The Last Dance: 6 Things we learned from episodes 1 & 2

3. “He’s not 7’0”

Hear any NBA executive utter that statement as a reason to stray away from a player in today’s league, and they’ll likely be knocking on the doors of unemployment offices within the next week. That is, of course, if the basketball world’s faithful social media soldiers didn’t get to them first.

Believe it or not, though, there was actually a time when size, not skill, was the initial evaluating determinant of a player’s perceived success opportunities in the NBA.

Before Stephen Curry’s 3-point shooting ability absolutely slashed stereotypes of what it means to be a lethal threat on the offensive end, the old adage of fundamental basketball employed a scheme in which the lead guard’s main role was to dribble the ball up court, and rather than look to score, dish it off to a posting big man in lieu of a high-percentage look.

Close-range meant efficiency. And the closer a player was able to get to the basket based on brute strength alone, coupled with the desired height measurement, the better his overall evaluation of total worth to a team was at the pro level.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell – all widely respected basketball kingpins of yesteryear. Theirs were the names that consistently dominated conversations of who the game’s best were.

And it’s hard to speculate if they would enjoy the same luxuries in today’s landscape as they did during the times they played in. That’s why Jordan himself hesitated in giving himself the greatest-of-all-time badge: because he didn’t play in every era, and basketball’s a sport that is constantly changing.

What’s more than clear though is this: Jordan was undoubtedly the best player of his time. But for all he did to push the game forward in terms of implementing baggy shorts, player sponsorships, and a revamped globalization of the league, the fact that he did so as an “undersized” shooting guard may have been most notable.

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I can’t imagine what it was like for Jordan to hear a fellow player tell the media that he couldn’t “carry a team” because he was too short, or even listen to the man who drafted him say he wished he was 7’0 tall.

Well, he wasn’t. Yet when it was all said and done, it was Jordan who stood tall above the rest on basketball’s Mount-Rushmore GOAT conversation, and that billing had nothing to do with his stature. As Nate Robinson said, “heart over height,” always.