5 best quotes from Episodes 5 and 6 of ‘The Last Dance’

As “The Last Dance” continues through Michael Jordan’s second and third championships with the Chicago Bulls, here are the five best quotes from Episodes 5-6.

Although The Last Dance isn’t providing us with a ton of earth-shattering new information, the beauty of this 10-part docuseries on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls is allowing the GOAT, his teammates, his opponents and the media that covered him to recount all these stories in their own words.

With so many differing personalities, perspectives and zingers to be found, The Last Dance is breathing new life into older tales, painting the picture for a younger generation that wasn’t around at the time and even for the people who were regularly tuning in to ’90s NBA basketball, back when social media didn’t exist.

We’ve already covered the summary and reactions for this week, as well as five new things we learned, so just like we did for Episodes 1-2 and 3-4, it’s time for the five best quotes from Episodes 5-6.

“I truly hate having discussions about who would win one-on-one. You heard fans saying, ‘Hey Kobe, you’d beat Michael one-on-one’ and I feel like, yo, what you get from me is from him. I don’t get five championships here without him. ‘Cause he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice.” — Kobe Bryant (Episode 5)

Dedicated to Kobe Bryant, Episode 5 begins with Michael Jordan’s final All-Star Game for the Bulls in 1998, which just so happened to be Kobe’s first All-Star appearance. Bryant took on the challenge of guarding the man he modeled his game after, and although Jordan won MVP honors that night, a mutual level of respect grew from then on.

“It was a rough couple years for me coming into the league, ’cause at the time the league was so much older, it’s not as young as it is today,” Bryant explained. “So nobody was really thinking much of me, I was a kid that shot a bunch of air balls, you know what I mean? And at that point, Michael provided a lot of guidance for me.”

Kobe describes how Jordan told the young Mamba to give him a call if he ever needed anything, referring to him as his “big brother.” If the impact Jordan had on Kobe wasn’t clear from the way he played the game or from MJ’s emotional speech at Bryant’s memorial service in February, this quote sums it up perfectly.

“If you wanna attribute it to me, go ahead, be my guest. But it wasn’t me.” — Michael Jordan on Isiah Thomas not being on the Dream Team (Episode 5)

It’s long been rumored that Jordan’s icy relationship with Isiah Thomas is the reason the Detroit Pistons star wasn’t included on the Dream Team roster for the 1992 Summer Olympics.

“I don’t know what went into that process,” a still hurt Thomas said. “I met the criteria to be selected, but I wasn’t.”

However, Jordan claims he simply asked if Thomas would be on the roster, denying that he explicitly excluded him or threatened not to play if Thomas made the cut.

“I respect Isiah Thomas’ talent,” Jordan said. “To me, the best point guard of all time is Magic Johnson, and right behind him is Isiah Thomas. No matter how much I hate him, I respect his game. Now it was insinuated that I was asking about him, but I never threw his name in there.”

Jordan also claimed he wasn’t the only player who had problems with Thomas, citing the Bad Boys’ past on-court feuds with Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird and even Magic Johnson as other potential threats to the team chemistry if Thomas had been selected. Whether Jordan is telling the truth or not, it appears he’s taking the Shaggy approach.

“Jerry [Krause] paved the way for a lot of hell for Toni Kukoc.” — Scottie Pippen (Episode 5)

Were MJ and Scottie Pippen dicks to Toni Kukoc? Absolutely. But in their minds, the animosity they showed him on the court at the ’92 Summer Olympics was aimed not at the young Croatian star, but Bulls general manager Jerry Krause.

Krause had selected Kukoc in the 1990 NBA Draft, and though Kukoc hadn’t come stateside to join the Bulls yet, the GM had declared he was “the future of the Chicago Bulls” … while the Bulls were winning championships. Chicago’s two stars took offense to that and made it their mission to smother Kukoc the first time they played against him.

“Not only was it just me and Michael, but every guy on that Olympic team looked at that kid and felt like he may not even think about coming to the NBA after he played against us,” Pippen said. “It wasn’t anything personally about Toni, but we were gonna do everything that we could to make Jerry look bad.”

“They didn’t know me,” an exasperated Kukoc said. “I don’t see a reason why they would try to take it out on me, they don’t know me at all. That’s the first time we meet!”

While Kukoc redeemed himself with a better performance in the gold medal game to prove he wasn’t soft, these Olympic matchups watered the seeds for how difficult Jordan and Pippen would make life for Kukoc on the Bulls. According to them, it was Krause who planted those seeds in the first place.

“I wouldn’t want to be like Mike. It’s an impossible task.” — Tim Hallam (Episode 6)

This comes from the Bulls’ director of PR, and he brings up an interesting point: Between the constant crowds, sky-high expectations, worldwide renown, jam-packed schedule, nonstop media coverage and public scrutiny every time he did something that wasn’t exactly what everyone wanted from him, being “like Mike” was a gargantuan proposition.

“I think what people don’t realize is that from the moment Michael Jordan leaves his hotel room, the spotlight is on him,” Hallam said.

This is certainly on display in Episode 6, which hones in on the gambling controversy that exploded during the 1992-93 season. This, of course, came after Jordan was criticized for not publicly supporting Democrat Harvey Gantt, an African-American, in his race for the senate against Jesse Helms, a deplorable Republican candidate.

“Any African-American in this society that sees significant success has an added burden, and a lot of times, America is very quick to embrace a Michael Jordan or an Oprah Winfrey or a Barack Obama so long as it’s understood that you don’t get too controversial around broader issues of social justice,” former president Barack Obama said.

Jordan has been criticized — especially in hindsight, given how vocal today’s NBA stars are on social issues — for not taking stronger stances on political and social issues.

“I do commend Muhammad Ali for standing up for what he believed in, but I never thought of myself as an activist,” Jordan explained. “I thought of myself as a basketball player. I wasn’t a politician when I was playing my sport, I was focused on my craft. Was that selfish? Probably, but that was where my energy was.”

While prominent sports figures like Ali, Bill Russell and LeBron James deserve a ton of credit for using their platforms to speak out about important issues, none of them came saddled with the same kind of worldwide expectations to be nothing short of perfect.

“It’s never gonna be enough for everybody, I know that, I realize that,” Jordan said. “‘Cause everybody has a preconceived idea in terms of what they think I should do and what I shouldn’t do. The way I go about my life is I set examples. And if it inspires you, great. I will continue to do that. If it doesn’t, then maybe I’m not the person that you should be following.”

“Losing to Michael, there’s no shame in that. Sports are like a gunfight, and we lost to the fastest gun.” — Charles Barkley (Episode 6)

Going into the 1993 NBA Finals, the Bulls were facing league MVP Charles Barkley and a 62-win Phoenix Suns team. Yet as he often did in these make-or-break matchups, Jordan found extra fuel to drive him to victory.

“I was a little bit upset that I didn’t get the MVP that year and they gave it to Charles, but with that I said, ‘Okay fine, you can have that. I’mma get this,'” Jordan said.

After losing Game 1 at home because they were nervous, Barkley and the Suns came out swinging the next game. Unfortunately, they still lost.

“We lost Game 1 because we were so nervous,” Barkley recalled. “But in Game 2, I played as well as I could play…and Michael just outplayed me. That was probably the first time in my life that I felt there was a better basketball player in the world than me, to be honest with you.”

Just like Jordan perceived a threat in Clyde Drexler in the 1992 NBA Finals and made it his mission to destroy him, so too did he squash another head-to-head comparison on basketball’s grandest stage against Chuck.

As Barkley says here, there’s no shame in falling short against the GOAT … and he’s certainly not the only NBA star from that era who walked away empty-handed because of Air Jordan.