Michael Jordan

by Roland Lazenby

  Jordan’s personal take was a fraction of the treasure he created for the NBA (not to mention what he did for the University of North Carolina Tar Heel brand). His entry into the league in 1984 triggered a ballooning of the NBA’s annual revenues tenfold, from under $150 million that year to an astounding $2 billion or more per season by the mid-1990s.

  Despite appearances, Phil Jackson could be forgiven for the anxiety he felt that preseason. Behind the scenes, the internal conflict between his players and management, and between Jackson himself and management, had already started to heat up. “It will be a very different year,” the coach said that Saturday night in Las Vegas. “I just don’t know what to anticipate. I try not to anticipate. Just let it happen. Our whole scenario, our whole buildup of this ball club, is that we alone can destroy our opportunities.”

  Off and Running Again

  Jordan had grown accustomed to Jackson’s efforts to soothe him just enough to make it all workable. The coach never tried to bank Jordan’s great flame; he needed only to adjust the heat enough to get them to another confetti moment. Jordan now saw the practicality in it all, from Tex Winter’s offense to George Mumford’s meditation and mindfulness exercises. He could now sit on the floor in the dark at practice and think good thoughts as well as anyone.

  “He’s our guru,” Michael Jordan quipped when asked about the coach’s quirkiness. “He’s got that yen, that Zen stuff, working in our favor.”

  James Edwards watched with keen interest the dynamic between Jackson and Jordan. It was a perfect marriage between a player and a coach, he decided. “Phil knew what Mike was thinking and Mike knew what Phil was thinking. That’s how close they were.”

  They all understood when Jackson talked of the spiritual connection to the game. Jordan credited the approach Jackson outlined in his book Sacred Hoops with showing him how to relate to less-talented teammates. “I think Phil really has given me a chance to be patient and taught me how to understand the supporting cast of teammates and give them a chance to improve,” he said. Jackson never was able, however, to train Jordan to stop calling his teammates his “supporting cast,” a reminder that the Bulls’ organization was not a perfect world. The imperfection was evidenced by a growing funk hanging over the club for much of the 1996–97 season.

  The early part of the schedule was populated with more handsome win streaks and more fat games from Jordan. He had lost eight pounds in the off-season, down to 209 from 217, to help ease the tendinitis that had often slowed him the previous year. The sleeker Jordan and his teammates opened the season with twelve straight wins, highlighted by Jordan’s 50 points in a 106–100 win in Miami, with Jordan smiling and jawing with Heat coach Pat Riley much of the way. The Bulls had just flown in from a game in Vancouver to find the Miami players talking in the local papers about how the Bulls had disrespected them in sweeping their playoff series.

  During the game, Riley had jokingly called Michael a rat after one dazzling play. “He’s such a competitor,” Jordan said of Riley afterward, smiling. “I am too. You know you’re at the tail end of your career. You better enjoy yourself these last few moments of stardom or success or whatever it is. That drives me more than anything.

  “My motivation is for a perfect run,” he added.

  He celebrated Thanksgiving by scoring 195 points in five games. In December, he scored 30 against the young Lakers, to go with Pippen’s 35 and Kukoc’s 31, just to show he could spread the wealth around. From there until mid-February he dropped by for performances on all his old friends: 45 on the Cavs, 51 on the Knicks, 45 on Gary Payton and Seattle, 47 on Denver.

  New York coach Jeff Van Gundy, who coached two of Jordan’s best friends, Oakley and Ewing, had called him a con man, which prompted a season-high 51 on the Knicks. “His way is to befriend them, soften them up, try to make them feel he cares about them,” Van Gundy had said. “Then he goes out there and tries to destroy them. The first step as a player is to realize that and don’t go for it.”

  “I was prepared to do whatever it took to win,” Jordan said afterward. He had reached the 50-point mark for the thirty-sixth time in his career. “There were times where things were going so well, everything seemed to be in slow motion. I didn’t rush. I just relaxed and played.”

  “It was probably a tactical mistake by the coach of the Knicks to attack Michael in the press. I thought he went out and played with a vendetta, a score to settle,” Jackson said.

  Jordan finished the night with yet another fadeaway, a twenty-footer, to close out the win, then yelled at Van Gundy.

  “Some choice words,” Jordan said. “I guess I didn’t make any friends out there tonight.”

  Van Gundy’s words were poorly chosen, he added. “I think they were more geared to motivating his players. But I don’t think, on the court, they have befriended me. I don’t go on the court expecting to make friends. But when I leave the court, I don’t take what happened on the court away with me. We’re only playing a game. I don’t view it as a war away from the game. If he feels like I take advantage of my friends, that’s fine.”

  Such moments propelled the Bulls. They had again consumed the schedule in great gulps and finished with a 69–13 record, tied for the second-most wins all time. Jordan had averaged 29.6 points and won another scoring title, his ninth. He had been named to the All-Star team for the eleventh time and recorded there in Cleveland the first triple-double in All-Star Game history. The 1997 All-Star Game marked the league’s fiftieth anniversary, and he and Pippen were honored with inclusion on the list of the game’s fifty greatest players. He had scored his 25,000th career point in San Antonio in November. By April he had moved past Oscar Robertson for fifth on the all-time scoring list.

  Together

  As the playoffs neared, Jackson again called for his team to develop true “togetherness.” This time around, he spliced into the scouting videos clips from What about Bob? The movie starred Bill Murray as a mental patient who tried to move in with his selfish and unlikeable psychiatrist. Obviously, the psychiatrist was Krause. “Every time he used game clips, he’d put in pieces of the movie,” said Bulls center Bill Wennington. “Basically we saw the whole movie. He was implying that we got to come together, that we got to use baby steps to move along and start playing well…”

  Jackson also included clips of old Three Stooges movies.

  “Tex Winter likes to sing a song when we get together for our morning sessions,” Bill Wennington explained. “He likes to sing, ‘It’s time we get together. Together. Together. It’s time we get together. Together again.’ That song is played once in the Three Stooges when Moe swallows a harmonica, and they’re playing him on a harmonica. They’re playing that song.”

  The togetherness theme also hung over the heads of Jordan, Jackson, and Rodman, all on one-year contracts. Would they be back with the Bulls for another season? The Chicago press was rampant with speculation, and the uncertainty tugged at the team’s peace of mind and motivated them, too.

  Perhaps most significantly, the “togetherness” theme was a subtle reminder to Jordan not to crush his teammates with anger and criticism. Jordan, Pippen, and Harper were solid as a core. Rodman, of course, was an entity to himself. So was Kukoc, who was somewhat isolated by cultural differences. Simpkins, Caffey, and Brown shared some off-court time, and then there was the Arizona contingent of Buechler and Kerr, joined at times by Longley, the Australian, and Wennington, the Canadian.

  The Washington Bullets fell in Game 1 of the first playoff round but charged out to a lead in Game 2, as all of Jackson’s talk about togetherness dissipated into the United Center haze. Washington took the halftime lead, 65–58, despite Jordan’s 26 points. He greeted Jackson and his teammates in the locker room with a face full of anger. “Michael was pretty upset at the half, and Phil wasn’t real thrilled either,” Kerr acknowledged. “But there weren’t many adjustments other than attitude adjustments. Michael just raised his voice a little bit and said we had to play bette
r.”

  Jordan and their defensive traps propelled the Bulls on a 16–2 run in the third that pushed the crowd out of a slumber. The defense was a group effort, but on offense Jordan worked almost alone, jabbing jumper after jumper. During time-outs, he sat motionless, a towel draped over his shoulders, head bowed, trying to conserve energy. With five minutes left in the game, he drove and scored, pushing Chicago up by three. Moments later, he got the ball back, motored into the lane, and flexed a pump fake that sent the entire defense flying. As they settled back to earth, he then stuck a jumper. He finished the next possession with an impossible falling-down shot from the right baseline that pushed the lead to 7 and his point total for the evening to 49.

  When the Bullets cut it to 103–100 with about a minute to go, Jordan answered with another jumper and a bank shot, the latter coming with thirty-four seconds left and driving the lead to 107–102. He then wrapped up a 55-point night (the eighth time in his career that he had scored better than 50 in a playoff game) with two free throws that provided Chicago with a 109–104 win and a 2–0 series lead.

  The thirty-four-year-old Jordan’s conditioning alone was astounding, Longley said afterward, in that it allowed him to score and play intense defense for more than forty-four minutes. “These are the games where he demonstrates who he really is,” the center added. “Those performances you definitely marvel at. What I marvel at is how many of them you see a year. Perhaps he only had three or four 50-point games this year, but the 30- and 40-point games he has almost every night. The fact that at his age he can come out physically and do things he does every night, that’s what really makes me marvel.”

  Washington was moved aside with the next victory, and the Bulls turned their attention to humbling the Atlanta Hawks, four games to one. Despite the team’s momentum, the coaching staff worried that Jordan had been pressing on offense, as if he felt he had to carry the entire load. “Michael has not shot well,” Winter confided. “He has not shot well the whole series. The fact that he’s gonna take 25 or 27 shots, and he’s not shooting well, then that puts quite a burden on your offense. If he’s not shooting any better percentage shots than that, then he shouldn’t be taking so many of them. Phil’s told him not to force things, not to try to do too much, to move the ball. And Michael knows that. Michael’s a smart player. But he’s so competitive, and he’s got so much confidence in himself that it’s hard for him to restrain. I’ve never been associated with a player who has any less inhibitions than he does. That’s one of the reasons he’s a great player. He has no conscience.”

  Atlanta fell away in Game 5, although three minutes into the contest, Jordan drew a technical for wagging his finger after dunking on Dikembe Mutombo, who was himself known for finger wagging. The win sent Chicago to a seventh appearance in the Eastern Conference finals in nine seasons. It was assumed that the Knicks would be their opponents, but Riley’s Heat showed up instead, which was fine with Jackson, who had told his players, after an upset loss to Miami late in the 1996 season, “Never lose to that guy.”

  Chicago jumped out to a three-game lead, which seemed to Jordan like a good time to play forty-five holes of golf in Miami. Bulls photographer Bill Smith followed him to the course and stepped up to catch a shot of him in a cart. “Out of my way, Bill Smith,” Jordan said as he gunned the cart and sent the photographer hopping away with a laugh.

  Jordan paid for his fun the next day, making just 2 of his first 22 shots in Game 4. Eddie Pinckney, then playing for the Heat, remembered the ending well.

  “It was my last year as a professional player, and the Bulls were about to eliminate us,” recalled Pinckney. “They had reserved a special restaurant to celebrate after the game. Pat Riley got wind of this and told us players he was really upset. We go out and we’re winning the game by a lot, maybe 15 or 20 points, and Phil Jackson takes everybody out. The game’s pretty much over. Well, [Heat guard] Voshon Lenard decides he’s going to start talking to Michael Jordan. How we’re going to go up to Chicago and kick their ass. Jordan comes back in the game and starts scoring and scoring, and he’s yelling at the top of his lungs, ‘You guys are not going to win another fucking game!’ He’s screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘You fuckers are not winning another one!’ He was pissed.”

  Finding themselves down 21 points with the clock ticking down, the Bulls watched Jordan launch into his attack mode. He spurred Chicago on a 22–5 run that pulled them within four, 61–57, at the end of the third. The Heat surged right back at the beginning of the fourth, pushing their margin back to 72–60. Jordan then scored 18 straight points for Chicago, a display that trimmed the Miami lead to just one with only 2:19 to go. The ending, however, came down to the Heat making a final 6 free throws, good enough for a Miami win.

  “That’s one of my favorite Michael games of all time,” Steve Kerr said, looking back in 2012. “Because if you look at the stats from that game, he’s 2 for 22 going into the fourth quarter, and there were air balls involved. It was clearly related to all the holes of golf he and Ahmad Rashad had played the day before. But the fourth quarter, he went nuts. He’s yelling at the Heat bench, but it was the greatest display of confidence I’ve ever seen in my life… bar none. I mean, how do you go from 2 for 22, in a playoff game against a great defensive team, in the first three quarters, when you’re missing all those shots? He wasn’t shaking his head, he was just going about his business and something finally clicked and he went with it.”

  Those who witnessed the spectacle were not likely to forget it. Jordan had scored 20 of Chicago’s 23 points in the fourth quarter. “When he started making them, they just came, came, came, came, came,” said Tim Hardaway. “He’s a scorer; he’s the man.”

  Asked about his miserable first half, Jordan glowered, “We’re not concerned,” he said.

  “We go back to Chicago now and we could not get the ball up the court,” Pinckney recalled with a laugh. Jordan opened Game 5 with 15 in the first quarter, good enough for a 33–19 Bulls lead, leaving little doubt as to the outcome.

  “They are the greatest team since the Celtics won eleven in thirteen years,” Riley told reporters afterward. “I don’t think anybody’s going to win again until Michael retires. Sometimes you can build a great team, and you’ll never win a championship because you had the misfortune of being born the same time that Jordan went through his run.”

  Houston and Utah were battling in the Western Conference finals, and Jordan admitted he’d like to take on the Rockets. Olajuwon had been drafted ahead of him back in 1984 and had led his team to two titles while Jordan was away playing baseball. The cherry on top of that tempting sundae was Charles Barkley, now a Rockets forward. On the other hand, Utah could also get him motivated. Jazz forward Karl “The Mailman” Malone was set to be named the league MVP, even though Jordan had won his ninth scoring title with a 29.6 average. Jordan had been named to the All-NBA first team and, along with Pippen, the All-Defense team. Malone had finished second in the scoring race and was named to the All-NBA first team for the ninth time. His selection appeared to be based on the entirety of his career, an approach occasionally taken in other MVP selections. Jordan’s fans, however, would long complain that he had been robbed of yet another MVP. Pat Riley didn’t think it mattered who won the West. “I think Chicago’s going to win it against anybody,” he said.

  Utah’s John Stockton settled the issue in Game 6 of the Western conference finals with a last-second shot that sent the Jazz to the league championship series for the first time in their three decades of existence. Stockton, Malone, and company forced the issue in Game 1 of the championship series at the United Center. With less than a minute left, it was 82–81 Utah, when Jordan stepped to the line for 2 free throws and his fans chanting “MVP!” He hit the first to tie it, then missed the second, quieting the crowd. Next it was Malone’s turn to shoot 2 when Pippen whispered in his ear, “The Mailman doesn’t deliver on Sunday.” He missed both in the noise, and the Bulls controlled the rebound
with 7.5 seconds left. Amazingly, Utah decided not to double-team Jordan on the last shot. When it swished, twenty-one thousand fans leaped out of their seats in exultation. Jordan had finished with 31 points on 13 of 27 shooting.

  Game 2 was a blowout, driven by Jordan’s 38 points, 13 rebounds, and 9 assists. He would have registered a triple-double if Pippen hadn’t blown a late layup, costing him the tenth assist.

  The Jazz won Game 3 back home in Salt Lake City even though Pippen tied an NBA Finals record with 7 treys. Unknown to the fans and media, Game 4 would hinge on a critical error by Chicago’s staff, in what was to be the Bulls’ biggest disappointment of the season. Their offense sputtered, but their defense was spectacular for 45 minutes. In short, they played well enough to win. With 2:38 to go in the game, they had willed their way to a 71–66 lead and seemed set to control the series 3–1. But that’s when John Stockton took over, and the Bulls uncharacteristically stumbled. It would later be learned that a Bulls team assistant had mistakenly replaced the players’ Gatorade with GatorLode, a heavy drink used for building carbs. “It was like eating baked potatoes,” explained trainer Chip Schaeffer. Down the stretch, Chicago’s players complained of stomach cramps and Jordan even asked to sit for a time, something he never did at a key moment.

  Stockton cut into the late lead with a twenty-five-foot three-pointer. Jordan, who had returned to the game despite the stomach distress, came right back with a trey, and when Utah’s Jeff Hornacek missed a runner, the Bulls had a chance to close it out. Instead, Stockton timed a steal from Jordan at the top of the key and drove the length of the court. In a move that awed Utah coach Jerry Sloan, Jordan recovered, raced downcourt, and managed to block the shot, only to get whistled for a body foul.

  From there, the Jazz worked to a 74–73 lead. With seventeen seconds left, Chicago fouled Malone, setting up repeat circumstances from Game 1. His first shot knocked around the rim before falling in, smoothing the way for the second and a 76–73 lead. With no time-outs, the Bulls were left with only a rushed three-point miss by Jordan, which Utah punctuated with a breakaway slam for the 78–73 final, the second-lowest-scoring game in league championship history. The series was deadlocked at 2–2.