The Last Dance

Pretty much inhaled the Michael Jordan docuseries The Last Dance on Netflix. As I was a mere lad during the Chicago Bulls’ extended championship run in the ‘90s, the series really added color and context to the on- and off-court happenings I wouldn’t have understood at the time.

Though a Wisconsinite, I didn’t feel any loyalty to the Milwaukee Bucks back then as they were bad and Jordan’s Bulls were so much more entertaining. (The opposite was true in football—Go Pack Go.) My only personal brush with the Bulls dynasty was briefly seeing Tony Kukoc outside of FAO Schwarz in downtown Chicago when visiting with family friends.

The whole Michael Jordan phenomenon can really be summed up in one GIF, and it doesn’t even include Jordan:

That’s Larry Bird, another NBA legend and Hall of Famer, as coach of the Indiana Pacers after retiring as a player. The Pacers are playing the Bulls in Game 4 of the 1998 semifinals and Reggie Miller just nailed a shot over Jordan to put the Pacers up by 2 with 0.7 seconds left. But as you can see, while the rest of the stadium erupts with elation, the only thing on Bird’s mind is: That’s too much time for MJ.

That the Bulls lost that game after Jordan barely missed his subsequent 3-point shot is beside the point. Bird’s respect for Jordan as a fellow legendary clutch performer indicates just how dominant he was, even in his later years.

The Last Dance does a great job navigating several stories at once. The through-line is the 1998 season, which was captured in behind-the-scenes video detail thanks to deep access granted to a camera crew. Each episode interweaves that arc with Jordan’s life and career taken chronologically through interviews with him and other players, coaches, and figures that were instrumental along the way.

One of the funny motifs throughout the series is how many times they make note of another player or coach talking trash about the notoriously vindictive and competitive Jordan, either directly or in the press, and then modern-day Jordan is like, “That’s all I needed,” and then we see vintage Jordan annihilate them in the next game.

Despite having many more personal memories watching and admiring LeBron James’s ascent to NBA Mount Rushmore status, this series reaffirms to me that Jordan is still #1. Different stats, different styles, different eras, etc., but that’s where I’m at now.