept their NBA programming schedule and played old school games. Have some Bulls vs Magic or Suns playoff games... have a halftime with Shaq and Chuck talking about the game. Such programming could be entertaining.

ESPN could have some Kobe games vs the Celtics and have their halftime include Pierce speaking about the game.

It’d beat watching athletes play video games...

Not sure if NBC is allowed to do this, but if I were them I’d dedicate Saturday and Sunday mornings to replaying the NBA on NBC games. People are going to be feeling crazy nostalgic (they already are) and that would draw an audience.

[The 6ft Hurdle]

Read on Twitter

Man....when I first started following he Bulls via message board right after the 99-00 season, I didn't feel that much bitterness towards Jerry K, and I still don't. I really don't know, it's strange. Maybe I relate to him and his underdog mentality?

How I feel about Jerry is a strange contrast to the way I've felt about the Pax/PaxGar Bulls the last 16 years, which was just pure annoyance bordering on hatred, which is strange because I am fully aware of how instrumental John Paxson the basketball player was in delivering those first 3 championships and the build-up before.

I think how long they kept Garpax around maybe was ownership's long-winded response to how they dealt with Jerry.

[johnnyvann840]

I was watching the 1986 Bulls/Celtics first-round series and Dick Stockton brought up how after Michael was drafted the Bulls failed/forgot to send somebody to the airport to pick him up. Lol.

It's a great story, though. They showed short interview clips of the chauffeur who actually wound up picking him up and MJ on the subject. I guess Michael was at the airport lost and not sure what to do. Asking himself "what the hell kind of organization did I get drafted by?". There just happened to be a limo driver whose fare didn't show up .... he saw Michael looking lost and confused and asked him if he needed a ride. MJ says "yeah, thanks, I do". Well, this guy winds up being Michael's chauffeur and personal assistant for the next 15 years.

This probably won't make it into the Last Dance documentary because it happened many years prior, but I thought it was a pretty funny and interesting story.

[transplant]

My wife of 39 years has never much cared for sports and NBA basketball is at the bottom of her list (she has many other redeeming qualities). She shocked me yesterday when she said she wants to watch The Last Dance doc with me. My first take was "Way cool!"
My second was that this thing is going to be HUGE!

were the '90s a particularly good time in your lives?

You could be on to something there. Our 3 kids were born in the '80s. She spent the '90s as a stay-at-home mom. The kids started leaving the nest in the '00s.

[wickywack]

Read on Twitter

This quote from Jordan was sadly prescient:

We're entitled to defend what we have until we lose it. If we lose it then you look at it, and you say ok let's change. Rebuilding? No one is guaranteed rebuilding is going to be 3 or 4 or 5 years. Cubs have rebuilding for 42 years.

We're now more than half way through Jordan's 42 years.

[MrSparkle]

Read on Twitter

This quote from Jordan was sadly prescient:

We're entitled to defend what we have until we lose it. If we lose it then you look at it, and you say ok let's change. Rebuilding? No one is guaranteed rebuilding is going to be 3 or 4 or 5 years. Cubs have rebuilding for 42 years.

We're now more than half way through Jordan's 42 years.

Yeah that quote stood out.

The Spurs did a great job (For the most part) keeping their core competitive from beginning to end. You never know, a Kawhi might fall into your lap. It did for the dynasty 80s Celtics, getting young stars who could carry the torch, but they had back-to-back tragedies (Bias and Lewis). There was this fallacy that you can't get all-stars without tanking, and it's been strongly debunked. You keep the stars you have and try your best to add.

Imagine if LAL did cave to Kobe's trade demand? Erase two chips off the books and that Lakers title run would seem as distant as the Bulls'.

The Bulls very likely would've gotten chip #7 in the lockout season. They'd easily be favorites. I don't see rookie Duncan taking them out like the Knicks.

Meanwhile, you probably could've made an infinitely better FA pitch to McGrady or Grant Hill, with Pippen, Jordan and Phil still in their older age, as opposed to building around Brand and Floyd. Not sure how the cap would work but you had the flexibility to figure something out with the 1-year deals they were doing at that point.

[ThreeMileAllan]

Crap. I didn't think about signing or attracting Tmac to an older 98 Bulls core in the summer of 2000.

Can you **** imagine?

Tmac
Jordan
Pippen
Kukoc

No need for a pg with those playmakers.


Damn... fill in the C position with whoever ugh

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[jc23]

Quite a few blatant and low key Bulls/Jordan smear threads popping up on the general board the last week. its cute.

[jc23]

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[MrSparkle]

Crap. I didn't think about signing or attracting Tmac to an older 98 Bulls core in the summer of 2000.

Can you **** imagine?

Tmac
Jordan
Pippen
Kukoc

No need for a pg with those playmakers.


Damn... fill in the C position with whoever ugh

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Yeah. I dunno why the thought of "having your cake and eating it" never occurred to Krause/Reinsdorf. I guess the 92-98 drafts were straight runs of HOF talent, so it looked like it'd be raining Garnetts and Kobes. Part of it was unfortunate timing: 99-02 were miserable in comparison, with a few exceptions.

I know we all personally hated the Lebron-Heat and Durant-Warriors... But can you blame them at all for guaranteeing perennial finals appearances?

[dice]

My wife of 39 years has never much cared for sports and NBA basketball is at the bottom of her list (she has many other redeeming qualities). She shocked me yesterday when she said she wants to watch The Last Dance doc with me. My first take was "Way cool!"
My second was that this thing is going to be HUGE!

were the '90s a particularly good time in your lives?

You could be on to something there. Our 3 kids were born in the '80s. She spent the '90s as a stay-at-home mom. The kids started leaving the nest in the '00s.

were any of your kids big bulls fans?

[Mech Engineer]

This documentary couldn't have happened at a better time. The whole sports world is going to watch especially the younger generation of NBA fans/players. This is a marketing gift to the Bulls organization. There is absolutely nothing else to watch which would have not happened during regular times.

With a new management in place, it is going to be a great refresher or eye-opener for many NBA players. Think about guys like Luka or Zion. All they have seen is Lebron dominating. Hope some young, future star free agent starts to look at the Bulls differently.

[dice]

Read on Twitter

This quote from Jordan was sadly prescient:

We're entitled to defend what we have until we lose it. If we lose it then you look at it, and you say ok let's change. Rebuilding? No one is guaranteed rebuilding is going to be 3 or 4 or 5 years. Cubs have rebuilding for 42 years.

We're now more than half way through Jordan's 42 years.

Yeah that quote stood out.

The Spurs did a great job (For the most part) keeping their core competitive from beginning to end. You never know, a Kawhi might fall into your lap. It did for the dynasty 80s Celtics, getting young stars who could carry the torch, but they had back-to-back tragedies (Bias and Lewis). There was this fallacy that you can't get all-stars without tanking, and it's been strongly debunked. You keep the stars you have and try your best to add.

Imagine if LAL did cave to Kobe's trade demand? Erase two chips off the books and that Lakers title run would seem as distant as the Bulls'.

it's interesting that when kobe requested a trade he was a year older (with a LOT more mileage on him) than when we traded butler. and i would argue that kobe wasn't much better than jimmy

The Bulls very likely would've gotten chip #7 in the lockout season. They'd easily be favorites. I don't see rookie Duncan taking them out like the Knicks.

they easily would've been favorites BUT they would've likely been less than 50/50 to repeat heading into the season (they were less than 50/50 heading into '97-'98!). given the way the season played out, however, i'd agree that they likely would have won #7. not VERY likely, but likely. the knicks might not have even made the playoffs, interestingly enough

Meanwhile, you probably could've made an infinitely better FA pitch to McGrady or Grant Hill, with Pippen, Jordan and Phil still in their older age, as opposed to building around Brand and Floyd. Not sure how the cap would work but you had the flexibility to figure something out with the 1-year deals they were doing at that point.

i'd be amazed if that was legal and there wasn't some sort of cap hold on previous year's salaries. and i don't think MJ would've taken a drastic salary reduction to make it happen

[dice]

doesn't exactly fit this thread, but here's some pretty fascinating stuff about the 1984 draft...

https://historyrat.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/the-1984-nba-draft-drafting-jordan-not-a-done-deal/

summary:

-3 years earlier, pacers had traded what would become the #2 pick in the '84 draft to the blazers for an 11/6 guy near the end of his career. pacers already had a starting center on their roster, as they had taken steve stipanovich #2 in '83, so there's a good chance they would have taken jordan at #2 in '84 had they not traded the pick

-ewing would have been taken after olajuwon had he entered the draft

-at the time, the teams w/ the worst records in the east and west had a coin toss to determine who got the #1 pick (bulls had lost a coin toss w/ the lakers for magic johnson). had the blazers (via pacers) won the coin toss, houston would have taken jordan #2 to pair w/ sampson. some bozo writing for the tribune thought the BULLS lost out when houston got the #1 pick because it meant the bulls did not get to trade bowie for jack sikma

-bulls considered trading #3 for terry cummings or tree rollins

-portland offered the rockets the possibility of drafting both olajuwan AND jordan AS WELL AS acquiring drexler in exchange for ralph sampson. but houston preferred the twin towers combo of olajuwon/sampson

-bowie lied during his physical to get the blazers to draft him. but the blazers might have been more interested in barkley than jordan anyway (because they had already had drexler at SG, presumably)

[jc23]

mood.

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[Susan]

Just got my coffee (Jumping Bean on 18th Street, let's get it baby) and saw another guy wearing a Bulls hat walking in. I was wearing my Bulls warmup jacket from the 90s.

[jc23]

Cant wait for people under 30 to see the MJ "death stare" in action, use to scare me as a kid lol.