Michael Jordan was concerned about his portrayal in The Last Dance. With its conclusion, was he right to consider how his image would emerge?
While most of the basketball world sat giddily with anticipation for the pushed up release of The Last Dance, Michael Jordan was worried.
Not in any significant way that kept him up at night or limited his ability to eat — we assume. According to TLD director Jason Hehir, MJ, the obvious headliner of the 10-part series, was aware of how his image might be received with such an intimate look into the process behind those six championships.
“When people see this footage I’m not sure they’re going to be able to understand why I was so intense,” Jordan explained to Hehir via Richard Deitsch of The Athletic (subscription required). “Why I did the things I did, why I acted the way I acted, and why I said the things I said. When you see the footage of it, you’re going to think that I’m a horrible guy.”
Jordan was never considered the ideal teammate, so the comment riled speculation as to what was coming that gave him this uneasy feeling.
How many curse words were captured at practice? What kind of temperament did Jordan have? Did footage of him punching Steve Kerr exist?
Nothing seemed out of what was expected. Expletives were used. Trash talk was exchanged. Most of what was uncovered was exactly what fans were hoping for: a behind the scenes look at the inner workings of a dynasty.
We assumed the Chicago Bulls had little in the tank on their way to their sixth championship. Listening to Jordan break down the strategy undertaken to drag Chicago to the finish line, maneuvering around his fatigue and a compromised Scottie Pippen, brings the Game 6 win far more justice than his 45 points ever could.
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Jordan’s unbashful leadership style rubbed many around him the wrong way. It was his emotional explanation of his mindset that endeared him to those who only saw it on the surface.
“Look, winning has a price,” said Jordan to close out episode seven. “And leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn’t want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn’t want to be challenged.”
“That’s how I played the game,” he explained through rare tearful eyes. “That was my mentality. If you don’t want to play that way, don’t play that way.”
MJ may have underestimated the respect such insight would garner after many formed their interpretations through hearsay.
He always seemed like a mythical figure, at least to those who never saw him play. You read about the incidents, heard about his competitive fervor and watched highlights of his most iconic performances.
There’s an invisible gap of comprehension that can only be bridged with a first-hand account. Even those whose lives intertwined with the glory days of the ’90s could benefit from a refresher to fill in the holes the passage of time erased.
The Last Dance allowed us to see more of Jordan than we ever had in a way that provided background to everything his legacy is comprised of.
“I think my goal would be for people who are of a certain age, say 30 and older, to come away thinking they thought they knew the story, but there’s way more there than I realized,” Hehir said to The Athletic. “I think for younger people it would be I thought I knew the story of this team but I didn’t realize the true impact they had back then and how difficult it was to do what they did.”
Even after the five-week viewing, there is no definitive way to perceive Michael Jordan the person. He remains a complex figure whose questionable routes to success are justified by many given the heights his NBA status reached. That doesn’t necessarily excuse them.
If nothing else, Michael Jordan emerged from The Last Dance differently compared to before. His desire for victory and the places he pushed himself to get there are understood with greater clarity.
You can’t make people feel a certain way about you. All anyone can do is provide as much information as possible and live with the results. Jordan did that. Maybe not in the most objective way, but in the only way such a documentary could get the green light.
And it worked out better than he probably expected.