5 things we learned from Episodes 1 and 2 of ‘The Last Dance’

2. The bitterness the Bulls had for Jerry Krause

Disclaimer for the younger generation that doesn’t know much about Jordan, the Bulls or GM Jerry Krause: Krause died in 2017 at the age of 77, which is what made it especially cringeworthy when various pockets of social media joined in on dunking on him during these first two episodes.

With that being said, there’s no question the disdain Bulls players had for Krause was a part of the story that needed to be told. It was a key aspect of the turmoil leading up to the 1997-98 season, and a well-documented one.

Still, it was pretty jarring to see how antagonistic and downright petty that relationship was, especially between MJ and the GM.

“So those are the pills you take to keep you short,” Jordan brutally quips at one point. “Or are those diet pills?”

Later on, he asks the stout GM: “Jerry, you want to do some layups with us? They gotta lower the rim.”

To be fair, Krause brought a lot of it on himself. His “organizations win titles, not players” quote may have been a slight misquote, but the original wasn’t much different, and either way, it rubbed the team’s star player the wrong way and was not handled well in the aftermath.

His hostile relationship with head coach Phil Jackson, the only coach Jordan wanted to play for, didn’t help matters. According to Jackson, he told the coach before the season began: “I don’t care if you win 82 games in a row, this is going to be your last year here.” He also started fishing with another coach from Iowa State, Tim Floyd — someone he invited to his step-daughter’s wedding, along with the rest of the Bulls, but not Jackson.

There had already been talk about breaking the Bulls up after the 1997 NBA Finals, and all that commotion — combined with Pippen’s contract situation and Jordan’s not-so-subtle glance to Krause’s office when asked what the biggest challenge would be that season — led to Chicago fans booing the GM when he was introduced at the Bulls’ ring ceremony to start the 1997-98 campaign.

However, did he deserve all the scorn he received, especially in some of those brutal clips? Certainly not.

“Jerry Krause was one of the nicest, kindest, sweetest men I’ve ever known,” Reinsdorf said, defending his GM. “But sometimes he would love people who really didn’t love him back and it would disappoint him.”

Krause was also pretty successful at his job. None of it would’ve happened without Michael Jordan, but Krause assembled a team around him year after year that could contend for titles, and the Bulls won six rings in eight years under his watch.

It was a complicated and often ugly relationship, and Episodes 1 and 2 provided an unflinching look at that uncomfortable dynamic that wound up unifying the Bulls as much as anything.