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

the fact that basketball stopped right be for it came out wasnt bad for it either

seriously, i wonder where it's going to go down among most-watched docs.

Those other docs better not talk shit.

def getting a serious airing

well deserved imo its really well done tbh 10eps of jordan wasnt that appealing to me but im rapt

some other 30 for 30s that people raved over i didnt really think were that good but this one is

nice to have so much raw footage from 97-98

yeah that stuffs a gold mine, and then the interviews have been great too

the bit where they give them the ipads is so good

seems like an obvious move and yet

it's brilliant. the director is def a talented guy. my spouse is not a basketball fan at all and she's been locked in every week.

yeah it stands on its own

i have a young friend, he's like idk 24, who grew up a lakers & kobe stan (he thought kobe was the GOAT, i have since talked him out of this nonsense using STATISTICS) and he is utterly enthralled by this doc. i think to him MJ was this ghost who he never got to see and the way he lorded over so much nba discussion turned the kid off, but seeing all this footage the guy is suddenly the world's biggest MJ fan which is neat to see happen

good for the youth to receive an education

prob that he's an absolute nth level degenerate gambler and competition addict can relate to mj on that primal level

i noticed today that bball-ref has some spotty mj high school stats (probably someone went out and looked at old copies of the wilmington, nc, newspaper), and lol, he apparently scored 45 pts in a jv game. maybe helps put "cut from the varsity" in context.

I feel like MJ was a dick to his teammates but it never reached any sort of level where it might impact their performance negatively. I can’t say this for, for example, Kevin Garnett

did you run this post by kwame brown?

I'm sure some of their performances were negatively affected. but kobe was worse lol

Cause Kobe thought hey if MJ was a dick to his teammates and he was the greatest ever, I'm be an even bigger dick and therefore be even greatererer!

VegemiteGrrl nice post, I mean I'm like your mom in this regard, though I rarely call my kids out on it in MJ ways when I think they're slacking, but I drive myself in the MJ way and sometimes *want* to hold others accountable when they're not putting in the same effort. I'd guess this is pretty common & is maybe what separates the "Mamba Mentality" from MJ's.

I got asked a few years to be on a panel discussion at my son's middle school, with other "successful" members of the school community, and there was a question from the moderator about who you model yourself after. the other people were like "my mom" etc & I said MJ, and explained basically what we've been talking about, about his insane drive & (kinda) his dickness & the students just went wild for the first time during the whole otherwise boring time. I looked at the other panel members like they were all Craig Ehlo and walked away.

quel balleur

it's fun seeing fat jordan and reliving some of those games but mainly for me it's that footage. most of what any of us have ever seen of jordan is SD-quality video of games.. and here comes this HD, slo-mo, pinpoint sharp, perfectly exposed footage not only of the games but the locker rooms, hotel rooms, buses - it's extraordinary

haha yeah it was in Paris! my kid's school was basically all students of African descent so I think they understand MJ in their own particular way, but my son said afterwards that they loved it.

Still have a couple of episodes to go--there's a bit of a delay in Canada.

Re Jordan's competitiveness...When that journeyman player had the great game, and Jordan made up that story where the guy said "nice game" to him so he could motivate himself via anger and revenge--which then broadened out to Jordan's habit of doing that as a matter of routine--it reminded me of a certain president whose name I won't infect this thread with, the need for a perceived enemy to function. Obviously there's a world of difference there as to the ultimate goal, but that did cross my mind.

I don't think it's that uncommon a thing--Dylan more or less operated the same way in 1965. The end result can be "Positively 4th Street," an NBA title, or making fun of a disabled reporter--depends how you use it.

I'm sure some of their performances were negatively affected. but kobe was worse lol

The footage of all the Eastern Conference All-Stars in the locker room before the All-Star game clowning on 19yo Kobe was hilarious.

i was a lil surprised they left some of the kobe-baiting stuff in considering recent events

i think that's why they plunked in the "with love" at the start

yeah it seemed appropriate

couple interesting nuggets here:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2020/05/15/the-last-dance-ahmad-rashad-reflects-covering-michael-jordan/5196625002/

my main man

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYGlBpxX0AE71NZ?format=jpg&name=small

1 - super fucking excited to see the end of this
2 - a little bummed in how much this has been cooling my basketball jones and now it's leaving

I’m kinda anticipating they skip the wizards years entirely but I really hope that’s not the case bc I find the Jordan aged and declining on a shit team thing fascinating

they gotta have a least a lil wiz in there

the spine is that film footage. might feel a little weird to go beyond it.

the conceit is paper thin, paper thin!

the people demand old jordan

I’m kinda anticipating they skip the wizards years entirely but I really hope that’s not the case bc I find the Jordan aged and declining on a shit team thing fascinating

100%. It has a King Lear quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aMsP1yBhVA

ah, that's gonna almost certainly get pulled, so for posterity:
http://i.imgur.com/BLowpAv.png

i had absolutely no idea about steve kerr's dad, how tragic

yeah jesus

dumb-looking white guy in the mj doc: did i like it when michael jordan showed up in my driveway every night to throw rocks at my nuts? i mean, at the time, i was furious. (smiling) but in retrospect, that was his way of telling me "we are in this together"

— Rajat Suresh (@rajat_suresh) May 18, 2020

lmao

great read: https://www.nba.com/pacers/news/the-chemistry-was-incredible-oral-history-1997-98-pacers-pt-1

Mark Pope, playing his rookie year for Bird

The first preseason game at home was one of the worst/greatest experiences of my entire life. Clearly in a million years I don't belong with this group, right? We're playing Cleveland. I'm playing pretty good. I haven't embarrassed myself and he doesn't check me out. Every timeout I'm thinking, "Surely he's going to put in a real player now." But he didn't.

On the last play, I inbound and clear out to the weakside. Reggie drives baseline, and as soon as he does, I'm thinking, This is not good. Reggie throws the pass and I catch the ball. Of all the people in this arena, I'm the one guy who should not be shooting this shot. I kind of peed my pants. I was wide open but I shot-faked. I shot-faked no one because there was nobody there. I actually shot-faked the air and drove middle and it rimmed out. And we lost the game.

The next day at practice I'm stretching in the corner and Coach Bird walks over to me. He's my hero, right? He says, "Hey what happened last night?" I gave him some baloney answer about thinking I could get into the lane and get a better shot. He said, "I don't blame you, I blame me. Because I should have known better than to have you in the game." It was the worst thing anybody has ever said to me.

That shit is why I lost interest in playing sports around age 12.