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For those who followed Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls’ dynastic career in the 1990s, this story is not new.
Jordan did not come face to face with Jerry Krause, the Bulls general manager at the time, who said, “Organizations win titles, not players,” and thus infamously, if not expanded, caused the gap between he and the last man. he wanted to antagonize.
But Netflix’s full-access documentary “Last Dance” on arguably the best team of all time and how it all fell apart, argues that Krause has more than this popular depiction of him as an intriguing, one-dimensional suit.
If collusion meant he put his managerial genius to work putting together the pieces that eventually led to the most legendary, most transcendent, and globally recognized professional team of all time, then what was wrong?
When Krause approached Bulls majority owner Jerry Reinsdorf, if he could manage his mediocre basketball club, Reinsdorf was told to be suspicious of Krause, whose personality “alienated” people.
“But I wasn’t hiring someone to win a personality contest,” said Reinsdorf.
At the end of the first two episodes, which delved (and rightly so) into Jordan’s family history, and slightly but significantly to Krause’s, there was a growing sense that Jordan and Krause were truly similar in their insatiable drive to succeed. Although they did it in very different terms.
While talking about Scottie Pippen being in the trading block after the 1996-97 season, Krause, sounding Jordanesque, said: “I will never stop being aggressive, and I will never stop trying to do things to improve the team.” . ”
For a decade-long championship-quality race, the awkward partnership between His Airness and the Architect worked wonders.
But his personal vision of winning finally brought out the best in every man, taking the Bulls on a divergent path to the point that, no matter how capable they were of playing for more titles, a breakup was inevitable.
At the center of the meat was Pippen, the 6-foot-7-inch Swiss Army knife of a striker whom Jordan considered his best teammate and whom Krause first discovered as a little-known entity from the University of Central Arkansas and doggedly pursued in the 1987 draft to form that devastating 1-2 hit with Jordan.
Also at the crux of the conflict was Phil Jackson, the man Jordan proclaimed as the only head coach he will play for. Jackson’s hiring was another rough diamond move by Krause, who pulled Jackson out of the level two Continental Basketball Association and offered him a job as an assistant coach before taking over as the best-calling.
But just as Krause gives, he takes away.
Before the 1997-98 campaign, Krause had raised the idea that Pippen would be traded; otherwise, the Bulls could lose him through free agency. Krause also stated that Jackson was not going to be hired after that season, as Jackson demanded a well-deserved, but nonetheless exorbitant, raise.
If Pippen and Jackson’s time was up, there was no way Jordan would come back.
If those dominoes fell, all the blame would fall squarely on Krause – the departure of Jordan, the dismantling of a dynasty, and the end of a glorious era not only in Chicago sports but also in basketball history.
And yet, Krause cut a sympathetic figure in this first installment of “The Last Dance.”
“I will always give Jerry Krause credit for putting together a list that fits,” says former Bulls guard John Paxson, a quote inserted between the image of Krause signing Pippen and Horace Grant, and the story of how Krause brought in Charles Oakley to New York. Knicks to get to the Bill Cartwright Center.
In retrospect, even Jordan, Oakley’s best friend from the start with the Bulls, had to admit that the trade was crucial; Grant and Cartwright became the starters of the Bulls’ first “3 mob”.
“Things were in place for us to win when (Oakley) left,” says Jordan.
As much as Jordan’s imprint on the Bulls’ magical career during the 1990s was undeniable, the same could be said for Krause’s contribution, if that wasn’t clear. And if it wasn’t at the time, especially after the Bulls’ abrupt deconstruction, then “The Last Dance” should end any debate.
There is a part of the documentary where Krause says he was incorrectly quoted, referring to the statement “Organizations win titles, players do it.”
“What I said was that players and coaches alone don’t win championships, that organizations do,” explains Krause, who died in 2017 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in the same year.
“I sincerely believe that organizations as a whole win.”
If those were Krause’s real feelings, it’s hard to say.
But the results he, Jordan, and those Bulls achieved from top to bottom are indisputable proof that Krause is telling the truth, despite constant head shots.
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