The Last Dance: In Praise of One Lone Gold Hoop Earring

oh shit.

shit!

i forgot about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zugK5Tf4vJ8

This may be the best part of “The Last Dance” so far. Perm guy breaking out the Jordan shrug after beating him in quarters gambling. pic.twitter.com/FuukklLyIG

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 4, 2020

^ for posterity

like to think that by year 3 jerry krause was calculating early in the season which teams the bulls were likely to face in the play offs and lavishing praise on a select couple of their players just so michael would eviscerate them.

the level of that vindictiveness was kinda frightening. I mean, i get it (sort of) but holy shit

not only burn the bridge but set fire to the river

It is kinda frightening. and I'm still lol-ing at "mad at Drexler just for existing"; it was moreso mad at media for having the nerve to compare Clyde to MJ, but still. But to compare the 2 for a sec here, I can't help but see how Drexler NOT being a psycho dickhead "competitor" hampered him. I don't think he had the full skillset like MJ had but more than that, he seemed too nice and unassuming to compete head to head with MJ.

Clyde wanted the W, loved the game, had sweet skills, but he never wanted to tear your beating heart out of your chest and hold it in front of your dying eyes, as MJ so often wished to do.

jordan is very good at knowing what to say i give him credit he is a very smooth individual at basketball and handling the media

― lag∞n, Sunday, May 3, 2020 11:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this has been 1 of my takeaways too honestly

the great thing about this SNES game is that forensic analytics show that one ever played as the blazers. 100.0% of SNES players chose to play as the bulls

https://i.imgur.com/msuf76Z.jpg

jordan is very good at knowing what to say i give him credit he is a very smooth individual at basketball and handling the media

― lag∞n, Sunday, May 3, 2020 11:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this has been 1 of my takeaways too honestly

― johnny crunch, Monday, May 4, 2020 2:39 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Seemed p comfortable talking to random kids with terminal illness/Jerry Seinfeld (who did not seem comfortable but rather extremely starstruck) too.

I guess what's getting the short shrift is his intelligence. Yes he was supremely gifted physically and had the psycho competitiveness, but it's his intelligence that allowed him to apply those 2 to maximum effect.

Yeah Jordan really seens to have made it his job to be as good at being a mega worldwide celebrity as being an athlete

obviously early he had good guidance from his mom keeping him in that lane (ie Nike meeting) which is really something you cant underrate the value of, given hardheaded young stars often don’t have, don’t ask for or don’t heed that kind of guidance. he was able to fight off the immature “i hate all this shit i just want to play” for a lot of his career pre first retirement

it’s really impressive

and granny otm

yeah obvs an astute and engaged guy and def managed to do it his way despite everyone wanting a piece of him

i do think a lot of his way was dullard a-dog mythologizing bullshit that business school guys love but a lot of that is really pushed more by tedious sportswriters than by jordan himself, and obvs he was one of the best athletes ever and somehow even more entertaining than he shouldve been had cool sneakers and radiated charisma

the gambling i find really interesting troubling

untangling his ideas about gambling addiction, say

like you don’t have to be putting up your house as collateral or depriving your family of food to be addicted. there’s such a thing as a functioning addict

and being addicted to competing feeds the gambling.

like, dude: if you can’t compete with financial stakes to get off, you MAY have a gambling addiction

*without financial stakes

calling kobe that little guy from the lakers lmao dude he literally modeled his entire existence off of you and your success wins system have some compassion

if you are rolling to Atlantic City the night before a playoff and you are using high-stakes gambling as a means to ~calm down~

... you MAY have a gambling addiction

its just betting a few hundo thou to take the edge off

#hoooboy

seems like a person with just an extremely high energy level and a lot of his life was figuring out how to channel it

Woz hustled the absolute hell out of Jordan in the third game, he got MJ to agree to book an even money payout when Jordan was nearly a 10:1 underdog.

Jordan went out to the court minutes later and beat the Celtics by 23.https://t.co/pTNnGtEq0a pic.twitter.com/aOt3mS4Y9R

— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) May 4, 2020

as an anti-gambler, I'd say he def had/has gambling addiction

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXLjQnWU4AEBg_G?format=jpg&name=small

like you don’t have to be putting up your house as collateral or depriving your family of food to be addicted. there’s such a thing as a functioning addict

one good way to be a functioning gambling addict is to have so much fucking money it's hard to blow it all

exactly!!

I can't help but see how Drexler NOT being a psycho dickhead "competitor" hampered him.

Michael was this weird blend of mental illness, astonishing physical prowess, intelligence, creativity and basketball skill that rendered him pretty much inarguably that much better than Drexler and, on any given night, better defensively and offensively than anyone on the court. The only other modern era player I thought came close to Michael's skillset and approach was Kobe. Which is not to say that, say, LeBron or Steph are "worse" than MJ; they just were playing a different game with different bodies in a different league.

MJ’s red eyes creep me out

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, April 28, 2020 10:19 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like they are *yellow*—how does that happen?

He has not aged well.

If he had been a sociopath on top of that, it wasn't going to elevate his game to MJs level!

coulda got him closer to it

but agree to disagree on this one I guess

he was p bad in 92 Finals

shouldn't say he was bad. Just pretty blah. Never exerted his will. Just a meek dude.

i always thought of Drexler's game as "elegant"

Clyde the Glide is an all time nickname

guess you'd have to also say sociopathy didn't give MJ an edge either then

xxpost horseshoe

yeah the whites of his eyes are def yellow!, but his irises look red

either way, not colors recommended for eyes

His bristly, sparse soul patch also not a good look

xp i guess the thing is that MJs sociopathy clearly did give him an edge but i see that as part and parcel of his approach to the game and it's not transferrable as a bonus. Like I wouldn't argue that Michael would've been that much more dominant if he had been a seven footer.
#80sbabythoughts

Tbf to 90s Jordan, in one of the clips from the last ep, Scottie Pippen also had a lone gold hoop earring. Looks worse on MJ, though, maybe bc he’s bald?

Is there a thread on ILH to explain why everyone hates Isiah Thomas?

start one!!!! also hi horseshoe!!!!!!!

hi m bise!!!

doug collins: “when i was coaching michael, he became the league mvp, the all-star game mvp, and defensive player of the year. now that’s greatness.”

are you talking about mj there, doug? or...

Is there a thread on ILH to explain why everyone hates Isiah Thomas?

― horseshoe, Monday, May 4, 2020 6:12 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

there are a lot of assholes in the nba but i think what sets isiah apart is hes the smarmiest person in the world, hes just fake as fuck and ppl dont like that, and then also players hated the pistons cause they played too rough and isiah was the pistons best player, is how i break it down to an extent

ty!

im sure there are also particular stories of shit he did u cld track down, if u do post them here thx

it bothers me that Isiah has a similar speaking voice to Smokey Robinson. I wish his voice was more jerk-sounding.