The Last Dance: Biggest revelations about the Michael Jordan Bulls

The Last Dance, ESPN’s 10-part docuseries on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, offers an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at history. We’re tracking the biggest revelations from each episode.

With thousands of hours of previously unseen footage from the 1997-98 NBA season and 100s of original interviews, The Last Dance will let us see the Michael Jordan Bulls’ in ways we’ve never seen them before. The story will be unfolding in unparalleled detail over the next five Sundays and we’ll be tracking the biggest revelations from each episode here.

Episode 1

Jerry Krause and Michael Jordan were many things at once.

If you lived through the late 1990s and the end of Michael Jordan Bulls, you probably understood Jerry Krause to be the eroding agent that undid the whole thing. It was fairly clear at the time and hearing anecdotes in this first episode certainly didn’t change much. For example, Krause telling Phil Jackson, “I don’t care if you win 82 games in a row, this is going to be your last year here.”

You can’t hear that and think that the relationship between Krause, Phil and the players was about anything other than power. But then you hear Jordan openly mocking Krause’s height in front of media and teammates. Over and over again. You hear others, like Jerry Reinsdorf, extolling Krause’s caring personality.

Krause may have been an underqualified general manager and generally good person who let his own ego and hurt feelings get in the way of an ongoing dynasty. And Michael Jordan may have been an exceptional player with a mean streak who also let his ego and hurt feelings get in the way of an ongoing dynasty.

The Bulls were “a traveling cocaine circus.”

Episode 1 took a quick walk through the beginning of Jordan’s career professional career and, oh boy, were there some stories. Apparently, Jordan’s drink of choice was orange juice and 7-Up, but he had a good, deep and knowing laugh when the interviewer read an article from that era calling the Bulls a “traveling cocaine circus.” Jordan told a very vague story about a team party in Peoria that included, “things I’d never seen as a kid,” and, “lines over here, weed smokers over here, some women over here.” Maybe the rest is in the deleted scenes?

Episode 2

These Bulls really were a circus.

Episode 2 started with Scottie Pippen answering questions about a Jerry Krause statement that they weren’t ruling out a trade for him. Can you imagine Klay Thompson, after winning a second title in three years with the Warriors, having to answer questions about Bob Myers hinting that they might trade him? Even the will-he-or-won’t-he with they went through in their final season with Kevin Durant seems docile compared to this.

In the current era, where the news cycle can be dominated for weeks, months even, by the idea of a star being traded, realistic or not, it seems absurd to imagine a dynastic team being so embroiled with instability. And if you’re still not sure just how far off Scottie Pippen’s contract situation was…

Michael Jordan was shaped at home

The origin story of Jordan leans heavily on him not making the varsity basketball team as a sophomore, a summer spent turning disrespect into excellence. Episode 2 dialed things back a few years and laid out the sibling rivalry that helped shape Jordan’s personality before that infamous tryout.

“My determination got to be as good, if not greater than my brother.”

Jordan talked about coming to blows with his brother Larry growing up, and it was clear how that competitiveness within the family helped forge what he would become. His journey is all about reacting to external stimuli with endless will. It’s just hinted at, but that will became what it was long before he arrived at UNC or in Chicago.

Jordan’s problems with Krause started at the very beginning.

One of the key arcs in Episode 2 was the broken bone in his foot Jordan suffered during his second season, and his subsequent rehab and return. When he was finally able to make his way back onto the court, Krause and the front office dictated a 14-minute cap per game. Ostensibly it was to keep Jordan for exacerbating the injury and potentially ending his career. The unspoken implication was that keeping him off the court suppressed the Bulls’ record and almost kept them out of the playoffs and in the draft lottery.

A fairly large segment focused one of the Bulls’ final games of the season, a win over the Pacers that helped secure their playoff berth. The Bulls had the ball and a chance to win on the final possession. Coach Stan Albeck, supposedly under threat from management, kept Jordan on the bench during the final possession because he was over his minutes limit. The Bulls won, thanks to some heroics from John Paxson, but the way the documentary presents it — that organizational decision to prioritize the future over winning at every opportunity was the match the lit the Jordan-Krause fire.

(The Bulls made the playoffs, played the Celtics in the first-round and Jordan dropped 63 points in Game 2.)

Episode 3

“Hate carries to this day”

I guess this one isn’t much of a surprise but in an episode heavily built around the rivalry with the Pistons it was striking to hear Jordan say that he legitimately hated them. And that hatred hadn’t seemed to fade much over the years. The Pistons were famous for their “Jordan Rules”, a mandate to do anything — pushing, slamming, bodying, pounding, etc. — to keep Jordan from getting in the air. It led to some brutal fouls and a game that often only tangentially resembled basketball. John Salley actually laid it all out, “are you willing to be injured to score a basket?”

It was ugly basketball and it’s left some ugly feelings.

Dennis Rodman dyed his hair because of Demolition Man

In the second half of his career, Rodman was as known for his brightly colored and ever-changing hair as he was for his work on the glass. Late in episode 3, it’s revealed that his very first dye-job was inspired by Wesley Snipes’ blonde do in Demolition Man. If that factoid doesn’t make you nostalgic for the golden era of terrible action movies, I don’t know what to tell you.

Episode 4

Jordan had to go to Vegas to bring Rodman back

The story started in episode 3 and carried over, but it’s a doozy. In the middle of the season, Rodman said he needed a vacation and understanding that they needed to give him some rope to get the most out of him on the court, Jackson and Jordan agreed. When he didn’t come back on time, Jordan had to actually go to Vegas and bring him back. Jordan wouldn’t offer details on where he was or in what condition but Carmen Electra, Rodman’s girlfriend at the time, said she was hiding under the covers on the floor as soon as she heard Jordan was at the door.

Phil Jackson’s coaching career got off to a wild start

Jackson’s coaching career started in Puerto Rico, and it was…a little different.

Not shaking hands was Bill Laimbeer’s idea

It’s an infamous part of the Pistons-Bulls legend, after being finally overcome by Jordan the Pistons left the floor without shaking hands. In Isiah Thomas’ retelling, it was Laimbeer’s idea and there was video of what seemed to be him spreading the idea in the final moments. Thomas had a very noble explanation and perception of the whole incident, about tradition and warrior mindsets but when the filmmakers took it back to Jordan he pretty much spoke for all of us:

“You can show me anything you want, there’s no way you can convince me he wasn’t an a**hole.”

Episode 5

Michael Jordan was almost an Adidas guy

Jordan and Nike are synonymous, the biggest star in the sports world with the biggest shoe company in the world. But in episode 5, it was revealed the Jordan had other ideas. In his interview, he said that Adidas was the company he liked the best (he was Marques Johnson guy apparently?) but that Adidas was struggling and they told him they couldn’t handle creating a signature shoe. Jordan’s agent, David Falk, coaxed him into negotiating a deal with Nike, then an upstart. Falk said that Nike hoped to sell $3 million worth of Air Jordans by the end of the fourth year of their contract with him. By the end of the first season, they’d sold $126 million. The rest is history.

That Dream Team scrimmage was just as hot as the legend

For years, we’ve heard talk about the mythic Dream Team scrimmage in Monte Carlo. Jordan had previously said it was: “Greatest game I’ve ever played in. All the beautiful things about the game of basketball were illustrated in that one particular game. If you culminate everybody in the Hall of Fame and every game they played in, and you envision a game being played, that’s how that game was played.”

For the first team, we actually got to see some extended video from the legendary scrimmage, including Jordan hitting 3s, dropping in ridiculous reverse layups and Magic Johnson chucking the ball into the top row of the bleachers after a controversial call. We’d still like to see the whole thing, uninterrupted, but it’s nice to nothing about this was exaggerated.

Episode 6

Horace Grant was the anonymous source? Maybe?

Episode 6 touched on the final season of the Bulls’ first three-peat, and the explosive release of Sam Smith’s book The Jordan Rules. As the height of his fame, the book showed a different side of Jordan, with anecdotes of his vicious intensity behind the scenes, things like him reportedly punching Will Perdue in practice.

Jerry Krause reportedly called Jackson into his hotel room and went through more than 20 stories in the book trying to suss out who could have leaked them. Both Will Perdue and Jordan pointed to Horace as the source of a lot of the stories in Smith’s book. B.J. Armstrong said there had to be more people talking and Grant outright denied ever sharing stories with Smith. Who’s telling the truth here?

Episode 7

Jordan really might have played in the majors

“In my opinion, with 1500 at-bats, he would have found a way to get to the major leagues.”

Those are the words of Terry Francona, Jordan’s manager in AA ball with the Birmingham Barons. Francona, of course, went on to manage the Phillies, Red Sox and Indians, winning two World Series titles and another AL pennant. Suffice it to say, his baseball opinions carry some weight and he thought that Jordan had a shot.

Jordan, somewhat infamously, hit just .202 in his one season trying out baseball and, at the time, the media mostly treated it like a joke. A rich person leveraging his riches and fame to act out an absurd childhood fantasy. But, again, Jordan hadn’t played baseball in nearly 20 years and, at age 31, he went out and played reasonably productive ball in AA. If the MLB strike hadn’t thrown things off, he might have been able to stick with it and we might have seen an entirely different second-act to Jordan’s athletic career.

Episode 8

The Space Jam scrimmages might have been better than the Dream Team scrimmages

Episode 8 covered Jordan’s first return from retirement and the aftermath of their playoff loss to the Orlando Magic in 1995. He spent that summer filming Space Jam and, as the episode detailed, the pick-up games at Warner Brothers’ studios were a key part of his training regimen. Apparently, an invite to these pick-ups games was the biggest award of the summer and players flew in from all over. Footage showed Juwan Howard, Reggie Miller, Bo Outlaw, Dennis Rodman, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing and more. And, again, he was getting work in while actually getting work in.

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