Gomi Johannsen — The Last Dance. A short review of the best 10-part…
By: The Amateurs.
Tags: Michael Jordan, The Last Dance, NBA, Basketball

Gomi Johannsen — The Last Dance

Source: Andy Hayt — Variety

Before we start to talk about Michael Jordan, let’s put some perspective on this: in the ’80s and ’90s, the league was building their team around big men, not an off-guard. Do you want some proof? I’ll give you one. From 1980 to 1999 (20 Years), no guards won the MVP of the league, not the name of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. But I could disqualify Magic because he played as a center while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was sitting on the bench in the 1980 Final series.

Some of you will ask: “How ‘bout Isiah and the Bad Boy Pistons?” Please don’t get me wrong, Isiah was a great player, most of us will put him the 2nd best PG ever behind Magic. But the league never viewed him as the best player, moreover the face of the NBA. The Detroit Pistons won the championships collectively with Isiah as the best player on that team. It was an odd decision by the Bulls to build around a 6'6 off guard, and turn out to be the best they have ever made.

Now, let’s talk about The Last Dance.

It’s a 10-part documentary from ESPN that starts with a great background story of how MJ struggled in the early days of his career, till the day he won his sixth championship with the Bulls. As the series comes to a close, it averaged 5.6 million viewers per episode, surpassing the numbers any ESPN documentary series had before. The Last Dance kept reminding us that Jordan was not instantly become the G.O.A.T. as he had gone through years of pain, getting swept by the great Celtics team in a playoff series, and to top of it all, beaten down by the Bad Boy Pistons (1987–1990).

By 1990, He already established himself as one of the best players in league with one MVP trophy under his belt. Then, the narrative shifted to “MJ is not a winner.” Those series of sequences made him excuse himself to live a regular life and focused just on what matters to him, Basketball.

The first key point that the documentary made is, “MJ wired differently than others.” you could see that he has an inhuman-like competitive nature in himself. The Last Dance showed us how competitive he was, and it was not just in Basketball. He even excuses himself to do gambling only to release his competitive nature outside of Basketball.

The second key point that jumps out is “ The Teammates and Phil Jackson.” In his first and second three-peat, he always had Scottie as his Robin. As great as he was, Jordan needs Phil and all of his teammate to play their role to win championships. MJ wouldn’t win those championships if Paxson didn’t knockdown that 3’s in Game 6 against the Suns or Steve Kerr in Game 6 against the Jazz.

But those role players who played alongside him went through hell in practices. MJ did make an excuse to push them harder than it should and probably risk their relationship to prepare them to go to war with him. For all the things that transpired inside the locker room, Phil needs to get some props here. He constantly prepares them (including MJ) to focus on what matters regardless of what happens outside the court. The outside of the court issue repeatedly happened during their championships journey, and the famous one is when Jerry Krause announced that it is the beginning of an era for Phil Jackson’s Bulls at the start of the 1997–1998 season.

The third and last point is “The Others.” The Last Dance may not show much related to this one, but I want to make this a point. MJ had seven years career span before winning his first NBA title. By the time he knew how to win, that’s it.

Yes, it means the others did not eat anything on the table while Michael was on it (I did not count the 1994–1995 season when MJ tried to come back from retirement). What I mean by the others are Charles Barkley, Gary Payton, “young” Shaq, Penny, Alonzo Mourning, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing, and Reggie Miller. You could name some others, but those are a legit talent with a hall of fame summary under their belt.

As inhuman as MJ visually presented in this documentary, he had some flaws too. MJ always said, “Winning has a cost,” and hearing this from his mouth tells a lot. The price is not just winning a championship. It means to justify all of the excuses that he made, which lead to people calling him a bully, not a leader, and unlike LeBron, He didn’t use his platform to support his community.

On the flip side of that, He chose to keep one thing in his mind, and one thing only that is Win at All Cost, which leads him to 32,292 Points, 5 NBA MVP, 6 NBA FINALS MVP, 6 NBA CHAMPION, and for most of us the reason we called him “The G.O.A.T”.