by Sam Smith
“Sure, sure, Stacey,” taunted Pippen. “You better be getting taped.”
“I’m leaving, you watch and see,” said King. He looked hard at Pippen. “I’m not staying.”
After the session, true to his word, King walked out of practice. Failure had indeed gone to his head.
Jackson called King at home. His answering machine was on, and later even that would be disconnected. Jackson called King’s girlfriend; she claimed she didn’t know where he was.
“It’s a soldier gone AWOL,” Jackson told reporters.
It seemed to the Bulls staff that the last chance to save King was now gone. The team had tried to move him before the February 21 trading deadline, but Krause had held out for the value of a No. 6 pick in the draft, more than King was worth now. After the season, the Warriors again would try to get King, offering forward Tyrone Hill, their No. 11 pick in 1990, but the Bulls were uncertain about whether they could sign free agent Cartwright, so they decided to keep King, who also could play some center. They felt his upside remained substantial, even if his backside did, too. The players would taunt King about staying under the “calorie cap.” “Calorie cap problems,” someone would invariably say to him during practice.
As his game continued to slide, King became desperate; he finally concluded the problem had to be Al Vermeil, the Bulls’ trainer. King announced that he needed a private trainer, someone who would give him more weight-lifting work and less of the power jumping Vermeil preached.
The Bulls weren’t so sure, but they did bring in a dietitian for King: If he was going to eat, they decided, he should eat right. King sat with the dietitian for almost two hours, taking notes and listening to a lecture on nutrition. He said he would follow the program.
After the lesson, King went to get a rubdown. During the rundown, he ate two bags of Doritos.
But he was trying to retain his sense of humor, even if no one was laughing along.
“I set a screen roll, and these guys,” said King at practice, loudly mocking Jordan and Pippen, “they’re out there dancing around and waving you off.” King went into a maniacal mambo, flailing his feet and arms. “They’re dancing around like this and not even looking at you.” But then he would turn somber. “This is not the place for me,” he’d say, “although I don’t know if I’ll be able to get out—the line at Jerry Krause’s door to get traded after this season is going to be so long.”
If anything was going to put King at the front of that line, it was his walkout. Jackson called Krause, who had just returned from seeing Kukoc. Krause told Jackson to fine King $250 for missing practice and suspend him from the Orlando game on Tuesday, which meant docking his salary about $12,000.
King ducked reporters all day, but he did show up that night at the local TV station where he did a weekly show. He had walked out, he suggested, because Jackson had publicly criticized him with the “King wasn’t into it” comment after the Celtics game. Jackson was a hypocrite, King said, because he had told the players not to take their complaints to the media, and here he was doing it himself and embarrassing a player. The coach didn’t have the guts to face him, King said.
Jackson didn’t hear the comments. Later he said that if he had, the suspension would have been for more than one game.
The next day things would get worse.
King came to practice, but only to meet with Jackson, since he wasn’t going to play. The meeting quickly turned ugly. “Look,” King demanded, “I don’t give a shit if you play me or don’t play me. Just get off my fucking back.”
It takes quite a bit to make Jackson angry. This was quite a bit. Jackson’s jaw muscles tightened, and then he erupted, like a long-dormant volcano.
“I’ve had to sit in this room and watch tapes of seventy games,” he blasted, “and for seventy games I’ve had to watch your fat ass make mistake after mistake and screw up just about everything we’ve tried to do. And I’m sick of it.”
King started cursing Jackson and, as Jackson would say later, “the epithets were flying pretty good after that.” King got up and left, cursing Jackson more as he stormed out.
Everyone who didn’t hear the outburst heard about it fast. Jordan said if it were up to him he would just suspend King for the year, but he wasn’t about to get involved. “Then everyone will go running around saying, ‘Michael Jordan got him traded.’ I’d just sit his ass. He’s of no use to us anyway, and you don’t treat a coach like that no matter what your problem is. I always told them the guy was a problem. But they never want to listen to anything I’ve got to say.”
Paxson shook his head. King’s outburst was the talk of the team.
“We’ve got so many guys on this team going in different directions,” he acknowledged. “That’s the kind of thing that kills you.”
If anything good came out of the King controversy, it was that it was overshadowing a new chapter in the Pippen controversy. There had been a story by Lacy Banks in the Chicago Sun-Times that day saying that Pippen was annoyed that Reinsdorf and Krause had gone to Yugoslavia to woo Kukoc, while Pippen still didn’t have a new contract. The story quoted Pippen as saying he didn’t see why he should play hard the rest of the season if the team was going to treat him that way.
Meanwhile, a process server wandered through the Multiplex to serve Levingston with papers about some credit-card debt.
As Jackson tried to cool down, team photographer Bill Smith stood by anxiously. It was time to take the 1990–91 Chicago Bulls team picture, a task that had been planned for several months and rescheduled several times. This was the final time it could be done.
“Everyone smile,” said Smith.
Reinsdorf sat in the White Sox offices in Sarasota, Florida, feeling pretty good. His baseball team was finally getting some respect. Just a year earlier, most free agents—even bad ones—wouldn’t even consider signing with the team; Reinsdorf couldn’t even overpay for one. Now the team had surprised baseball in 1990 with a second-place finish behind Oakland, the new Comiskey Park was about to open, and season-ticket sales were at an all-time high.
And the team was about to announce it had agreed to terms with Bo Jackson. Jerry Reinsdorf now employed the two most popular athletes in the United States—Jackson and Jordan. What more could an owner ask for?
Then his secretary came in and handed him the newspaper article about Pippen.
Reinsdorf was shocked. Had Pippen gone nuts?
“We’re going to stop giving physicals to these guys,” he thought to himself. “From now on we’re only going to have psychological testing.”
What had happened? he wondered incredulously. The day before he left for Yugoslavia to see Kukoc, he had talked to Pippen and Kyle Rote, Jr., in a three-way conversation. They had essentially agreed upon a new deal for Pippen, a contract extension of five years for almost $18 million. Everyone agreed it was fair, and Reinsdorf even admitted it was his fault the deal hadn’t been negotiated sooner; he had stalled because of the Kukoc situation.
He wanted to make one more strong pitch for Kukoc. If the Bulls could sign him, they’d need the approximately $1.8 million they had left under the salary cap this year; if they couldn’t, part of that would go to Pippen. In either case, Pippen would get the full amount of his extension. But Reinsdorf needed time. So he told Pippen, “I’ll guarantee your deal myself. Even if you get hurt now, we’ll be obligated to pay you. No matter what happens to you, consider that deal done.
“Do you understand, Scottie?” Reinsdorf had repeated. “Is that okay with you? We’ll get this done, probably after the season is over, but you can consider the deal done. Okay?”
Pippen had agreed.
So Reinsdorf took the nineteen-hour trip to Split, Yugoslavia. For months, the consistent report was that Kukoc was about to sign with Benetton, the Italian-league team, for upwards of $4 million per season. The Bulls wouldn’t match that, having offered Kukoc a $15.3 million, six-year package. But every time Reins
dorf asked, Kukoc’s representatives said there was no deal. Was he being suckered? Reports circulated in Europe that the Bulls could not sign Kukoc because of Pippen’s contract status. Finally, Reinsdorf had decided to see Kukoc and his family himself.
Krause had also made the trip to talk with Kukoc about basketball, how he’d be featured in the Bulls’ offense and how it worked. Reinsdorf sat for two days with Kukoc’s worried parents. They knew nothing of the United States but what they’d read in controlled press reports, and Reinsdorf sought to assure them that there was a substantial Yugoslavian community in Chicago with access to the Belgrade newspapers. He told them about his four children, ages twenty-one to twenty-eight, and how he’d treat Toni as one of his own.
Only Kukoc’s girlfriend seemed to be a problem. She didn’t want to go to the United States and was openly hostile toward Reinsdorf. Still, he was feeling better about the Bulls’ chances of getting Kukoc, and he was back in Sarasota three days later. He believed he had done what he could and now it was up to Kukoc to decide. Both Reinsdorf and Krause saw the Yugoslav as the final piece in the Bulls’ championship puzzle; Reinsdorf was also looking at him as the player who could fill Jordan’s shoes—and any empty seats—after Jordan retired.
The reports of Reinsdorf’s trip were all over the newspapers when the Bulls returned to practice Monday after the Boston game. Pippen hadn’t thought much about it until several teammates began taunting him about how much more the team wanted Kukoc than him. And Krause, ever the fingernails on the blackboard, hadn’t helped. The week before, he had told Pippen he wouldn’t even have been a Bull if Krause hadn’t traded up in the draft to get him; Pippen owed everything to him, he said.
And if Pippen had been anxious, he was downright panic-stricken when he now heard that Charles Barkley had hurt a knee; all he could think about was what could happen if he was injured, spoken guarantee or not. Krause and Reinsdorf had shown Cliff Levingston last summer what their assurances were worth, he felt. Pippen called Rote, nearly hysterical. “I want to sign a contract, now. I’ve got to sign something now,” Pippen repeated over and over. Rote understood. He knew that Pippen remained deathly afraid of dying young, as his father had just a year ago, or being crippled like his brother. He played with a constant fear of a crippling injury.
Still, even Rote was astounded by Pippen’s public threat to play at less than his best, as was the furious Reinsdorf, who wasted no time in calling the agent.
“You get this straightened out or we’re through,” Reinsdorf said. “Scottie Pippen has a contract with this organization and he has every legal and moral right to live up to it. We’ve been fair, but we’re not going to be made fools of. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for Scottie Pippen.”
Rote called Pippen and told him there had better be some statements in the newspaper the next day saying that there had been a misunderstanding, that he would always play hard no matter what. It would also be nice, said the agent, if he said he wanted to stay with the Bulls. Pippen agreed.
Krause also had something to say.
“You ain’t going anywhere, Scottie,” he told Pippen as the team got ready to play Orlando on April 2. “We got you and this is where you’re staying. No matter what you do and no matter what you say. So get used to it.”
While the Pippen story would quiet down, the King blowup had everyone talking, analyzing, and deciding how the Bulls should handle the situation. John Bach and his old friend Frank Layden had gone to lunch at Ditka’s restaurant in Chicago one afternoon, shortly after King’s walkout, where they ran into the Bears coach himself. He pulled Bach aside.
“This thing with King really bothers me,” Ditka said, stopping by their table. “Now, here’s a guy who forgot about the team. Sometimes, you have to make that clear. What I would have done is ripped his locker out of the wall and thrown it out in the street and said, ‘There. That’s where you can go.’ Who the hell does that kid think he is?”
The strain of seventeen games in March was beginning to show on the Bulls in April; they seemed to have lost a step. Their shooting eyes were still holding up, but they weren’t executing the harassing defense that so frustrated opponents; teams were getting to the basket more easily. The Orlando Magic shot 55 percent in the April 2 game and even pulled ahead by 3 points with three minutes left. But the Bulls turned up the defense for a few minutes and made the Magic disappear; Orlando went five straight possessions without scoring while Jordan and Grant combined for 6 free throws in the last forty seconds for the 106–102 Bulls’ win.
But Grant would get just 5 shots while even the coaches were screaming for somebody to get him the ball. Worse, Grant had 12 points on those 5 shots, underscoring the Magic’s inability to cover him. “First, I’ve got [6-6, 210-pound] Nick Anderson on me in the post and then [6-8, 195-pound] Jerry Reynolds, and I can’t get the ball. It’s ridiculous,” said Grant, noting that Jordan attempted 26 shots and scored 44 points.
Also unhappy was Armstrong, whom Jackson had pulled with just a few minutes left in the game. The coach was keeping both point guards on a short chain and neither was too happy about it, although Paxson would show his displeasure less. Make a turnover, B.J., and you’re out. Miss a shot, John, and you’re out. Both would invariably come muttering back to the bench.
For Armstrong, it would carry over to practice the next day as the team prepared to go to New York. Jackson watched him for a while, and then finally shouted at him to sit down. “You’re not into it,” he yelled. Later, Jackson made it clear: “Michael is taking the shots,” he said.
Armstrong knew what he had to do. “When I get it,” he told Grant, “I’m shooting it. Jordan doesn’t get it from me.”
“Me, too,” said Grant. “Watch me against New York. I’ll shoot it every time I get it.”
It was a little game the two played. They knew it wouldn’t happen. Like Paxson, who made the threat before almost every game, they were too programmed to pass off. They’d feel too guilty about being that selfish.
When the team pulled into New York Wednesday night, April 3, NBC was waiting. The Bulls would be on national TV Sunday against Philadelphia and the network wanted some interviews. Jackson, Pippen, and Grant showed up to meet with former Lakers coach turned broadcaster Pat Riley, but Jordan refused. He had substantially cut down on his media appearances in the 1990–91 season. The demands on his time were intolerable; he was convinced that he was merely being used by others, and he resented it. Instead, he went to his room to meet up with comedians Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray.
Grant had been carrying a touch of the flu and had tried to get out of the pregame shootaround Thursday, but Jackson told trainer Schaefer to make sure Grant was there. Grant fumed.
“When Michael’s sick, he just calls off practice,” he told Schaefer.
The Bulls all looked sick against the Knicks, who were without Charles Oakley and Gerald Wilkins. If they had heard the line about New York leading the nation in people around whom you shouldn’t make sudden moves, the Bulls had paid close attention. They were in slow motion.
Blitzed by Mark Jackson and Brian Quinnett, they fell behind by 24 late in the first half and would trail by 18 at the end of the second quarter. Phil Jackson kept the coaches out of the Bulls’ locker room at halftime.
“Let them sit and think about it,” he said. “Let them look at the guys responsible.”
Jordan was pretty sure he knew who was responsible: Jackson and the triangle offense. He had 9 points on 4-of-12 shooting, and he was enraged. “No more triangle,” he promised himself.
In the second half, Jordan came out on the attack and Jackson cooperated; he went into the new open offense the team had been working on to isolate Jordan on top of the floor, and within ten minutes the Bulls had tied the game as the Knicks collapsed like the city’s economy. They committed 9 turnovers in the third quarter and were outscored 30–12. It was an impressive display of Bulls strength. The Knicks held on to a tie afte
r three, but the result was as inevitable as death, taxes, and bobbing corpses in the East River: The Bulls won by 10. They still could turn it on, but they knew it was getting hard to keep it on.
“We knew we could be tired by this point,” Jackson said.
The main topic of conversation after the game was Patrick Ewing. He had seemed content to take fallaway jumpers along the baseline, even against Will Perdue, who could have done little to stop Ewing if he’d tried to drive. And Ewing certainly would have gotten the foul call against the young Bulls backup center if he had.
Knicks insiders believed that Ewing, frustrated over the constant swirl of controversy in New York, the collapse of the team, and some failed renegotiations of his own, had pretty much quit for the season, or at least until the playoffs. Thinking about it after the game, John Bach just shook his head. The Bulls had turmoil, too, he knew, but the players always competed hard. It was a tribute to both them and Jackson, he thought.
In the twenty-five-year history of the Bulls, there had been just one division title. It came in the 1974–75 season, in what would signal the end of the great Dick Motta defensive club of those early 1970s. The Bulls were then in the Western Conference, and they had never been able to get past Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Milwaukee Bucks teams in their division—and if the Bucks didn’t take care of them, the Lakers and Wilt Chamberlain did. But Abdul-Jabbar broke his hand in the exhibition season in 1974; Milwaukee would collapse and finish last in the division, and Chamberlain had left the Lakers. The Bulls’ 47–35 record wasn’t their best ever—they’d won fifty-seven games in 1971–72—but they had the second-best record in the conference, one game behind Golden State. It would be thirteen years and nine coaches before the Bulls would win as many games again.
Jackson admired Motta’s Bulls for their team play as much as he disliked the Bucks and their one-man approach to the game. “It seems that [Bucks coach Larry] Costello consistently overcoaches his teams,” Jackson wrote in his 1975 book, Maverick. “Knowing that only Kareem will take the important shot, no matter what number may be called, allows a defense to do a lot of double-teaming and forcing. This can make the Bucks have to go somewhere else for their offense and that disrupts their flow … The fact is that Milwaukee’s predictability makes them lose too many close games. I personally don’t particularly like the kind of games the Bucks play. There’s just a limited number of things the other four players can be doing when Kareem has the ball. Milwaukee can certainly come out and kill you on any given night, but they really can’t function as a team, and a smart club can take advantage of this. I don’t believe that basketball can be anything but a team game.”