A sports starved populous latch like pit bulls to every story
of the “Last Dance,” of the Michael Jordan led Chicago bulls and his relationships
with his teammates. His ability to embarrass his opponents. I’d said for years
what made that era of the Chicago Bulls stand out was the number of Hall Of
Famers who didn’t win Championships because the road to the top went through
Chicago. What doesn’t get mentioned were the seasons before; What we call the Doug
Collins years. Once the Bulls started seeing success and getting close to the
NBA Finals and the difficult battles with the Detroit Pistons including when
the shamelessly stalked off the court without shaking Bulls players’ hands.
These were also years where the City of Chicago was filled with crime and corruption.
During the Bulls rise was also the rise of the Chicago Bears. Imagine two
dominant teams in one city. Certainly Chicago was the center of the sports
universe in those two sports. The White Sox had their share of characters and let’s
not forget the ’84 Cubs. The road for the Bulls was not an easy one but it was
a compelling one that the argument over who is the best is being argued not in
Chicago but everywhere else. Believe me more people watched the, “Last Dance,” outside
of Chicago than in Chicago simply because the Bulls were a force.
I can see an organization wanting to win but allowing a
player to put his hands on another player as alleged that Jordan was not afraid
to do is a step too far. With social media Jordan wouldn’t have gotten away
with it and he shouldn’t have. Nowadays players would be fined if not
suspended. And the crowd around his locker wouldn’t be because of the number of
points he scored that night. However in this time of yellow journalism there
would have to be someone crazy enough to face Michael and challenge him the way
he challenges his teammates. Of course they would have to face his vengeance
because in the end Jordan always gets his man. Possibly his notoriety would
have caught up to his fame but the fact would still remain that Jordan is the
greatest. Lebron will be the greatest of his generation but a couple of things
I’ve seen that would never have happened to Jordan: he never lost a championship
round and no other team has ever gotten into his head even when the Pistons
wrote the Jordan rules. Honestly I’m tired of hearing about the whole thing as
much as I am of hearing about the ’85 Bears. Chicago if not sports as a whole
is about what you’ve done for me lately which is why we’ll soon get tired of
hearing about the 2016 Cubs as it is looking like another 100 hundred years for
them. I don’t need to watch old video of Jordan and I can remember where I was
when they won every championship and the battles they had to face to win each
one. I’m as sports starved as the next but I was already of a mind sometimes
you don’t want to meet your hero’s.
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