THE moment he retired for the second time, the commercial played simultaneously on all outlets carrying his retirement announcement: From ESPN News, CNNSI, ESPN to ESPN Classic, it had made the circulation. It was the moment where my heart sank again– one of many heartbreaks involving the Bulls — after knowing that summer that 23’s shot on Byron Russell meant that the dynasty was over, despite that storybook finale. Bulls’ owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, couldn’t do anything to change that truth, especially, after he had poisoned the waters earlier stating boldly that his team would not need Phil Jackson’s service following the 1997-98 campaign.
Jackson was off to Montana shortly after M.J.’s shot fell through that nylon, to ride motorcycles and fish. And his partner-in-crime: “Pip,” was looking forward to getting paid somewhere else; where they would, at least, treat him better; like the champion he was, after so many slights by General Manager, Jerry Krause. The man who consistently underrated his value to the team.
So it was written in stone, Jordan had to be done, with his brothers in arms essentially being given their pink-slips. It was the beginning of the end. And the beginning of this part of that end, that is this commercial, opens with me crying during the final moments of Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, with the Bulls clinching championship number six in Utah. It was overwhelming to see that finish: the Jordan strip of Malone on the low-block and the slow-down isolation, as Jordan “on fumes”– as Bob Costas called the sequence — sinks the final shot; placing all of his dead-weighted lower-half into it, and what final remnants of his no-longer 42-inch vertical that he could muster, at 35-years-old.
During the season with Chicago at .500 or so and without Pippen; it didn’t look like it could happen. They struggled mightily, after all, just to get to .500. But as Phil said later, “I gave the league ample warning, that when ‘Pip’ came back, we could very well run the table.” Arrogant? Sure. But this was peak-powers’ Chicago Bulls. But even then, I was kind of doubting. That seemed so far away from where they were at, just fighting to be mediocre, though, early in the season.
Not to mention, that in my backyard the Lakers were their own potential-dynasty rising. Kobe Bryant, a young-buck, was nearing the level of teammate and All-Star swingman, Eddie Jones, and the Lakers’ All-Star point-guard: Nick Van Exel. Giving Los Angeles three players who were legitimate offensive options and top-tier players, who were not named, Shaquille O’Neal, to team together with the center. This spelled doom for most.
Bryant was chipping in roughly 18 points a night from the bench that season, and he garnered an All-Star Game starting spot while also beginning to be compared by national media, to the torch-bearer: Jordan. And, back then, Shaq was in full-beast mode for the Purple and Gold. That Laker squad would have won seventy games, it seems, if O’Neal hadn’t been injured. So yeah, with such a potential challenger, I was like: “It looks like the ‘Bullys’ ain’t going to be pulling this one out.”
It most certainly seemed that my childhood would close along with Mike’s career, with him playing the role of a kryptonite-exposed Superman. And I had no problem with that. But then, the Bulls did practically run the table when Scottie came back from injury. And miraculously they looked good again. Scary good. Jordan had caught fire at the end of the season and looked like the Jordan of old and not a Jordan-who-was-old.
The Bulls faced the formidable Pacers, however, in the Eastern Conference Finals, and when Reggie Miller hit that shot where he went out of his mind, five-year-old on a sugar-rush apeshit, following that nuclear bomb he releases on Jordan to win Game 4– it had to be over. (I thought.) Jordan had guarded him on the play and Reggie pushed-off, got open, and stuck a stiletto right through Mike’s throat, and then he celebrated– in the most classic Reggie Miller way ever — on his supposedly gimpy foot, in front of a crazed Indianapolis crowd.
I wholly began to doubt a Bulls’ sixth championship, then, right there. Just too many obstacles. And when the Bulls were down by double-digits at home in Game 7 against the Pacers, again; I thought then, it was for sure over. But then it did happen, miraculously and in such a storybook way, after the Bulls lost Game 1 in Utah.
Chicago won it for the sixth time in my childhood. And Jordan left again, with my memories only to be sparked by the VHS tapes I diligently recorded of him. And this time it wasn’t because of his father’s death. It was because it was truly over. The NBA owners’ lockout was also coming, and now there would be no basketball for the months following that season, anyway.
A struggle between the players’ union and the owners over salaries and age-restrictions on incoming rookies had gelled into a fine mess. This commercial was bittersweet, like that season, I guess. It was the beginning of several ends: the end of the Jordan Era, the end of that employee-owner dispute league, the end of my childhood.
You want to know something about me? He’s the reason why I wear my hats the way I do: half-cocked to the side like the wind had just barely gotten hold of my bill while chasing a pop-fly. Or even why I wear hats all the time. (I watched him before and after practice during interviews and he always seemed to have a baseball cap.)
He’s even the reason why I always lace to the second eyelet, or pull on my trunks when I’m tired out there. He’s the reason why it starts with a jab step or why I’ll still flip a shot up with english. He is the reason why I am probably so fiery, so uncompromising, so determined. It came from watching him. I can’t say enough about the influence of watching almost every game from preseason on, every fall from 1989 has had. It’s just there, throughout my personality.
