Instant Reactions to The Last Dance Episodes 1-2 | The Ringer NBA Show


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The money goes directly to world central kitchen and its charitable donation once again. That's the ringer dot com slash W. C. K. Hello and welcome to the show. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer. Dot Com and joining me. From Ithaca six feet tall. John GotTa see loud. The first of what will be many goose bumps on this podcast. Chris Ryan what's up man? We are here to talk about the first two episodes of the last dance on this special episode of the rare NBA. Show Sean and I have been talking for a little while about how to cover this. This ten part Michael Jordan documentary that's airing on ESPN and will eventually be a net flicks and We decided we recap these first two episodes and have a larger conversation about the documentary and Jordan's cultural and athletic impact. Obviously mostly because this is. This is what we got. This is sports right now. You can feel it on twitter. I would say you could feel it out on the streets but the only people out on the streets are just joggers. Walking by and face masks but to ask them. What are you doing this weekend? I think they would've said I can't wait to watch this Michael Jordan documentary. It feels like it's replacing both peak prime time. Tv Prestige TV for people and also sports. Sean how are you feeling in the days leading up to like the anticipation leading to this Jordan documentary? Well see it in two lights right. I see it as a person who is responsible for figuring out what to do in terms of covering sports and pop culture in my professional setting and in that respect it's immensely important and between the NFL draft at has been where most of our energy has gone over the last couple of weeks and where it will be the next six weeks. I imagine but as a person I have an immensely complicated relationship with Michael Jordan. I am in awe and wonderment. At his greatness I loved watching him play and he also he hurt me. I mean he really as a as a sincere Knicks Fan Chris you as a also in the Atlantic Division sixers fan. I think had your heartbroken especially I mean the the greatest moments in Knicks history in my lifetime are also the worst ones because they were at their very best when Jordan was also at his very best. So it's with some amount of frustration and resentment but also just abject excitement to be teleported back to that moment with the movie and and you know how I feel about movies Chris yes so. Let's do a little bit of background. I on the movie because it's directed by Jason it comes from ESPN and is being presented as in fashion. I think kind of like I. I wouldn't say that they are going as as high as like being like the OJ documentary like it doesn't seem like they're they're necessarily putting this forward for like awards consideration right now. I think that that could come. But it is obviously something that they've invested a ton of time and money into an are looking at as like the trophy of their of their non scripted. Docks of of the like the last couple of years pretty much since. Oj No question. Full disclosure the director of the series is Jason Hare the producer of the series. Is Mike Tolan to friends of the Ringer? You know? Jason directed the Andre The giant film. That rang films made for HBO. So just want to make sure that that's out front. But I think you're right. I think this is a miniseries event. That is very unusual for ESPN and it does come bearing the burden a little bit of Oj. This has been a movie that you. I'm sure listeners of this podcast and and others on the ringer network will know that bill had been wanting to do a Michael Jordan documentary for many years. The rumors of this footage from this final season It was understood that have been floating in the world and trying to find a way to compel the participants to get involved had been a long discussed in documentary circles and it is prestigious but it is also candy. You know it does. Actually I think the one of the things that makes it works so well. I'm sure we'll talk about it in depth but particularly the fact that it isn't weighed down with a lot of sociocultural heaviness is part of what makes it so fun. It has ideas it's interesting it's very well made and very repulsive and compelling but it doesn't feel like you've had a eight hundred page book drop to your doorstep it feels like returning to a two hundred page book the You love. Yeah and I would say that the thing that you get you immediately get as you get into this documentary within about fifteen minutes is the sense that they are gonNA painstakingly. Recreate this last season from the offseason on and I mean every few days they're going to do. They have footage from every single game every single practice every single trip to Paris. Every single off season event that they held And the way in which that they essentially recreate a season. I found to be actually so what I needed right now. It was such a a reward because I obviously missed the action of sports. I miss the daily routine of sports but I think what I also misses like somebody who was written about sports and talked about it for most of his life at this point is the narrative in the context around a season and the idea of following a team and while I'm obviously very familiar with what happened in the ninety seven ninety eight season. I obviously don't remember like them playing the Clippers on the road you know. And it's like that that level of detail and also the level of recall that the talking heads seem to have for every single nuanced moment. It's essentially a time machine so I think that and we'll be talking about the first two episodes which aired tonight and the first episode focuses on sort of the rise of Jordan his collegiate career as a sort of background to what's happening in that ninety seven ninety eight season and then in the second episode. There's a big focus on Scottie. Pippen and his role as rob into to Jordan's Batman. But I found something really fascinating about this. That probably isn't a surprise to people who follow basketball closely. And you have been as much a participant and observer of this as anybody in the last ten years where the the. The heavy interest in the sport of basketball has shifted. Not just from what happens on the court but to the machinations of the game are and this movie certainly has James Worthy talking about the nineteen eighty-two ncw championships. That's great stuff. You can find that on TV everyday. There is content like that constantly where you're seeing. Great players talk about great moments in their careers observing the greatness of other players and having that recall of play an amazing shot etcetera etcetera. The thing about this movie is there are long stretches of it in which it is primarily about Jerry Krause Jerry Reinsdorf and Phil Jackson's ability to acquire players draft players manage players Egos. That's the sort of stuff that is pretty uncommon. You're not likely to see nearly as much of that in those kinds of classical depictions of NBA history on channels owned by the you know owned by the League so I was captivated as much by the kind of free agency. Acquisition wheeler-dealer off court stuff. And that's before we've even gotten to the kind of economic rise of Jordan as a social figure. You know the the sneaker magnate and all this stuff that I'm sure it's going to be coming very soon on on this series so a really. Kinda has something for modern fans. It has something for fans who were there when they wanted it and it does have this extraordinary amount of detail. You're right and it's so crucial that they're telling it in this kind of dual structure where they're going minute by minute through the ninety seven ninety eight season and then using that as like a platform to do these flashbacks as you said to. North Carolina in the first episode into a lot of Scottie. Pippen's background in Arkansas. In the second episode. But it's I think really key that this doc granted a lot of it is based on this found footage that they had are this footage. That had been long rumored to exist this last season. But we're catching the end of the dynasty. You know this is a fall not necessarily rise. Obviously we know how it ends but I think it makes for so much more compelling viewing to tell these back stories and these flashbacks through the Lens of then it. All kind of was coming to an end than it is to be like. Here's how Michael Jordan brought together. Steve Curved Scottie Pippen Phil Jackson and they became the team of the nineties. I mean it's a really slick storytelling technique. Yeah one of the most resonant moments for me in the whole first two episodes was the the moment when Michael Jordan learns that Scottie. Pippen has demanded a trade request and Jordan is surrounded by reporters and reporter directly asked him. What's your response to that? And Jordan gives a non answer he says. I really don't have anything to say about that. But the look on his face is extraordinary and it is a reflection of what you're describing it is. This is the end. They know it's the end. Yeah and what an extraordinary circumstance in professional sports imagine if before the last warriors season Kevin Durant came forward and said this is my last season with the Warriors. We will win the title. Were all together one last time. I WANNA do together as opposed to well. You don't just focus on the season. I just want to see how this plays out. I'm really focused on right now playing with my teammates and focusing on improving as a player you know there was a there was a known quantity aspect to this being the end of what they were doing together publicly which is people are so unwilling to kind of share that pursuit with like we didn't get it this year in front of The New England patriots season. Yeah now even say that while you're -nology is really good. It doesn't necessarily speak to the level of which people were. There was like people who liked the sixers or the pacers or the Knicks. Or the Lakers. And then there were Michael Jordan fans and so you have understand that this kind of transcended NBA fandom in general the Patriots. So many people hated the Patriots. So many people didn't care about the Patriots. Because Tom Brady was under fantasy team they were Jaguars fans or something like that. But you're right to imagine Bella check doing a press conference where he was like. This will be Tom. Brady's last season for the New England patriots like we would like skip. Bayless would have just lit himself on fire on camera. It would have been. It would have been absurd. And you're right that it doesn't even speak to the power of Jordan which I don't know I mean can we talk a little bit about the specter of Jordan and I think especially specifically working professionally and increasingly. We're spending more and more time working with people who were either not alive for the height of Jordan's fame and success or people who have have had really tracked their NBA Fandom by the Lebron Generation. And the way that Lebron has completely overtaken the sport and redefined the sport and this uneasy divide for anybody who sort of I I would say. It's thirty four thirty five and under and then thirty four an up and that is really the you have to choose your choose your fighter in a sense between Jordan and Lebron like what that tension has been like you've added a thousands of MBA pieces. Like what do you make of The way that Jordan's depicted here does it kind of live up to how just overwhelming. He was as as a sports and cultural figure. I think that for as much as it speaks to a different time in the sport itself in terms of how it was played in terms of the way that a lot of teams orient themselves around one player to be like the kind of bear a lot of the wait for the offense what it really speaks to his Just what a sea change. This game has gone under psychologically and perception wise Lebron for as hostile as he may or may not be at certain times for as much as cutthroat he can be about rebuilding teams that he's honored demanding that certain personnel moves be made or not. I don't think it compares at all. It's at the stuff you see from Jordan. And how on Front Street? He was about the only thing that really mattered to him was not just winning but dominating and his pursuit of that was something that I think was like. I at times made basketball difficult to love for me in the nineties. Like you were saying like it didn't seem really up for debate. Whether or not they would win the title. Every year I really didn't. And it Kinda snuffed out a little bit of the passion or a little at least a little bit of the the surprise that can come sometimes come with sporting events you just knew that at the end of the day. This guy was going to put the opposing team in a sleeper. Hold I think you and I have a little bit of a different philosophy about this. When it comes to sports I tend to be a fan of dynasties I tend to be a fan of dominant figures. Not In terms of like my rooting interest per se. But sort of what they mean for the sport and whether they keep the sport on rails you could make the case obviously that burden magic set the NBA trajectory to become a hugely important sport in America and then Jordan essentially completed the alleyoop he his his six titles and his reign with the with the bowls. Set the league on a course that I don't think anybody's all coming in the seventies or sense that it could even it could even happen as a fan as as a kid really. It was demoralizing. I mean it was just straight up punishing. I I was just listening to the low post with Mike Breen earlier this week and Breen recalling the Charles Smith game and the way that those Bulls Games just terrorized my memory of the sport and yet I mean that's really where my phantom was fortified in a way now that those teams were big part of that and they were very. They were a significant team of the era. The sixers were not really as at that time. I feel there were some really good. Barkley teams obviously coming out of the irving the dock era of eighty-three of the peaks and eighty three. But I think it was more just like I loved basketball and more. I was very much a part of the cultural moment that was happening between the NBA. And the rise of HIP hop. And I think that this documentary does a nice job of playing specific hip hop for different eras of Jordan. Highlights playing Eric being rock'em for that first rookie season is really cool. But Jordan I loved Jordan more as the guy in the Mars blackmon commercials than I did as a basketball player. Who The sixers. Sometimes to get decapitated by your. We're GONNA have to see if the movie tries to delineate those two. Jordan's how how self aware. How conscious will it be because it does seem like it will be very? Varney garnished were definitely GonNa get some raw and complicated conversations about things that Jordan has done. I suspect they'll get into the Republicans. Buy Sneakers to controversies. I think that obviously the murder of his father is a tragic. Event is decision to leave the game and go play. Minor League Baseball. There's all kinds of controversy surrounding his career but he does have this almost like intellectual. Duality where he is the ultimate pitch man the ultimate you know your hero and your friend and simultaneously that thing that you were describing a few minutes ago which is just as vicious. Almost deliriously competitive person. Who would spare no expense to cut your throat and those two things don't wash their so in opposition to each other and he yet somehow manage to marry those two personas together to create kind of the ultimate famous person the ultimate athlete and I- Lebron for all of his extraordinary achievements. I love watching him play off him just like so many other people I feel like I have too much access to what's in his head. I feel like I'm too much access. Process. I always. I often think about the way. He got raked over the coals for just being friends with rival players. You know like having having a friendship with Carmelo and Chris Paul and how that seemed like somehow I don't know like a disparagement of the competitive nature of the nineteen nineties. Well there's also the I think a big thing that that is a theme of the last dance is the idea of Jordan almost taking it as a personal challenge to win with people. He has around him because at this point in the in the ninety seven ninety eight season in the summer before that season. Scotty Pippin Alexa Ankle surgery which they get into a lot in season two episode to any because he doesn't want to He waits to get his surgery because he doesn't WANNA fuck summer up basically so he wants to be able to enjoy the summer without having to Rehab and then he gets surgery closer to the start of the season so that he misses the first few months of the ninety seven. Ninety eight season obviously also requested trade somewhere in there and Jordan's forced to play with Ron Harper Luc. Longley Toni Kukoc Bill. Wennington Steve Kerr decent role players. But certainly nobody on par with Scottie. Pippen and I'm not gonNA say that Lebron would like shirk from that but like shy away from that challenge or something I mean. Lebron has played with some pretty crappy teams. But I think that when you get people who are like I think Lebron's incredible Lebron's one of the great probably the greatest athlete I've ever seen in my lifetime. I think he is better athletes than Jordan. I think he's does things on the court. I've never seen anybody do. Lebron did change teams several times. You know the Lebron definitely was like I need to be in a situation whether it's a different infrastructure or a different personnel grouping and I need to start the clock over again and it's not really I'm not saying one is better than the other but when you watch Jordan destroy guys in the second episode of this show And or and just screaming guys about about their behavior. It's kind of hard to imagine Lebron sticking out in Cleveland and like yelling at Booby Gibson for years. You know what I mean I do. I think it's not over the top to say that there is a clear generational. Divide here and specifically I noticed this so much in the modern day in the present day conversations that Jordan is having in this film he consistently to the idea of the team. And what's right for the team? And there's an interesting back and forth about The comments that Jerry Krause made about how players don't win titles and coaches don't win titles organizations do and then there's some sort of examination of what he actually meant when he said that. And whether he was misquoted or not but Jordan is is is he identifies. The players are the most important part of winning a title but then he also consistently returns to this almost like military attitude about the equality and the necessity of being together on a team. It contrasts with his personal view of his own dominance. But it's not something. It feels like a remnant of another era. It feels like there is. There is obviously been a lot of conversation the last five years about player empowerment and getting out of circumstances to better your own circumstance to get more money to get more opportunities to win to play with your friends all of that make sense in the in the present context and the way that NBA owners treat their players. This is a slightly different time but Michael Jordan's view seem so old fashioned and so you not conservative in the political sense but conservative cod like an intellectual way where he just couldn't imagine leaving the Bolsa go play for another team during that nineteen eighty four to nineteen ninety eight period and yet at times. They just really didn't take care of teammates. They didn't manage the team effectively. They do go out and acquire horace grant and Scottie Pippen and during the first run they do go out and acquire Dennis Rodman during the second run but also the way that Scotty is treated as a reflection on how Jordan's GonNa feel about the prospect of trying to win a title. It's it's a fascinating Jordan's samples is Oakley. And he's like I liked Oakley but bill cartwright was the right choice. Yeah that's the same thing in terms of analyzing the way that these teams are built in the personnel stuff. I mean I wish that okay. Got a chance to address that specific concern. I found interesting that he was interviewed here but also was not did not talk about getting traded away from those both teams and getting traded to those next teams which never got over the hump against those both teams. What a sliding doors moment for him. Yeah absolutely why? Don't we go through? I basically have some like categories that we can run through somewhat re watchable style and we can just group the two episodes together I wanted to talk a little bit about. I mean the thing that I really got from this. I went into this with like the same kind of cynicism or skepticism that I think any anybody age does which is like what. What else is there to learn about Michael Jordan? And what else is there to learn about ninety basketball and I think that this thing is a goose but machine like I start this. I started this this episode of the first episode and I was like well. I know what I'm doing for the next couple of weeks. I know I'm spending my time. I know what I'm going to be thinking about. I found that the hair on the back of my neck stood up multiple times. But I wanted to ask YOU SEAN. For the first episode. What was your big goose bump moment? I think it's probably the shot. Nine hundred eighty two shot and the recollection of the shot and the sense that the stakes of college basketball were so high. That was as the Falcons in so important. And doesn't that feel like a million years ago and it's just so incredible to watch worthy and ewing have instant recall for that for reversing the play to get the ball to Jordan for the shot. It had completely I completely forgotten to the Roy. Williams was an assistant coach on that team hanging there. And you have to be able to talk about. Mj and being so close to Mj. And I don't know what do you think about this idea that sometimes in the aftermath players opponents will over sell excellence of those opponents in an effort to seem more special that they're they're a period was more was more essential. Like do you think that somehow like legacy grows too big when you look back in a format like this. Yeah I mean I think. That's that's inevitable. I think whenever you're asking if I were to talk about one another. I think that we would necessarily inflate the importance of the two of us because of the after the act of recounting that story. You know what I mean. Greatest podcast of all time. Chris Ryan the One. I was sitting there and Chris was on wordpress paragraph. And then we'd cut away and then they mail room it would be like John. Paragraph was amazing No I think your point is well taken. But I don't I then encounter to that. I offer up the sixty thousand people at the new New Orleans Super Watching Patrick Ewing James Worthy and Michael Jordan playing national championship game. It's just you get the feeling and look like I'm all for. I think the college basketball like everybody else is essentially like an unfair sham but the importance of college basketball and people's lives back then and up through. I don't know like the the late. Ninety S is pretty. It's it can't be overstated like the the way in which that would capture captured the imagination. And what a run for college hoops back. Then we had the North Carolina teams in the early eighty s that Villanova team a couple years later the presence of Georgetown as both like a thing people cheer for but hated in. Unlv and then Michigan. I mean what a time you know what I mean. What a great fifteen twenty years. There was a huge part of my life. I've talked about it before I'm pods but I was it alumni hall eight ten times a year watching Saint John's Games. It was just a really big part of my preteen and teen teenage years and it does feel very far away and moments like this are interesting too. Because Jordan was I think he's a freshman in the eighty two season and was not a highly highly touted recruit. He was a good recruit but not a highly touted guy. And there's that incredible worthy moment when he talks about how he was better than Jordan for like two hours. You know the fact that this was a person who part of the myth making going on in this series is his dogged determined them to be the best and there is so such a kind of fascinating like bootstraps. Your mind is more powerful than your body aspect to the Jordan story and it really feels like it starts here like. Here's the moment when he's like you know what I'm GonNa take the shot. I'm the best player. I'm the most important person here and I'm GonNa make it and then I'm GonNa build my my legend through this moment and so much of this stuff in this film I can tell us some of it's going to be tragic and some of it's going to be frustrating but so much of it is just GonNa be like the extraordinary willpower of Michael Jordan to make things happen and this is the this is like the native incident. My Meigs moment for the first episode was The first playing of of serious. The Alan Parsons Project. Song which served as the the Bulls interim music and they play it as the Bulls are a going on court in Paris during an exhibition game. And and you know you WANNA watch preseason basketball. You see a lot of these exhibition. Games are just. They're really stupid. There's nobody is trying. You know what I mean like their Dick Players. Don't want to be there It showed to me first of all just that song. You're just like Oh yeah from North Carolina. Six six but it's also like the circus the rolling the travelling circus. That was the bulls in the late nineties. And you know like we went through. Probably a little bit more consciously with heels with the Miami Heat team when Lebron Wade in bossier together and the idea that every team every city the day visited became like the epicenter of sports for that but just to see just to see the international appeal of the team and to see them. I run out when they get the rings at the end of the at the end of the episode to get the and the music is playing in just like the theatricality of that team really came through. It's a great call the other thing you already kind of mentioned that Eropean Rocky. I ain't no joke is used in the early stages of Jordan's Jordan's NBA career. And that highlight reel is is mind blowing. Like watching him his athleticism against everybody else on the court is is so wild. And there's a couple of moments with Sydney moncrieff the box. Talking about what it was like to face Jordan in the NBA. In those early days and this kind of goes to that. Like how you talk about your time in the League and whether or not it was the most important time but moncrieff who is one of the most elite defenders in NBA history to time defensive player of the year and a good offensive player in his own. Right is helpless. This guy was the best like I was. Just the best thing I've ever seen like there was nothing I could do to stop him. Which you know. That's pretty powerful. You know that's like saying I don't know what to do with Kevin Durant like I don't know how to guard him you know that's it's just. It's it's very uncommon here here here. Players talk that way about their opposition. Yeah and just the idea that I love the specificity of identifying like Jordan being like the bucks always beat us and like they wanted me. You know they were losing and all the guys on the team or quitting you. See like Orlando Woolridge Rod Higgins and everybody and German was like we're not using like I'm losing again and that was the thing that he had that only like maybe eight ten people like him in. The history of sports really had that like. If I am here the expectation is that we win this game. It's Bill Simmons. I just wanted to make sure you're listening to podcast on spotify. Your say do it. I search for your favorite podcasts. On spotify is apple. Have a library of over. Seven hundred fifty thousand podcasts. At this point. So let's say you're searching for the Bill Simmons podcast Rewatch ables. Dave chappelle binge voted the ringer. Nfl show once you find them. Click on the follow. But that's as scribe then. Click on those letters near the top of the APP. That say podcasts. You can't miss it all the PODCASTS. You're following will pop up. Separated by episodes download shows wait. It gets better on spotify. You can adjust the speed of the pods to seven. Different speeds zero point five. Times is the slowest actually sound drunk. Zero Point Five looseness. Yeah you can get drunk bill. You can also do zero point eight times one point two times as favorite ever and sounds like that. Good Cup coffee. You can do one point five times. You could do two times and if you're completely insane you three times. Here's a bat. Sounds like six. Why would you do that? I think that's how we communicate with aliens anyway. Spotify ZAP connects directly to many of the best automobiles in the world. It even as carplay feature. That's pretty cool. It's really really good. Best it's free download spotify any device and you are good to go look. I don't WANNA option. You should actually be embarrassed if you're not listen to podcasts spotify. And if you don't believe me this drug bill and zero point five speed six. Tell drug bill the Bill Simmons. Podcast listen on spotify. What did you think about the way that they portrayed? Eighty four draft. I thought it was really interesting. It's cool to go back to it. It's obviously one of the great. What IFS OF NBA History? Not Mike. After it's nice it's kind of funny that even now some of the talking heads all the talking heads they talked to you. It's like you take Keam ten times out of ten. You know there's no there's no revisionist history about him going number one to Houston. Obviously the buoy over Jordan has been memorialized as one of the great mistakes IT NBA History. And just to have all that all those guys being like. Yeah well you can't take a six six guy that's crazy you know it's like that kind of guy can't be the best player on your team and so that that going back and watching market and be like well. This person's can't possibly make a difference. What did you think did you? Did you get a lot of good Rod Thorn Time In this episode? There was some solid Rod Thornton who you know frankly just lucked into Michael Jordan. I mean I don't know what else to say about that Tough look for Clyde Frazier saying a guard can't be the most dominant player on a team right at the advent of complete drexler. So why would you also need Michael Jordan? Yeah I you know. That's that's tough footnote in Clyde's career. Who's obviously hall of? Famer great player one of the great two guards of all time. But it's funny like that's an example of a story that unlike some of the other stories. We're going to see in this film. I know really well and I've read about a lot and you know bill in his book has written about it and it's it's been talked about over and over again and still I find. We're doing it with redraft. Ables I find the alternate histories of drafts. So compelling I actually could have just gone for an entire episode dedicated to that But then the other aspect of a two that I thought was fascinating was the presence of Larry Bird and magic and the way that they talked about. Mj and I suspect we'll get more of that. But you know that series between the Celtics and the Bulls. Yeah in you know where Jordan goes for a hundred and ten points over two nights is I definitely watch that and was a kid watching it and just remember having just just my brain melting watching Jordan go for sixty eight L? Did too yeah. Yeah Oh my God. Can we talk about Jordan the Golfer? Yeah let's say I would say that you know we. We can say our goose bump moments for episode two. I had mine was Jordan yelling at dudes in practice just because one of the things that gave me goosebumps. It was like we remember from a couple years ago. When Kobe Bryant cursed out the entire leakers team. It was like screaming at Mitch like like about. It was a waste of his time. It was almost uncanny how much mimicked what. Jordan was yelling at the players on the practice court in the in the second episode. So that was my goosebumps but was your was your goose bowman in the second episode. The the Celtics series. Yeah it was either that or yeah yeah it was probably that it was probably just bird genuflecting at the Jordan alter and in both in in present day and then also that locker interview where he's just like he's the best player in the League. He's most talented player in the league. Imagine Larry Bird saying that about you if you've only been in the league for six years and he is one of the five greatest players of all time at that point I don't know it's it's pretty. That's the first part of the movie that I have specific memories about. I'm thirty seven. So that's early nineties yet. And that's really what I have a consciousness as an NBA fan so it was exciting to be drawn back into that moment. Was something from the first episode. Where you did you like. I did not know that like you were like. This is a genuinely like new piece of information or a new piece of insight. I mean you made a note about this. But I just didn't realize that the Bulls in Nineteen eighty-five were just a bunch of drug lords. Like that was quite a revelation and George Jordan's teetotaler identity is kind of interesting because in this movie he shot you know with a glass of Hennessy. At his side. The whole time I mean Jordan. Now we know likes to smoke cigars. He likes to drink. He likes to likes to Taiwan on from time to time and to to think of him as this sort of innocent body temple. Teenager is hilarious. I you know there's still so much untold about early eighties and late Seventies. Nba Illegal. Ever hear about it yeah. I think that's read. It seemed like candidates the NBA was willing to get about it. I mean the the moment where the interviewer offscreen tells Michael Jordan in there was an article about the mid Eighties Bulls. That called them the Bulls traveling cocaine circus and Jordan just like cackles for like eight seconds and then goes I never read that article and like but then he tells that vivid story about knocking on the hotel room door actually. It wasn't as much a body as temple thing as much as he was like. If I get if if this gets place gets raided I get in as much trouble as all the guys doing coke. It was a business decision. Some ways it's a good point. You're right that is that's that was the calculus that he was doing As far as the stuff. I you alluded to this. But as far as the stuff I did not know from the second episode. It was definitely off-day golf with Danny Ainge. That's like you golfing with the hosts of pardon. My Take I think it's me before Sunday. Night podcast showdown could. Could you picture it I could? Yeah we're definitely putting up the same numbers so No Yeah of course it's Jordan as the ultra competitor. You don't really think of him as hanging out with the opposition very much but even in this context. It was obvious that they're they're playing for a lot of money at that. There was a Lotta Shit talking going on. And just the fact that Jordan getting dropped off and telling the rest of the van like telling age and whoever else is in the car tell Dj. I got something for him tomorrow night and then he did run. We'll awesome you. Think Jordan's a good hang. I think if you're like in with him it's elite. I think if you were just like on the outside of it and he doesn't necessarily know a respect you. I think you're in for a long night. I have to admit that Jordan would treat me more like Jerry Krause than Charles Oakley. You know what I mean. I do a lot of ball. Busting a Lotta. Like what are you doing here? He would take a lot of my money. You get me really fucked up getting really drunk. Speaking of one of my favorite parts of this second episode is Jerry Reinsdorf consistently going over the top Jerry Krause to like lightly dunk on him despite employing him for fifteen years. Yeah specifically resigning Phil Jackson to a one year contract. Which again is just that. The present day stuff is so interesting because the figures by that time or so fraught and they're so like in. The consciousness is famous people the stuff in the early eighties. They seem like little kids. But by the time you get ninety seven ninety eight and there's you know the was Jerry Krause kids wet. His stepdaughters wedding inflates. He invites everybody around the team including Tim. Floyd who is then the Iowa state coach to this wedding except Phil Jackson and Reinsdorf and this is a good segue because I wanted to ask about talking head. Mvp's REINSDORF says something. Basically like I would do anything not to get invited to a wedding. He's like guy later today to a wedding. I would be so excited but apparently this is a bad thing to not invite Phil Yeah REINSDORF comes through with a couple of times over the first two episodes of some very droll observations and as a real throwback to the pre hedge fund bro and the owner of like local business titan. Usually just absolutely loathed locally. You know like nobody was hated. Like the guy who had fifteen car lots like car dealerships and also owned the hockey team. Yeah he is a throwback. I mean he's still he still. They're still you know he and his family are still in charge but he he did keep that team together for the most part. I mean yeah did he. Didn't he didn't pull the mets trade. Tom Seaver you know like he didn't Trade Scottie Pippen. He didn't not resign. Phil Jackson to that contract I know that chicagoans have a complicated relationship with the REINSDORF's but I mean he did in effect put that team in a position to win six titles in nine years. And frankly they you know they probably wouldn't have one nine and nine years as as bill in Phila- pointed last week because of just how difficult it would have been. Keep that machine rolling for all that time but I mean the other thing that's cool about it is obviously people like Mike Wilpon who is from Chicago and who has a famed relationship and isn't ESPN figure but you also get talented. Her and Sam Smith and you get this generation of newspaper writers who were there then. Yes and Smith used I mean. There's a great shot of Jackson talking to Pete Vesey some bureau of him doing like what was obviously like a an NBC NBA interview. I guess 'cause that's Vesey used to come on and do kind of interstitial on the NBC coverage but you know the intimacy that these beat writers had and Sam Smith obviously knows what the pippen perspective pippen deals would have been like he. He's so keyed in and you know krause like talk. I mean one of the big things like it's a real shame. That krause isn't in this dock. They didn't live to be in this doc. Put in a weird way. His presence in it is kind of this interesting kind of ghosts in the machine you know. I think you can't overlook the fact that people were so much more open about talking to the media at this at twenty five thirty years ago like there's just there was so much more access and it's not that level of access where you could sit in the locker room for forty five minutes and then go to a two hour dinner necessarily with players like in the seventies but even in the late nineties. I mean Sam Smith could pick up the phone and call any of these people. Yeah and ask them what was going on. I mean that's just that's just not something that happens now and there was a level of respect and openness around the time that was really powerful and it also just makes for great gossip more information. They had more fun. Shit that tell you? Yeah I love to. I Love Aldridge was good too in these. Talking about Scottie. Pippen's contract. Tell me tell me who you're talking. Head MVP was for the first episode. I'm for for me. I think Corny and Homespun as it is. What's going to be Roy Williams? He's really great. He turns in a great performance. His Line Michael Jordan's the only player that could ever turn it on and off any never frigging turned it off. I was James Worthy saying I was better than Michael Jordan for two weeks. That's that's probably my pick that that that's the that's the best moment in the first episode that Whole Carolina run. Yeah it's great. It's also cool to imagine how he wanted to stay. You hear this a lot from guys like Rasheed. Wallace wanted stay at Carolina. Like all these guys who were like. This is the most fun I'm ever going to have in my life is being a college like this. Pretty Good Odeen Smith to who I think similarly to the NBA players of this period is like as time goes on memorialize as this important figure. But you don't really like to see or truly here about who he is or what he did. And you know this. Is this him kind of at the at the height of his greatness to yeah For episode two talking heads I had I had age I also had Steve Kerr and somewhat Kerr. When they're doing the interviews on the court with Kerr. When he was a player you can start to hear the flying coach. Steve Kerr kind of emerging there. He has that incredible quote. Or He's like what is the the key don't have and he's like well we have. Michael you know. And it's very wry dry but completely accurate delivery and he looks virtually exactly the same Steve Kerr today from nineteen ninety eight and yeah I that jumped out at me to occur in the present day. It's funny to see him. Kitted out in the warriors gear because that is as identity but he was a bull in my mind more than a spur more than any other team played for where you went to Arizona. Right more than Arizona's news a big he played with Sean Elliott. I think that's right. But he was. He was always a bowl in my memory for years and years and years until the last five years What about any other talking heads from episode to get Danny aged dangerous? Obviously really good yummy. I mentioned the birth stuff. I just think bird and then you know I was recently re watching the documentary about the first Dream Team on TV. And there's a lot of footage in that movie about the relationship between Magic and Michael and how competitive magic was with Michael at that time because magic had recently been diagnosed with HIV and he was sort of exiting his fate of the magic era of the NBA. He was still dominant player but he wasn't at the. He wasn't at the at his apex and the very sparing amount of time that he gets in this the first two episodes of this series. He's very direct. He's just like Michael as the best like Michael was the best and I hope that we get a little bit of the magic who is a little bit unwilling to see His throne in this documentary too. Because they're they're big brother little little brother relationship and the way that magic would use his kind of wiliness as a way to talk down to Michael. During that Dream Team Era I could because he michael hadn't really one very much at that time and that is what magic is hoarding over him. I think it'd be fun to see some of that stuff. Yeah it would also be fun to see any of Bill Clinton's scout breakdowns of other central. Arkansas players yes. Should we talk about the two presidents that appear in this film could get good full event when they got Brian Myself? I'm on my seventh email of Tony Dalton from better call Saul on the watch. And it's like Bill Clinton Barack Obama doing like five seconds on Scotty Pippin and Michael Jordan. It's just amazing. I mean and that's the other thing too. Is that that ninety. Eight team and those bowls teams found ways to intersect with culture. So profoundly you know Barack Obama saying he couldn't afford tickets to go see those bowls teams when he was broke in. The eighties is fascinating. You Know Clinton talking about watching Scotty Pippin play high high school college and Central. Arkansas College. I mean that's just remarkable. Bill Clinton sounds like a guy calling into sports radio on Friday night. Lights that Scottie Pippen. He's got some Good inside outside moves but also reflecting on his personality and talking about how shy he was. And I don't know everything does feels very intimate in this series. You know it really. Does it. Feels like the people know each other to this day. And that's just not that common on these these documentaries which which as much as I love just firing up the NFL network and watching a a two hour segment about Brett farve in Green Bay. It doesn't always feel it feels stage-managed and so far this just doesn't feel that stage managed to me and obviously people are performing in a way when the camera turns on but feels like they really know each other and they're really telling stories. It's it's it's true really is as a story about Jordan. It's it's like the story about a generation of sports sports fans to what what do you. What do you WANNA see? Yeah going forward I think in terms of the flashback stuff. I'm certainly I'm interested in more moments that tell stories behind the stories that that get into the. What are the other golfing with Danny ainge moments during some famous playoff sequences and I? I think that it's that it's the getting the details behind the iconic moments. It'll be interesting to see if I I suspect that as the series goes on we'll spend more time in that last season and less time in the past because they really did speed through a lot of the first ten years of Michael Jordan's playing career and we may go back even further. Maybe maybe we'll go into more about his parents and get to the the death of his father. Maybe we'll talk more about his family. But I'm I'm curious to see like you said a deeper analysis of what was going on in that in that season because that is like the draw. That's the elevator pitch for the movie. That's what makes it different. I think from some of this this this other kind of historical sports archival documentary that we see all the time. But I don't know I mean it's off to an amazing start. Yeah I was just the last thing I was going to ask. You is if you had any favorite. We've covered a lot of it. But if you have any favorite Jordan talking head moments because I do find him to be a very interesting narrator more more than I thought you know. Obviously his public appearances have been you know like the hall of Fame Induction Speech. The gives where he's like. You know just absolutely laying waste to people but also crying his move very moving eulogy for Kobe Bryant but I find I find him to be quite funny And also still carrying the burden of that competitive streak that he has hundred percent. It's fascinating that he in this episode just still talks very frankly about Scotty and he says simultaneously. He's the best team I ever had. And I think you can say without a doubt that Michael does not win six titles without Scotty but also that he still holds it against him that he waited to get surgery and then he describes it as selfish and only thinking about himself and he has this kind of old school mentality about that. I thought was so interesting that he's just not willing to give give that up absolutely. Yeah I mean I I'm I'm I'm really looking forward to the rest of this and I'm really excited also to see. Were recording this on Friday. So we don't know how like twitter is going to react to it but if like reactions to like random rapper going on I g live or any indication. I think that people like a lot of people are going to pay attention and participate in the conversation around. This which I think should be pretty neat. We need to get a mean going of Jordan during that cackling moment when he gets read the quote about the cocaine circus with the Hennessy behind him like that screen shot him like back laughing. Yeah with the with the cocktail is. That's that's the next great meme. Yeah Sean thank you so much for joining me. I'm sure Casey and Verna will be talking about the Jordan. Doc on the mismatch 'em we have plenty of stuff say on bill and Ryan's pods so it's it's really Jordan all the time until we get some real basketball thanks buddy.

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