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Lucas: Last Dance Rapid Reactions
April 20, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Quick takeaways from episodes one and two of ESPN's new Michael Jordan documentary.
By Adam Lucas
1. There are really two different ways to experience and react to this documentary: one if you lived through it and it's nostalgic, and one if you're hearing some of these stories and facts for the first time.
2. From a Carolina perspective, the segment that will get the most attention came midway through the first episode. That was an incredible, Carolina blue-themed, nationally televised reminder that Michael Jordan is the only individual in sports history who earned a ten-part documentary on ESPN. And that individual attended the University of North Carolina, where one of his coaches was the current Tar Heel head coach.
3. A little surprising that although there are shots of him wearing his Carolina shorts, there was no mention (yet) of the fact that Jordan always wore his Tar Heel shorts underneath his Bulls uniform.
4. Roy Williams' quote about Jordan "never freaking turning it off" is one virtually every Tar Heel who has played for Williams in the last 17 seasons has heard at practice at some point in their careers. The national reaction to the quote is a nice reminder of how lucky we are to get insight like that from Williams on a daily basis--and how much you'll miss it, even if you don't realize it yet, when Williams' career is over (which hopefully is a long time from now).
5. By the way, how good was the coaching staff during Jordan's playing career at Carolina? The head coach was Hall of Famer Dean Smith. Bill Guthridge, an eventual National Coach of the Year, was an assistant coach, where he was joined by fellow eventual National Coach of the Year winner Eddie Fogler. And the last assistant, the guy delivering the calendars, was eventual Hall of Famer Roy Williams.
6. The Carolina-themed scene included Jordan's famous rock the cradle dunk at Maryland. At the time he did that dunk, Jordan indicated he first got the idea for that particular move from Al Wood. Jordan and Wood faced off regularly in the legendary summer Chapel Hill pickup games. Lost to history is the fact that the end-of-game dunk was created when Sam Perkins blocked a shot by Len Bias, which led to the Jordan run-out. Think about those names--Atlantic Coast Conference basketball was very strong in the mid-1980s.
7. Just a reminder that during the time period covered by the documentary, when Jordan was the biggest star in the world, it wasn't completely uncommon to find him in Chapel Hill during the summer. Especially during the late 1980s, he was still a regular at Carolina summer pickup games, and there are Tar Heel undergrads from well into the 1990s who can tell you stories about Jordan randomly popping up on Franklin Street. Jordan also owned a Franklin Street restaurant from 1999-2002. As you saw in the segment covering the Bulls' trip to Paris, Chapel Hill retained longer than almost anywhere in the world the opportunity for Jordan to enjoy a tiny slice of normalcy.
8. Jordan's desire to prove doubters wrong was a theme of the first two episodes. That character trait appeared very early. Jordan scored 12 points in his first college game, a Charlotte Coliseum tilt with Kansas. After the game, the young freshman was already trying to make his point. "I don't think Kansas respected my shooting ability," he said after the game. "They thought I couldn't shoot."
9. Notice who you didn't see in the scene showing Carolina's triumphant return to Kenan Stadium the day after the 1982 championship game: Dean Smith. The Tar Heel head coach did not attend the celebration, saying he wanted the focus to be on the players. Most of the national attention surrounding the game had gone not to Jordan, but to Smith's first national title. Instead of getting more of the spotlight, Smith drove home and went for a walk in the neighborhood while thousands cheered his team across town. There is only one Dean Smith.
10. The sports world has changed significantly since 1997. It probably seems like fiction to today's fans that in a battle between players and management, players would ultimately lose. That's what happened to the Bulls. As constructed, that team was still competitive. But Jerry Krause decided he was ready to rebuild, and that's what happened. It would never, ever happen that way today.
11. There was some discussion of Scottie Pippen's contract situation and the fact that Pippen was underpaid by the Bulls. But in Chicago's first championship year, 1991, Pippen made $2.7 million while Jordan made $3.2 million. The next season, Pippen made $3.4 million and Jordan made "just" $4 million. There's an argument to be made that Jordan was the most underpaid player in the history of American sports until his final two seasons, when he took advantage of an NBA contract loophole and made over $30 million each for the 1997 and 1998 seasons.
12. The only quote that's gotten as much traction as Williams' Jordan comment was Larry Bird's statement about Jordan being "God disguised as Michael Jordan." But that isn't just something Bird thought up in the 30 years since that 1986 playoff game. He said it immediately after the game to the Boston Globe.
13. Bird's Celtics teammate, Rick Carlisle, got some unwanted attention for being dominated one-on-one by Jordan in the playoffs. Carlisle, the current coach of the Dallas Mavericks, should have been well aware of Jordan's talents. It was Carlisle--then a Virginia Cavaliers guard--from whom Jordan stole the ball at Carmichael Auditorium in 1983 to cap a 16-point comeback in the final nine minutes for the top-ranked Tar Heels over the Cavs.
14. An unquestioned winner in the first two episodes: Deloris Jordan. Those fortunate enough to meet her will tell you she is exactly how she was portrayed: the epitome of a classy, strong, Southern lady who always had the best interests of her son at heart.
15. Jordan didn't start every game at Carolina. When the Tar Heels traveled to New York City during Jordan's junior season for the ECAC Holiday Classic, the Wilmington native was caught in traffic while on a shopping trip. He was 90 seconds late to a team meeting, and therefore came off the bench 90 seconds into the game against St. John's. "He was six blocks away from the hotel and thought it would take two minutes by cab. He should have asked Sam (Perkins) and Matt (Doherty) how long it would take to get six blocks in rush hour traffic," Dean Smith said, referencing two of Carolina's New York natives. "Then he would have been on time." Carolina won the game, 64-51, with Sam Perkins scoring 31 points.
16. The video footage of Jordan riding his bike through campus is incredible. Here's the biggest superstar in the history of sports, and he's just casually bicycling past the Old Well. There's just something about being a Tar Heel.
17. Need more? How about these highlights of Jordan as a Tar Heel, narrated by Woody Durham and Dean Smith:
1. There are really two different ways to experience and react to this documentary: one if you lived through it and it's nostalgic, and one if you're hearing some of these stories and facts for the first time.
2. From a Carolina perspective, the segment that will get the most attention came midway through the first episode. That was an incredible, Carolina blue-themed, nationally televised reminder that Michael Jordan is the only individual in sports history who earned a ten-part documentary on ESPN. And that individual attended the University of North Carolina, where one of his coaches was the current Tar Heel head coach.
3. A little surprising that although there are shots of him wearing his Carolina shorts, there was no mention (yet) of the fact that Jordan always wore his Tar Heel shorts underneath his Bulls uniform.
4. Roy Williams' quote about Jordan "never freaking turning it off" is one virtually every Tar Heel who has played for Williams in the last 17 seasons has heard at practice at some point in their careers. The national reaction to the quote is a nice reminder of how lucky we are to get insight like that from Williams on a daily basis--and how much you'll miss it, even if you don't realize it yet, when Williams' career is over (which hopefully is a long time from now).
5. By the way, how good was the coaching staff during Jordan's playing career at Carolina? The head coach was Hall of Famer Dean Smith. Bill Guthridge, an eventual National Coach of the Year, was an assistant coach, where he was joined by fellow eventual National Coach of the Year winner Eddie Fogler. And the last assistant, the guy delivering the calendars, was eventual Hall of Famer Roy Williams.
6. The Carolina-themed scene included Jordan's famous rock the cradle dunk at Maryland. At the time he did that dunk, Jordan indicated he first got the idea for that particular move from Al Wood. Jordan and Wood faced off regularly in the legendary summer Chapel Hill pickup games. Lost to history is the fact that the end-of-game dunk was created when Sam Perkins blocked a shot by Len Bias, which led to the Jordan run-out. Think about those names--Atlantic Coast Conference basketball was very strong in the mid-1980s.
7. Just a reminder that during the time period covered by the documentary, when Jordan was the biggest star in the world, it wasn't completely uncommon to find him in Chapel Hill during the summer. Especially during the late 1980s, he was still a regular at Carolina summer pickup games, and there are Tar Heel undergrads from well into the 1990s who can tell you stories about Jordan randomly popping up on Franklin Street. Jordan also owned a Franklin Street restaurant from 1999-2002. As you saw in the segment covering the Bulls' trip to Paris, Chapel Hill retained longer than almost anywhere in the world the opportunity for Jordan to enjoy a tiny slice of normalcy.
8. Jordan's desire to prove doubters wrong was a theme of the first two episodes. That character trait appeared very early. Jordan scored 12 points in his first college game, a Charlotte Coliseum tilt with Kansas. After the game, the young freshman was already trying to make his point. "I don't think Kansas respected my shooting ability," he said after the game. "They thought I couldn't shoot."
9. Notice who you didn't see in the scene showing Carolina's triumphant return to Kenan Stadium the day after the 1982 championship game: Dean Smith. The Tar Heel head coach did not attend the celebration, saying he wanted the focus to be on the players. Most of the national attention surrounding the game had gone not to Jordan, but to Smith's first national title. Instead of getting more of the spotlight, Smith drove home and went for a walk in the neighborhood while thousands cheered his team across town. There is only one Dean Smith.
10. The sports world has changed significantly since 1997. It probably seems like fiction to today's fans that in a battle between players and management, players would ultimately lose. That's what happened to the Bulls. As constructed, that team was still competitive. But Jerry Krause decided he was ready to rebuild, and that's what happened. It would never, ever happen that way today.
11. There was some discussion of Scottie Pippen's contract situation and the fact that Pippen was underpaid by the Bulls. But in Chicago's first championship year, 1991, Pippen made $2.7 million while Jordan made $3.2 million. The next season, Pippen made $3.4 million and Jordan made "just" $4 million. There's an argument to be made that Jordan was the most underpaid player in the history of American sports until his final two seasons, when he took advantage of an NBA contract loophole and made over $30 million each for the 1997 and 1998 seasons.
12. The only quote that's gotten as much traction as Williams' Jordan comment was Larry Bird's statement about Jordan being "God disguised as Michael Jordan." But that isn't just something Bird thought up in the 30 years since that 1986 playoff game. He said it immediately after the game to the Boston Globe.
13. Bird's Celtics teammate, Rick Carlisle, got some unwanted attention for being dominated one-on-one by Jordan in the playoffs. Carlisle, the current coach of the Dallas Mavericks, should have been well aware of Jordan's talents. It was Carlisle--then a Virginia Cavaliers guard--from whom Jordan stole the ball at Carmichael Auditorium in 1983 to cap a 16-point comeback in the final nine minutes for the top-ranked Tar Heels over the Cavs.
14. An unquestioned winner in the first two episodes: Deloris Jordan. Those fortunate enough to meet her will tell you she is exactly how she was portrayed: the epitome of a classy, strong, Southern lady who always had the best interests of her son at heart.
15. Jordan didn't start every game at Carolina. When the Tar Heels traveled to New York City during Jordan's junior season for the ECAC Holiday Classic, the Wilmington native was caught in traffic while on a shopping trip. He was 90 seconds late to a team meeting, and therefore came off the bench 90 seconds into the game against St. John's. "He was six blocks away from the hotel and thought it would take two minutes by cab. He should have asked Sam (Perkins) and Matt (Doherty) how long it would take to get six blocks in rush hour traffic," Dean Smith said, referencing two of Carolina's New York natives. "Then he would have been on time." Carolina won the game, 64-51, with Sam Perkins scoring 31 points.
16. The video footage of Jordan riding his bike through campus is incredible. Here's the biggest superstar in the history of sports, and he's just casually bicycling past the Old Well. There's just something about being a Tar Heel.
17. Need more? How about these highlights of Jordan as a Tar Heel, narrated by Woody Durham and Dean Smith:
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