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

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.

Antonio Davis: When Rik came in with his head shaved, we were so fired up. He doesn't even realize what that did for us. It was crazy. We knew...nobody wanted to shave their heads, but are you willing to do that for your team?

Rik Smits: I've never been under so much peer pressure. There were a couple of us who held out as long as we could. But, of course, we wanted to be part of what the rest of the team was doing.

Chris Mullin: One of those games was on television recently and my daughter, who wasn't born then, was like, "What's wrong with you?" I said, "Hey, I was all in." I wasn't going to Hollywood anyway.
I think my wife shaved me. I shaved my two (five- and six-year-old) sons' heads then, too. We did it together.

Rik Smits: It never did grow back the same after that. It wasn't a good look for me, I'll tell you that.

Travis Best: My hair's never grown back the same after that. I had never shaved my head bald up to that point. After that, it started thinning a little bit. I have to shave it now. I'd be looking like Bozo the Clown.

Antonio Davis: We were crazy. Gosh, we were crazy.

Rik right about it nagl for him

I was watching a game from that season recently and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize they ALL had shaved heads

Wish I could find the accurate Ron Harper clay figurine I made in fifth grade.

i also wish you could find that since i want to see it

like anatomically accurate or

It's not as if my classmates were like, "Wow, this is an exact 1:9 clay replica of Ron Harper" (we were in Pistons territory anyway), but there was some likeness past jersey specifics. A casual NBA follower could probably tell by the shoulders that it wasn't Hot Rod Williams or Brad Daugherty.

lol

“that’s the beauty of the game. 1.1 seconds to get off the last shot, everybody holding their breath. it’s kinda cute.”

lol so much in here. he’s right. it is silly, it is tense, it is beautiful. but if he’d hit it i doubt “cute” is the word he’d use. he didn’t hit it so he’s mocking us for caring so much.

hahaha oh man

“... and the Bulls began to rebuild.”

what a dagger

#gutpunch

what do we do now guys ;_;

hold up🎶

wait a minute🎶

In case you needed even more 1990s Bulls content, ESPN will be airing a cinematic production of Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals on Wednesdayhttps://t.co/ntEjvHT0kF

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 18, 2020

nice!

I just searched ESPN on demand for the Warriors-Cavs game and it turns out there is actually a World Cornhole Championship and it is pretty intense

thank you pandemic

If I'm not mistaken one of the competitors is legit holding a weighted cylinder in his non-throwing hand in lieu of a beer can

HISSNER/HENDERSON look unstoppable right now

ughhh i hate Cornhole

Reminds me of white frat dudes coming to Raider tailgates with their cornhole games & horseshoes & beer pong & it’s like gtfo with yr East Coast college tailgate you fuckin nerds we out here DRINKING & SITTING & SNACKING dont fuck shit up with your activities

lol

Thought cornhole was a Midwestern thing. The name of it at least. "Bags" if you're an uppity Atlantic seaboard frat guy.

this is an aside but i have few tailgating stories so i'll share this one--many years ago i attended an offseason friendly match featuring celtic fc vs. liverpool in connecticut. i went with my friend and his brother who were both hardcore celtic supporters and hardcore liverpool haters (as they also supported everton in the premier league). i had no emotional stakes in any of this, just wanted to have a nice time.

so we show up to the stadium and park next to these liverpool fans who have a beautiful setup, with grills and a bunch of meats and tasty-looking things. because we are dirtbags barely removed from college the only thing we have is an 18-pack of coors light. the disparity is obvious to anyone looking. the liverpool fans are very nice and ask us if we want any food, but we are obligated to reject them and sullenly drink coors light. i have no idea what we actually ate or even if we did eat. anyway, the evening progressed from there.

shoutout to deadbeats who are invited to tailgates and bring a 12 pack of crappy fuckin budweiser clamato beer, and then drink all your good beer

back on topic with an actual question i have

do you think any athlete has ever suffered champagne-blindness

also: i have a much deeper appreciation for MJ as a player despite going through my teens and 20s knowing and seeing him as the GOAT

seeing it close up & hearing him talk about hiw own playing really blew my idea of him wide open

his brain was just working non stop!

In 1998 I sent Michael Jordan an advanced copy of my “From the Soul of Man” album. Who knew “Days Like This” was his pre-game hype song though. 😆 #TheLastDance #RealR&B

— Kenny Lattimore (@kennylattimore) May 18, 2020

Michael Jordan’s daughter lol 😂 pic.twitter.com/geTP7Zial9

— @executiveschair (@executiveschair) May 19, 2020

Bet he's looking forward to the upcoming Kem album.

The NBA will do one as it will get hyped huge , but he f-in Kobe/Shaq Lakers don't deserve a documentary like this one. That team got so many wins by screwed up calls, people literally thought the NBA was having the refs throw down the game. The worst was the couple against the Kings, but there was wack calls in the Portland and Indiana series too.

That crap and the phantom fouls the Knicks got against the Pacers pretty much when I checked out following the NBA on any regular basis.

I will go to my grave thinking the league office was in the sack with those lakers teams and literally nothing can convince me otherwise salut

From the beginning it was clear that the series was leading up to The Shot but once we got there I was underwhelmed. Maybe because we’d seen so many other actual buzzer-beaters with more of a backstory to them - Jordan dishing to Paxson to win “the right way”, Kerr’s shot that established him as a postseason rock, Kukoc’s shot that Pippen thought should have been his, etc. Or maybe I’m just irritated at the likes of Costas mythologizing this shit in real time during the broadcast.

xp 4 ever. portland and sacto both got mugged by the refs.

nothing was more satisfying than the pistons wiping the floor with the lakers in 03, greatest feeling of comeuppance in my life probably? Danced all damn night

everyone picked the lakers and then they just got freakin housed lmao