We’ll be more than halfway done with the Michael Jordan Documentary by the time you read this article. If you need a refresher, I have episodes 1 & 2 review right here, and here is the episode 3 & 4 review.
Great, I’m already crying. I knew as soon as I saw Kobe, I was going to cry. I loved Kobe, I was heartbroken when his tragic death happened. Kobe tells his fans that without MJ, there are no 5 championships, which is entirely true.
This episode seems to go into his Nike deal, which almost didn’t happen, if it wasn’t for his parents. His shoes sold for 126 million in his first year….in the 80’s! Due to inflation now, that’s way more than whatever shoe is selling now. Shoes were only made for playing basketball, now they were a fashion statement. Michael Jordan was so good, they couldn’t fathom it, they say” It’s gotta be the shoes!”
We finally got to the famous “The Shrug” Game. This game was the 1st game of the 1992 NBA Finals. He busted Clyde Drexler’s ass night in and night out. They ended up winning in 6 games and Michael Jordan was, of course, the Finals MVP. Almost immediately after the Finals, the Olympics have finally allowed professional athletes from the United States. I’ve always known that Isiah Thomas and MJ had their differences, but Isiah Thomas was a dawg and didn’t take any shit, he fought with Magic, Bird and Michael Jordan, there’s just a lot of bad blood on there. That seems to be the reason Thomas wasn’t on the memorable 1992 USA Olympic “Dream Team.”
I still wish I could just watch full footage of that infamous basketball practice scrimmage of the “Dream Team” That is literal basketball gold. There was also some Bulls drama during the Olympics with the Croatian powerhouse led by Toni Kukoc. Jerry Krause literally wanted to eat Toni Kukoc’s ass and MJ and Pippen took offense to that. So, they smother Toni Kukoc in the first game against Croatia, and they win by 33 led by a terrible game by Toni. They play about a week later and Toni had a better game, but Croatia still lost by 32 points.
Episode 6: Michael Jordan Documentary
Michael Jordan talks about the constant media attention that he has to face day-in and day-out. They started talking about the NBA Eastern Conference Finals when the Bulls played the Knicks. The Knicks were physical, they played almost like the Bad Boy Pistons and wanted the physicality. The Knicks were winning 2-0.
This episode starts to dive into his undiagnosed “gambling addiction.” He did like to gamble, he was very competitive, these are things we know, but let’s not blow it out of proportion. See, with people that don’t understand with gambling, is that you win and you lose, and you lose a lot more than you win. I go to the casino to play Texas Hold’em with $200, and I plan on losing that $200. No big deal, I didn’t take more money out, I had my fun and I go on. Michael Jordan gambled, a lot, but if he truly had a gambling addiction, he would have gone broke. He made some bets more than he probably shouldn’t have, including one that was 1.2 million. That’s a shit ton of money, but to Michael Jordan, how much really is that? 3,000 to us might be 1.2 million to him. A lot of this speculation came about when he went to a casino the night before of game 2 of this Eastern Conference Finals, a game they lost. When it came to game 3, Michael Jordan had to have them shut the hell up and let him do what he did best: Basketball.
He proceeded to beat the Knicks in games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals by 20 points each. So, now it is game 5, the Bulls are up 1 point, and it is the Knicks ball, they had arguably the best defense sequence of all time, denying the ball going into the hoop multiple times. They ended up winning the series in 6 games, 4 wins straight.
In the NBA Finals, they played the league-best record Phoenix Suns, led by MVP that year Charles Barkley. The Suns lost both games 1 and 2. Charles Barkley said he played the basketball he could have in game 2, and Michael Jordan outplayed him. The Suns did win a game 3 thriller, with that game going into triple Overtime. It didn’t matter though, the Bulls won game 4. When all hope seemed lost for the Suns, they got mad that the city of Chicago was already celebrating a title. This motivated the Suns to win game 5. But classic Michael Jordan, he told the team “I’m only packing one suit, cause we’re not playing two games there.” And they didn’t. Stay with us next week for another continuance of the Michael Jordan Documentary “The Last Dance.”
