The organizational fatigue evoked by the Bulls’ second three-peat has been a consistent theme throughout “The Last Dance.”
But — for Michael Jordan, at least — the first trio of titles came with its own share of adversity, which contributed to Jordan temporarily retiring from basketball to pursue a career in baseball.
Episode 6 of “The Last Dance” delve into that adversity, from the perils of iconic levels of fame, to substantial gambling controversies, to the physical toll that three straight trips to the Finals from 1991-1993 took on the Bulls, as a team. Their third and final chip of the early 1990s, over the Phoenix Suns in 1993, was the most arduous of that stretch — especially for Jordan, and for reasons of the on- and off-court variety.
In the run-up to the '93 Finals, those aforementioned gambling controversies abounded. First, there was Jordan's fateful trip to Atlantic City the night before Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Knicks. Then, the release of the book "Michael and Me" — during that same series — in which San Diego sports executive Richard Esquinas alleged Jordan to owe him roughly $1.2 million in golf-related gambling debts. Essential context: Months earlier, Jordan had been forced to testify in the trial of Slim Bouler, who was indicted on drug and money laundering charges, and who Jordan was connected to through gambling debts.
Needless to say, enough instances of suspect gambling-related activity were piling up that Jordan began to have to answer for it in the media. In the documentary, answering those questions is described as a tedious and cumbersome task for Jordan. He added to that perception with comments downplaying the severity of his exploits.
"My father said, ‘Let’s get away from New York City. Let’s you and I go to Atlantic City,'" Jordan said in a present-day interview of the Atlantic City trip. "We got a limo. We went and gambled for a couple hours. We came back. Everybody went totally ballistic: ‘Hey, he was in a casino last night.’ It wasn’t late. Got home about 12:30, 1 o'clock.”
And of Esquinas, also in a present-day interview: "We met from a third party. I’m actually playing golf with people all the time now. If they want to gamble, we gamble. The character of those individuals, I find out later what kind of people I was playing with. I learned that lesson. But the act of gambling? I didn’t do anything wrong. I never bet on (NBA) games. I only bet on myself. That was golf. Do I like to play blackjack? Yeah, I like playing blackjack. There’s no laws with that. The league did call me, and they asked questions about it. And I told them exactly what was happening."
From Jordan's perspective, there was no gambling problem to speak of — merely a "competition problem," in his words. Still, the NBA made many checks into Jordan's extracirricular activities at the time because of apprehension related to the people he was associating himself with and potential ramifications that could come the league's way, both moral and legal.
So, the sheen on Jordan, the pristine public image he had built over the first half of his career, was rapidly eroding. Even if it wasn't affecting his on-court performance or finances, that fact appeared to gnaw at him. He was no longer a "superhero."
His response was to enact a media boycott during the 1993 postseason, broken only to defend himself against further accusations of a gambling problem to trusted confidant Ahmad Rashad.
And all of that's before even bringing the discussion to basketball. The documentary is quick to note that, as controversy and pressing questions circled Jordan, the Bulls rallied in epic fashion in the aforementioned Eastern Conference finals. After dropping the first two games of the Knicks series, the Bulls seized four in a row to advance to the Finals, and a date with the Suns.
In that ultimate series, Jordan drew on resentment towards general manager Jerry Krause and Suns forward Charles Barkley’s hubris as motivation.
“I knew Jerry Krause loved Dan Majerle. And just because Jerry liked him was enough for me,” Jordan said in a present-day interview. “You think he’s a great defensive player? OK, fine. I’m going to show that he’s not.”
“Michael just outplayed me,” Barkley said. “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.”
Jordan averaged 41 points (still an NBA Finals record), 8.5 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 1.7 steals (and 45.7 minutes!) in the six-game bout. Ho-hum.
But don't be deceived: This series was won in tooth-and-nail fashion. After grabbing the first two games in Phoenix, the Bulls dropped two of three in Chicago, including one in Game 5 that dampened the mood of many in the city who had boarded their windows in anticipation of a post-championship celebration. Their punishment was Games 6 and 7 in Phoenix with a 3-2 series lead — and a legendary sound bite from Barkley (“Take that s**t [the boards] off the windows. You don’t need it tonight”).
Jordan famously packed only one suit for the flight to Phoenix for Game 6. And, famously, that's all he needed. John Paxson stroked the series-sealing jumper late in the fourth quarter of a 99-98 win.
Still, a deep-set fatigue derived from all the above factors had fully engulfed Jordan, a point he admits in the documentary.
“Physically, I was getting exhausted. Mentally, I was way past exhausted,” Jordan said. “When you try to do something competitive, and lose some of the hunger and some of the edge… (trails off)”
“He was tired,” Paxson added.
It all serves to foreshadow a dive into Jordan’s first retirement, and the myths and conspiracies associated with it. That much was promised for Episodes 7 and 8 by director Jason Hehir in an interview with Rich Eisen after Episodes 3 and 4.
Jordan's final lines of Episode 6, in which he details his perspective on retirement ("I want to walk off the floor") and admits to feeling like the game is "stacked against" him foreshadow that storyline, as well.
Now, we wait.
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