3 takeaways from episodes 1 and 2 of The Last Dance

1. Thank god for the absence of social media

Here’s a list of things both told and shown across the first two episodes of The Last Dance that would’ve set Twitter and all of the NBA media on fire in 2020.

• Jordan’s strict 14-minute restriction after coming back from injury — and his utter disdain for it and those who were enforcing it.
• “Depends how f—ing bad the headache is!”
• MJ playing golf with Danny Ainge before Game 2 of Chicago’s 1986 first-round matchup with the Boston Celtics.
• Scottie Pippen delaying surgery and then requesting a trade midway through the 1997-98 season saying he’s never going to play for the Bulls again.
• Jerry Krause blatantly telling the press Phil Jackson wouldn’t be returning following the 1997-98 season no matter what.
• “Bulls Traveling Cocaine Circus.”
• Chicago voluntarily signaling the end to a dynasty that was still cranking out championships.

Not even mentioned is Jordan’s infamous relationship with gambling or anything to do with Dennis Rodman — that is sure to come.

We’re led to believe the internet and social media have catalyzed a lot of the craziness that’s surrounded the NBA in recent years, from Jimmy Butler violently running a Minnesota Timberwolves practice to J.R. Smith throwing soup at an assistant coach.

Maybe neither of those things had happened in their exact form in previous decades, but the conclusion derived from what we’ve seen of The Last Dance is clear:

NBA players are a wild group of people and have been doing crazy things for a long time. It’s only with cameras at the ready and plenty of outlets to spread it on that we’re now finally getting to see it.

And for the sake of the sanity of a Bulls group with a collection of unique personalities that already dealt with an unprecedented amount of coverage at the time, thank god it took that long.