by Sam Smith
So Paxson finally hired Jordan’s agent, Falk. And Paxson began to see conspiracies abounding. After informing the Bulls that he’d hired an agent, and not just any agent but the nettlesome Falk, whom Krause detested, Paxson noticed his playing time shrinking and began to wonder whether the change had been ordered by management. Bulls players always wondered if the front office was controlling their playing time. Sam Vincent felt it was when he negotiated a major incentive based on minutes played and suddenly found himself being lifted repeatedly in the fourth quarter. And Paxson remembers Charles Davis telling him during the 1989–90 season that when Davis asked Jackson why he wasn’t playing, Jackson said he was ordered not to play him.
Paxson was now certain he wouldn’t be offered a new contract by the Bulls. Moreover, Paxson suspected that his next contract would be his last, and he needed to start putting up some numbers. He began coming to every game determined to shoot every time he got the ball to build up his statistics. Pippen, who had given him the idea, was planning to do the same since he was about to begin negotiations on a new deal.
But Paxson couldn’t bring himself to follow through on the plan. “I say I’m going to do it, I’m going to shoot, and then when I get out there I just can’t if it’s not the right situation for me,” Paxson lamented one day. “I’ll never change.” He was, in a way, too good a basketball player for his own good.
***
Phil Jackson’s problem, meanwhile, was with the player who was too good for his team’s good. Jordan showed no signs of changing his game, and for the team’s sake Jackson was hoping that a game Jordan couldn’t dominate would come soon. Fortunately, a game against the Golden State Warriors, in Oakland, was coming up on the schedule.
It was in Oakland that Jordan broke his foot in 1985, and for seasons to come he despised and feared the Oakland Coliseum. The following year Jordan admitted he was afraid to play there and shot 11 of 30. The next year he would record a season-low 16 points there. It’s the arena in which he’s averaged by far his fewest points since he’s been in the NBA.
Jordan has tried to overcome the Oakland jinx, and in the 1989–90 season he felt he succeeded, leading the Bulls to an easy win with 29 points and 14 rebounds. This night, though, would not start out well for Jordan. Upon arriving at the arena, he’d heard the word that was sweeping both locker rooms: Lakers star James Worthy, a North Carolina teammate of Jordan’s and one of the more respected gentlemen around the league, had been arrested for soliciting prostitutes. Worthy had contacted an escort service and requested sex of two women who turned out to be undercover police officers, it was alleged; they arrested him when they came to his hotel room in Houston before that night’s game.
Jordan was stunned and kept asking reporters whether it was true. “What are they going to say back home?” was Jordan’s principal concern. Several players began to offer weak jokes about the situation. “You’d think he’d have been tired of being double-teamed by now,” said one, while another offered, “This gives new meaning to the concept of the pregame meal.”
The life of any professional athlete is filled with temptation, which is one reason Horace Grant likes to bring his wife, Donna, on road trips, although the Bulls would order Grant not to. There’s an old joke around the NBA:
Question: What’s the hardest thing about going on the road?
Answer: Not smiling when you kiss your wife good-bye at the door.
All of this reminded one of the Bulls coaches of an incident that occurred a few years ago involving a professional baseball player who was with his wife in the delivery room for the birth of their child. When the baby was delivered, everyone was shocked: The baby was black; the player and his wife were white. She had been having an affair with one of his teammates. Shortly thereafter, the teammate was traded; the team said it had an excess of players at the teammate’s position and was making room for a promising minor leaguer.
Jordan felt badly for Worthy and his family, for he knew Worthy’s life would never be the same.
“It’s the biggest fear you have,” said Jordan. “I know it’s my greatest fear. I’ve spent a life building something positive, and I know any mistake I make could damage that for the rest of my life. People look to their role models to be almost flawless and I guess I’m the closest thing to being viewed positively, very little being flawed in my life. It’s hard to live up to something like that, really harder than basketball. It’s really the biggest job I have.”
But that night, Jordan’s job was just to play basketball. Golden State would take a 7-point lead after three quarters and hold on to win by 10, although the Bulls pulled within 6 midway through the final quarter. The ball was moving around, but not always to Jordan, and by the time he got back into the game in the fourth quarter he was cold and angry. He protested a foul call, and when Chris Mullin missed both free throws he told referee Jack Madden, “See, cheaters lose.” The referees had become accustomed to Jordan’s kidding and usually dismissed it with a smile, but this season he seemed testier. Was it the offense? The drive to finally win? Or, as Jackson and Jordan would suggest later in the season, lack of protection for the Bulls star from the referees? Jordan then missed his only 2 shots of the quarter and the Bulls fell to 4–4 on the season. Game line for Jordan: 14 points on a season-low 12 shots, as every starter had at least 10 shots, a rarity in Jordan’s seven seasons with the team.
Jordan was furious after the game. He kicked a chair when he came into the locker room, and in his comments to the media he came just short of losing his temper: “He’s the coach. I have to abide by his decisions. He chose to play me that way, so that’s the way I’ll play. I guess they figured in my first six years we didn’t have the success they wanted, so they figure the success will come from everyone being involved.” Jordan was, by now, seeming to count the letters in each word, as they came out slow and measured. His voice was almost quivering.
“But then I see Mullin on me,” he went on, “and I’m licking my chops, and I still didn’t see the ball. But I have to accept his explanations.”
Jackson had seen immediately how angry Jordan was and went to him after the game to ask him to “say the right thing” when the media were allowed in after ten minutes. It was a tense scene. Krause usually went into the locker room a minute or two after the players went in. This time, Jackson kicked him out. He wanted to talk to Jordan alone.
Warriors coach Don Nelson walked by long after the game and smirked to Jordan, “I hope they keep playing you that way.”
Jordan went out to a local club with his old friend Rod Higgins, now with the Warriors, and bashed the new system long into the night.
“I just hate it,” he said, “and now in the newspapers tomorrow they’re going to be saying I didn’t perform, that they shut me down. I hate when I have to read that in the papers the next day, that I couldn’t do something. It wasn’t my fault.”
Jordan’s anger simmered as the team moved on to Seattle the next day. And at practice late in the afternoon, his mood hadn’t changed any. He was still burning.
“He just passed the ball, even at times when he was supposed to shoot,” Grant would say afterward, somewhat delighted because he was beginning to think that he might get some shots in the next game. The Bulls’ offense, like most around the NBA, denied shots to the power forward, whose job it was to rebound. But Grant felt he could become an active part of the offense. He’d worked hard on a post-up move in the summer and had an accurate jump shot, but usually didn’t get more than 7 or 8 shots in a game, most off offensive rebounds. He liked the new offense. But it was clear Jordan didn’t. “Michael wouldn’t say a word to anyone. He just passed the ball and took maybe one or two shots and that was it for two hours,” said Grant.
The Bulls had played Seattle three times during the exhibition season, winning two. In the one loss, brash SuperSonics rookie guard Gary Payton had played well, and told USA Today’s Peter Vecsey that he could defend anyone, includi
ng Jordan. Later that night the two met by chance at a Seattle nightclub and Payton began to taunt Jordan: “I’ve got my millions and I’m buying my Ferraris and Testarossas, too.”
“No problem,” said Jordan. “I get them for free.”
Jordan liked his little comeback, but he wasn’t through. A challenge always invigorates Jordan, and if it’s on the basketball court, all the better. Before the Bulls were about to go out and play Seattle that night, Jordan reached into his bag and pulled out that USA Today story with Payton’s quotes from the preseason. B.J. Armstrong watched. He’s a thoughtful kid and he enjoys studying others, particularly Jordan. “You watch what the best do and then you learn from it,” says Armstrong. But Armstrong wondered to himself as he watched Jordan, “This guy’s the best there is. Why is he so worried about what a rookie says?”
Just before Jordan walked out of the locker room he promised, “I’m going to show that little sucker.”
The first time Payton had the ball, Jordan stole it, drove for a lay-up, and was fouled. The next time Payton had the ball, Jordan stole it again and drove all the way down court and slammed for a 6–0 Bulls lead. The third time Payton had the ball, Jordan destroyed his dribble; Scottie Pippen came in to steal the ball and hit Bill Cartwright for a lay-up, and Seattle coach K. C. Jones took the rookie out of the game. It would be an easy Bulls win, 116–95, as Jordan had 33 points and 7 steals before the end of the third quarter. It was the kind of game he loved, when nobody who ever played the game was better than he was, the kind of game that would carry him for a few days. He was headed for a 50-point game, at least the high 40s, with easily a few more fan-pleasing cradle dunks, but Jackson took him out early. And as Jordan sat on the bench during the fourth quarter after having played just 27 minutes, less than every starter but Paxson, he finally came to a realization, something he’d considered but never really believed. He turned to Armstrong on the bench: “He’s not going to let me win the scoring title.” The reality was finally sinking in.
The Bulls moved on to Portland, where the perpetually gloomy November skies wouldn’t begin to clear over the city, and then would start to follow the Bulls. They were unable to pierce either the curtain of rain draped over the city or the storming Trail Blazers. The Bulls would absorb a 125–112 drubbing that would open some old wounds. Portland had become the team the Bulls should have been, acquiring Buck Williams and Danny Ainge, whom Jordan had tried to persuade management to chase. But they hadn’t, and the Blazers had been to the Finals; no one seemed to care anymore that Portland had passed on Jordan in the 1984 draft. Now the Blazers were walloping the Bulls.
And Horace Grant was ready to wallop Stacey King. Grant was feeling pressure from King, although not because of his playing ability—the second-year power forward had come to training camp grotesquely overweight at almost 280 pounds. But King had been talking among friends about how he should be starting, and Grant believed it was management’s plan to replace him in the starting lineup anyway. Earlier, Grant had been taken out of a game with the starters but not put back in, and when Grant asked why, Jackson said, “I want to run the fat kid’s butt into shape.” But Grant remained unconvinced that was the only reason.
King, meanwhile, also doubted team management. Despite coming to camp thirty pounds overweight and apparently having done little to improve his game after an indifferent rookie season, King felt he deserved to be starting. He was 7 for 19 so far on the West Coast trip, and would go 1 for 5 against Portland.
Grant had heard the rumors about King. His twin, Harvey, had told him when the Bulls drafted King that he wouldn’t play hard and was lazy. And he had been right. Rookies often come in overweight, as Miami’s Glen Rice and San Antonio’s Sean Elliott did in their rookie years, but a year of pounding and disappointment usually persuades them to get into shape by their second seasons. But not King. Yet King was blaming his problems on a lack of playing time, and had told Armstrong he was going to quit the Bulls after the 1990–91 season to play in Europe. Once again, King wasn’t paying attention: He didn’t know that he could not break his NBA contract to play in Europe.
Grant’s friend Pippen had taken to snarling openly at King, letting loose some of Grant’s irritation and some of his own. “How can that piece of shit be making more money than me?” he’d ask.
Like Grant, Paxson believed his time as a starter was coming to an end. His off-season ankle surgery didn’t appear to have worked well and he was worried. He still had pain and soreness in the ankle and he wasn’t moving well. Great contract I’ll be able to command, he thought.
Cartwright, too, was frustrated. “We just don’t seem to have any purpose,” he said. He had come to a decision: He was going to leave Chicago after the season unless the Bulls’ offer substantially topped that of any other team. He would be an unrestricted free agent, meaning he could sign with any team, and he always liked the idea of finishing his career in California. His wife had talked at times of returning there and his family and closest friends were there. He thought about Golden State and playing for Don Nelson, whom he admired and who had tried to get him to turn pro after his junior season when Nelson had a top choice in Milwaukee and promised to take him.
Cartwright had grown tired of Jordan’s approach to the game. He was getting fewer shot opportunities than almost any of the starting centers in the league, despite the fact that Jackson constantly urged players during the games to “get the ball inside.” He liked Jackson’s offensive concept, but couldn’t stand the way Jordan ignored it. So he thought perhaps the right opportunity might come along in the off-season and he’d get a chance at a title somewhere else. He thought the Bulls had the talent to make a run, but wasn’t sure the tension between Jordan and his teammates regarding the offense would allow it.
Jordan rarely stopped griping about the offense. “If I had come up under Phil,” Jordan said to friends, “I’d never have become the player I did. He’d have had me all screwed up and doubting what I could do with that system like these other rookies. And what’s Tex Winter ever won, anyway?”
Jerry Krause almost couldn’t speak when he heard what Jordan had said. Krause viewed Winter as something of a holy man and often promoted him for the Basketball Hall of Fame. Months later, when the Bulls would win the NBA title, Krause would run directly to Winter and yell, “You did it. You did it.”
Winter was a student of the game’s legendary scholars, Sam Barry at USC and Purdue’s Piggy Lambert. This was before the NBA even existed, when college basketball was king of the sport, the era of two-hand set shooters and patterned play. Winter earned great success at Kansas State in the 1950s and national Coach of the Year honors, but did little on the pro level except for a brief stint as head coach of the San Diego/Houston Rockets. Krause had become something of a disciple of Winter’s, treating him as a great basketball guru, and to many around the Bulls it seemed as if Winter had a Svengalilike hold over Krause. The kindly, grandfatherly Winter had befriended Krause some years before and would spend time with him whenever he was in town, lecturing him on the game and his precepts. Krause had sworn a lifetime oath: “Tex Winter will never be unemployed as long as I’m running a team.” Winter was Krause’s first hire when he replaced Rod Thom as Bulls general manager in March 1985.
He is a character, but an endearing one, and a favorite of Jackson’s; the head coach chides him for his idiosyncrasies as one does an eccentric but lovable uncle. He behaves as if he’s still a poor Texas kid, often rushing into the media room before games to eat and shoveling in the food as if someone were about to take it away. He can also be found scouring around an arena for an abandoned newspaper. A friend remembers when Winter was coaching the Houston Rockets in the early 1970s, just after the team moved from San Diego. The Rockets were trying to persuade Jimmy Walker, the tough, streetwise New York playground great, that Houston was a great place to play. “Jimmy, you’re gonna love it here,” said Winter. “They’ve got the best cafeterias in the world.”
Jordan’s game clashed head-on with Winter’s. It was Jordan’s Testarossa, which could only seat one or two, against Winter’s lumbering station wagon, which would accommodate everyone. Jordan liked to hold the ball, survey the defense, and make his move as defenders edged nearer to him. No one had ever seen anyone split defenses the way he did, twisting his way through two or three players and then popping up and Boom! slamming the ball through the basket. But he didn’t always make room for his teammates, and Jackson was trying hard to change that, although he wasn’t getting much help from the players; they were resigned to the fact that Jordan would never change.
A few days before their November 21 game in Phoenix, the players had moved lethargically through the drills, seemingly bored with the offense, which required movement based on who had the ball and where it was.
Suddenly, Winter slammed a ball against the wall and shouted, “It’s not the offense; it’s you guys. You’re not working hard or playing hard. You’re not trying to get it to work.”
The players just sort of shrugged. They knew that their going with the system wouldn’t matter much if Jordan didn’t.
And he wasn’t. He scored 34 points but attempted a whopping 32 shots as the Bulls lost at the buzzer on Thanksgiving Eve in Phoenix. Everyone saw turkeys, and not on the dinner table.
Being a member of the Chicago Bulls meant many things: fame, usually; fortune, mostly; and never having to carve a Thanksgiving turkey. The NBA schedule is one of the most virulent in sports with its back-to-back games in different cities, its stretches of four games in five nights in four different places. Thoreau once mused that it wasn’t worth going around the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. Traveling the United States to try the room service wasn’t much better, yet that was the biggest part of an NBA player’s life. In many ways, it was a dull routine. Other than the travel, which had improved dramatically with the charter flights, days on the road went like this: practice from 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M., lunch, and then a nap—most NBA players had long worked naps into their routines as a means of being close to their best for their serious work, which came from 7:30 P.M. to 9:30 P.M. Many lifted weights in the afternoon to stay in condition, and the Bulls usually had one of their strength coaches, Al Vermeil or Erik Helland, on their road trips.