Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh dissect Michael Jordan's complex legacy, analyzing his "competition addiction" versus gambling debts and debating whether his 1998 Finals dominance or political neutrality defined his era. They explore Jordan's calculated leverage against Jerry Krause, his mentorship of Kobe Bryant, and the cultural impact of the Air Jordan brand, ultimately concluding that Jordan's refusal to satisfy everyone cemented his status as an untouchable icon whose competitive nature transcended mere basketball. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Restarting The Fight00:03:16
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to episodes five and six of the last dance, the review.
Shultzy here, Akash saying Alex Media, Marky Gagnon in the building.
All right, let's start it.
Did you guys get through it?
Did you guys without any fights with the missus?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
100%?
Yeah, good money.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I was wondering if I heard it.
Yo, you know how I avoided a fight last week?
She got me.
Go, go.
She got me so bad.
Last week, my girl kept trying to talk during the thing.
So every time, luckily I have the DVR.
So I would pause, answer her question, and then rewind.
And then I did that enough times that she was like, do you not want me to talk?
And I was like, it'd be nice.
And then it was like a not instead of being like, or this show especially, you just suddenly be like, huh?
Okay.
Rewind 15 seconds.
She sees it enough.
She gets it like Pavlov's dog.
I see what you're saying.
See, I had the conversation with my girl.
She's not allowed to talk before, right?
But we had that, right?
And I showed you guys the video and everything like that.
So that's fine.
So, but of course she has to find a way to ruin this for me.
So what she did was literally in the beginning of the episode, this is how fucking brilliant this was.
And I didn't see it coming.
She starts a fight by feigning interest in the show.
This was brilliant.
And this is next level fight, right?
Like I did.
So in the beginning, right as the show starts, she goes, she goes, why do you think that Michael Jordan and some of the other players' bodies change so much from when they're in college to the pros, right?
And I hear this dumbass fucking question, right?
And I'm trying to find a way to answer this the best way without belittling her or whatever like that.
Like, cause I can't just go, because they're older stupid, right?
I can't do that, right?
And I'm like, well, you know, they mature a little bit more and, you know, that's what it is.
She goes, no, no, no, but like within one year from college to the pros, Michael Jordan looks so different.
And I go, I think you're just looking at different years in college.
Like you've probably seen mostly footage from his freshman year in college and then you've probably seen mostly footage from maybe his second year or his third year in the NBA.
So there's more like a five-year gap, right?
Somehow she makes up that that's belittling to her.
I don't know what the fuck that that what's going on, but we get into a fight, right?
So she's just sitting there.
She like moves over.
She kind of like stank it, stank attitude about it, right?
So I start to get upset, right?
I start to get upset that she's ruining my last dance.
Right?
So now I'm upset, right?
This is what this fucking woman did, right?
This is what this fucking woman did.
This is the most diabolical shit ever.
This is what this woman did, right?
All of a sudden, she starts laughing at all the jokes Jordan's making and all the other players are making and saying shit like, whoa, wow.
And I'm like, fuck.
I'm like, are you trying to enjoy this more than me, bitch?
What the fucking things happen?
You just stole my joy from this episode.
And now you are audibly enjoying the episode more than me?
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
So I got to restart the fight.
Gambling Addict Reality00:03:42
Two can play that game.
Two can play that game.
And nobody had the time.
Nobody's watching this documentary.
No happiness will be had.
You got what you wanted.
We're the nuclear coats.
We're blowing all this shit up.
For real.
It was.
So, yeah, so I just, I got to re-engage the fight.
You know what I mean?
We got it in.
She went to the other room for a few minutes.
Yo.
It's beautiful.
Beautiful.
Sometimes the stale mates will win.
Did this happen during episode five?
Episode five, bro.
Episode five.
So we're in the heat of it.
When is it gambling?
Because they blend into me.
When was gambling?
Six?
Or five and six were gambling?
Well, I'm sleeping.
Yeah, I don't know, actually.
I don't ever know what.
We're going to assume they're the same episodes because everything blends in and people are watching them two at a time.
You're watching two hours straight.
I don't think it matters what episode is what episode.
It's not even a question.
But okay, so Michael Jordan, if it wasn't confirmed before, and again, documentaries are incredibly biased.
They get you to believe whatever the fuck they want.
Gambling addict extraordinaire.
Yeah.
I mean, like next level.
Next level gambling addict?
He's addicted to gambling, but to the point that he's so rich, it's never a problem.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
Gambling addiction is a real problem.
And this is what he brings up.
He's like, he doesn't think he's an addict because he's like, my wife hasn't left me.
I'm not in financial trouble.
Never been in financial trouble.
You know, my parents aren't having interventions with me because he's so fucking rich that he doesn't bet that.
So he's like addicted to it to the point where it doesn't interfere with any of his day-to-day money.
It is interesting because like, let's say, you know, some successful guy's wife likes to buy bags and shoes and all this kind of stuff.
Arguably, you could say that they spend and lose way more money on all those items than, or even if they spend and lose the same amount of money, when you're buying a bag or shoes, there's no chance you're going to win.
Right?
Like, there's no shot whatsoever that if you buy that bag, all of a sudden you're going to get three more bags.
Right.
Right?
So it's just a loss.
It's just an expense.
It brings that woman joy.
Yeah.
So you got to include that part.
No, no, no.
But for Jordan, gambling brings joy.
But yeah, that's just to him.
Yeah, when your girl buys a bag, are you happy?
Well, she's buying that shit with your money.
If a girl, let's say Venus Williams or Serena Williams, that got all the money in the world, if they want to just buy a bunch of frivolous shit with their money, that's cool.
And we allow that.
But when it comes to gambling, we don't.
And I assume it's because we've seen the addiction side of gambling.
Yeah.
Right?
And it's like, yes, Jordan was probably a gambling addict.
Maybe he is probably a gambling addict.
But like you said, he had the money to float it.
Yeah.
And it's not a habit that affected his play, right?
Maybe it affected his like marriage and home life, but I assume that he was so locked into sports that like that also affected it.
Yeah.
But it isn't, it is a kind of interesting thing.
Gambling is like what defines what makes it bad?
Is it when you lose your house, it's bad?
Yeah, it's just like alcohol.
Alcohol is bad because there's alcoholics.
Gambling is bad because there's gambling addicts.
But Jordan is this example of an alcoholic that can function.
He's a functioning gambling addict.
He's a functioning alcoholic.
He's a functioning smoker.
Guys smoking cigars every fucking day his last year.
Have we noticed every, oh, you didn't see episode?
Every clip of him, his last season, he's smoking a cigar.
Yeah, yeah.
Dennis Robin comes in.
Hey, can I have a cigar?
Camera crew's in there.
Hey, this is just me smoking a cigar.
Hey, I'm on the golf course smoking a cigar.
What do you think that's about?
Second Guessing Jordan00:15:57
I think your point was brought up in the first episodes where it's like, you're dealing with so much pressure.
Yeah.
There's got to be some kind of release.
And I think gambling is that.
I think drinking is that.
I think smoking a cigar is that.
Being like Mike sucks a lot.
Overall, it's net positive, probably, but like, there's a lot of shit about it that sucks.
It's constant pressure.
Yeah.
And I even, I want to get to this later, but he had the line where he said, I, if I could do it all again, I wouldn't, I don't know if I don't, I wouldn't be a role model.
He said, either I don't know if I'd be a role model or I wouldn't be a role model.
Oh, when did he say that?
Maybe my question about him.
He said that before the end.
And that was, again, something I wanted to bring up later in the podcast, but it was something I thought of.
Would you rather be whole life so far, Chuck or Mike?
I think we both say Mike because we need the ring, but there's no doubt Chuck has a more fun life.
No.
Here's free.
Let me throw another one at you.
Who'd you rather be, Mike or Chuck, if he won a ring?
It's not even close.
And if he got the ring off of Mike.
Oh, not even close.
And that series, man, I was really, I'm a big, I've been a Chuck fan always.
Maybe I just always liked assholes, but I was rooting for them that series.
And that came so close to going seven games.
Seventh game would have been in Phoenix.
They still probably would have lost, but that was a closer series than people realize.
Wait, wasn't it there?
Because didn't.
Game six and seven were in Phoenix.
And then game six, John Paxon, they're down four with 40 seconds left.
Or yeah, four.
Jordan hits a layup.
Then they're down two with like 14 seconds left.
Paxton hits a three.
Right.
Kevin Johnson, if I remember correctly, air balls a layup.
And then the Bulls win in six.
But if that game, if Paxon doesn't hit that three, Suns win, we go somewhere.
I love what Jordan said.
I'm only bringing one suit.
Yeah, so dope.
That's a fire line.
So dope.
And low-key, there is something that's going on in your mental.
This was after Alex, after the game five loss in Chicago.
He gets on flane in front of everybody, and he's like, I just want to let y'all know, I'm only bringing one suit.
Now there's two games left.
Potentially.
Potentially in Phoenix.
But he's like, I'm not even bringing clothing for the next game.
That's hard.
Low-key?
But think about it.
If you pack two suits on some, like some part of your subconscious, you're going, we could lose.
Yeah.
You're letting that enter, right?
Yeah.
Some part of your subconscious is going, we're probably, we might not win this game.
Yeah.
And the second that idea is in there, if you let that breathe a little bit, you're in, it's fourth, the fourth quarter, you're down by eight.
You're like, I got another suit.
The most impressive thing about Jordan all the way through has just been supreme confidence.
I knew if we play our best game and they play their best game, we're going to win.
There is never a moment of doubt throughout this entire thing where he said, I thought they were the better team.
I didn't think we were going to.
Every time it's, I knew we were better.
I knew we were going to win.
Game one against the Lakers, we lost, but I knew we played badly.
And then they were like, we were relieved.
Oh, we're the better team.
We just played badly.
And they smashed him game two, three, four.
Yeah.
It's like the way you pack for road trips.
You never anticipate a fucking delay on the flights or anything like that.
We get back.
I got two pairs of underwear.
That's it.
I could smell my underwear soiling.
Late show Saturday, I ride that shit right Sunday on the plane.
I just put the underwear on 8 o'clock Saturday.
It's probably going to be good till we get back Sunday.
But for real, man, it was really interesting getting into what he said about I'm not a gambling addict.
I'm a competition addict.
I'm a competition addict.
Yeah, I have a problem with competition.
And it is true.
That was always what I thought.
And I'm sure that's what a lot of people thought about Jordan, which was the gambling and especially raising the stakes that high was just something.
It was like the Blade serum.
Remember, you know, like Blade wouldn't, you know, suck blood out of people's necks, but because they got him some like stupid ass serum that would do the work.
So it was like the methadone.
Yeah.
That's what gambling was.
It was the methadome for competition on the basketball court or something else.
What is odd to me is if he loved competition so much, right?
And basketball became, let's say, easy, I don't think it was, but let's say it became easy.
There are many other avenues he could go down.
Like what?
I mean, golf.
Like he apparently wasn't that good if he was getting bodied by those guys.
Yeah, oh, yeah.
He wasn't a great golfer.
So it's like, okay, spend all your time golfing and become great at golf.
I think that's why he retired the first time.
There's actually, real quick, I just realized Jordan's addicted to gambling.
Like we are addicted to Jordans.
Like I just, there's a, especially when you're like in that zone, we've all been in that place where just buying all the Jordans.
Every time a Jordan comes out, I need that.
Let me buy that.
It's fine.
None of us are going broke over it.
We can afford it.
But we keep throwing a lot of money away on these Jordans.
That's Jordan with gambling.
I can afford it.
It's fine.
I just, I'm probably throwing a lot of money away at doing it, but I can afford it.
He gave us the addiction.
He's the one that's passed it off.
Yeah, he just passed it off.
But sorry, there's so many things I want to touch on now that they're combat, but go on, keep going.
You talking about before with the um oh, yeah, that's why he walked away.
BJ Armstrong said it.
Jordan knew how to win after the first championship.
He knew he didn't wasn't just playing basketball, he knew exactly how to win.
He knew how to ride momentum and guide momentum in a certain direction.
He knew how to get people involved early.
And then when it's winning time, he knows what exactly what to do.
He said he was just playing the game on a different level than the rest of us.
Son, there's a moment when John Paxon hits that three.
Yeah.
Do you hear the announcer say that is the first field goal from any player besides Jordan in the fourth quarter?
Yeah, he's the only one to score a field goal for the Bulls in the fourth quarter.
Unreal.
It makes it even more unreal that Paxon hit it.
Yeah.
Not even getting touches.
Pax and a G, dog.
Real talk, ice cold.
Yeah.
And that's what Jordan needed.
He needed like ice-cold betas, which is a rare thing.
Yeah, Steve Kerr, John Paxon.
Fucking to a certain extent, Pippin.
Yeah.
Rodman, Horace Grant.
Well, Horace might have had a little ego himself, but like these are guys who were betas, but ice cold about they weren't affected.
And you know who fits perfectly in that?
Tony Kukoch.
Yeah.
Son, it was, I mean, there's a million things I want to talk about this episode, but the Tony Kukoch thing, I hope they go back to because he's a fascinating figure.
Yeah, dude.
And they touch on it a little bit.
Like, they thought they were going to break him with a game of basketball.
Yeah.
And then the announcers start going, he comes from war-torn, like, what is he, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, Croatian.
But he's Croatian, right?
And he's like, he's coming from a place of war where he chose to stay and play more years there.
Yeah.
Because he didn't want to leave his family during the war.
Yeah.
He chose to stay in the war.
And then he plays one game where he gets locked up by Pippin and Jordan in the Olympics.
And then Pippen and Jordan think that that's going to break him.
Yeah.
I don't know if Chuck is like, I don't even know if he's going to want to come to the NBA.
Pippen is like, if he can't handle that, he might not be ready for the NBA.
And then in the finals game, he hooped.
And Kukoch was like, yeah, I just didn't know.
That's what was what we were doing.
I didn't know we were doing all that.
I didn't know y'all hated me.
Like, not that we didn't play it.
Yeah.
And everybody's logging in on me.
Okay.
All right.
I'll be ready next time.
And that's what he's just like.
He said it.
He's like, he's like, he goes, okay, I see what it is.
But then the next game, we'll play ball or something like that.
He was just, I think he was just annoyed more than anything, more than like haunted by it.
He was just like, yo, what the fuck, guys?
Y'all let me know.
Y'all are going to win.
You're the dream team, right?
We're a bunch of people with all consonants in our name.
There's no way we could beat y'all.
He's just mentally, I walked into something.
I didn't know what it was.
If I had known, this would have been different.
We'd have lost, but it would have been different.
Y'all aren't doing that to me.
Yeah.
I just need to know.
And then game, the finals, he was like, I knew.
So let's go.
I forget how nice Ku Koch was.
Was he that nice?
I mean, he was a 6'10.
He's a point forward, 6'10.
Right.
I don't know.
I think Krauss was like, Krauss was just always in a hurry to not just keep the franchise moving forward, but also kind of wrestle some of the control away from Jordan.
Even in the clip after they won the second championship, Jerry Kraus's whole sound bite.
And again, documentary, they chop it up, but it's about the organization.
That's what we're proud of.
The organization, the team is great, but we're proud of the organization from me to Phil to this other administrative guy.
The players are team is great, but the organization, it's like he's always looking for a guy to not him and Jordan are just buttonheads very early.
You know how like politicians have to make up laws to keep their jobs?
Yeah.
Right?
So it's like if you're a senator, you're like a congressman.
Yeah.
Every year you got to bring something to the table or else people go, well, what the fuck have you been doing all year?
Right.
So they find a new law.
And they often like take laws that everybody will side with.
Right.
They're like, hey, you shouldn't abuse your wife.
Right.
And they're like, yeah, we have a law about that.
But here's an even more strict law.
And then everybody comes in, like, well, we can't not say yes to this.
Yeah.
You know, so it's like you put some law, everybody agrees, right?
But you have to do it to justify that you're actually doing work.
I wonder if Krauss, as a GM who has this massive ego, felt the only way I get any credit is if I make some crazy trade for Scotty.
The only way I get credit is if I find a way to get Oakley out of here and get these big pieces in to help Michael win.
I need to keep making moves so I can get my pats on the back.
Because if I just let this team play, the team gets all the credit, Phil gets all the credit, and nobody mentions Jerry Krauss.
I think he was also thinking, I need to win it without MJ, or I need a better player than MJ so people see I'm the architect.
Because for him, because apparently the soundbite, if I remember correctly, was he said Tony Kukoch is the future of this franchise.
If you say that in 1998, he didn't say that, but somebody said he said that.
Fair.
Right.
If he said that in 1998, cool.
If you say that in 1992, when Jordan is 29 and Pippin is, what, 27, 26?
The future is right now.
The future is eight years from now when you're talking about we got to pass the torch, seven years, whatever it is.
Yeah.
You guys just repeated.
You are in the present.
He is starting to be considered the greatest ever pretty widely.
There's no future.
This is the future.
So this is a guy that's going to, if you want, this guy's going to come in, really help the team.
He's going to fit in perfectly.
He's going to help Scotty and Mike.
They're going to love having him here.
If you say it like that, everybody's ego is down.
Everybody's guard is down.
Kukoch did, I mean, Krauss did Kukoch no favors with this is the guy.
Yo, and this is me giving Kraus credit because I'm playing devil's advocate, you know, obviously.
But maybe Krause on some level knew how to motivate Jordan.
Maybe he's like, the way you get the most out of Jordan is you second-guess him.
The way you get the most out of Jordan is you create an enemy.
So I know Jordan is going to bust his ass to prove that he's the alpha of a team if I put my money behind Ku Coach, right?
And not my money, my support, et cetera.
A guy like Pippin, that might break him emotionally, right?
He might get angry.
He might sit down, et cetera.
But a guy like Jordan is like, no, I'm going to show you who the fucking dude is.
Yeah.
I would believe that if he said it ever after Jordan retired.
And yeah, that's true.
Maybe he didn't.
Because there's a lot of years where he could have been like, listen, I know I said a lot of shit to Jordan.
I also know Jordan's motivation.
And we still would have been skeptical, but he never said it.
What if that comes out in a memoir?
Could, but I just feel like if you're alive at some point, you would say it.
And he had to know he's going to die pretty quickly.
Because you've got to find ways to motivate Jordan.
Yo.
Have we talked about it?
Actually, no, you don't have to find ways.
Jordan will motivate himself.
Jordan will always find the slight.
He will find it.
He will create the slight.
Yeah.
They said that Drexler is like me.
So now I have to beat him.
The illest soundbite was Danny Ainge saying, I knew it was over in that series because they were comparing Jordan and Mike, and Jordan was being deferential.
Jordan Clyde.
Yeah, yeah.
And Jordan was being very deferential.
He was saying all the right things.
And that's when I knew we were done.
Jordan saying all the right things is the most dangerous Jordan because you know in his mind what's happening.
Danny Ainge knew Jordan.
Remember, they were in the 86 playoffs, they were playing golf together when it was Celtics and Bulls.
So they're like friends.
And so he was like, I knew, I know this guy.
And the second he's saying, Clyde is a really good player in his mind, he's saying, I'm going to fucking kill this guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, cast a more dangerous Jordan than we're not on the same level, guys.
Come on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Alpha Alpha.
The Alpha Alpha.
I loved it.
He is.
I loved it.
He is the fucking.
I don't.
The Alpha Alpha.
I can't think of a more Alpha Connor, son.
This is crazy.
He wants all the smoke.
He wants it all.
He wants all the smoke at any point in time.
And we're hopping around a lot.
But again, a line I wrote down that was like, this was the fucking line.
Maybe the documentary that I heard Jordan say was in that scrimmage in Team USA when it's Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley on one squad and then Jordan squad or the Jordan's team on another and they're going at it and they're John and Magic Johnson is getting Mike's ear and they're down eight.
And then Jordan scores 10th straight and then they're talking back and forth and Magic says some shit to Mike and Mike just says, this is the 90s.
Oh, okay.
This is the 90s.
That's all Mike says.
And Magic's like, what does that mean?
He goes, this is the 90s.
Magic is, Michael is meant letting Magic know y'all were the 80s.
This is the 90s.
This is my fucking time now.
It's over.
That's the most alpha shit to say ever to Magic Johnson and Larry Bird on the same court.
This is it.
Y'all are done.
Y'all are the past.
This is my time now.
This motherfucker has some amazing bars.
Remember when Ronnie Brown or Rudy Brown or something like that goes into Rudy Brown, I think is his name.
He goes another player on the road.
Ron Brown, maybe?
Yeah.
Ronnie Brown, whatever.
He goes in there to see if he goes into Jordan's section of the locker room to see if he has any extra tickets because it was really hard to get tickets for Jordan's final year.
And he's like, man, you got one ticket.
It don't matter.
It could be next to God or something like that.
Like super high up in the rafters.
And Jordan goes, here you go.
And he goes, ah, thank you so much.
He goes, wait, what did you say?
He goes, he goes, it could be next to God.
It don't matter.
And then Jordan goes, he just gave it to you.
And then immediately is like, don't put that in the documentary.
Don't put that in.
Because he knows.
Oh, shit.
Okay, a few things I want to make sure we touch on.
I'm going to say him now so we don't forget.
I want to make sure we touch on the Republicans by sneakers too.
I want to make sure we touch on IT and whether he was left off the dream team because of Jordan or not.
And I think there was one more thing and maybe it will come to me.
I wrote a couple things down.
Let's start with the IT.
Isaiah Thomas believes to this day that he was left off of the dream team because Jordan didn't want him on the team.
Yeah.
The way Jordan retells the story is also one more thing I want to touch about, the Atlantic City trip during the playoffs with the Knicks.
So the way Jordan tells the story is Rod Thorne calls him, who I guess was the head of basketball operations, calls him and says, hey, we want you to be on the dream team.
The pros are going to play.
He goes, who's going to be on the team?
And then apparently Rod Thorne goes, the guy you're thinking of is not going to be on.
Right.
And the way that they shaped the story is the way they shaped the story is that there are multiple players that had a problem with Isaiah.
Yeah.
And they just didn't want to be with him for a few weeks if they didn't have to.
And I mean, I find it interesting that multiple players had a problem with Isaiah and not Jordan.
Jordan was just as competitive.
I'm sure Jordan wanted to break motherfuckers' wills just as much.
Shaping The Story00:14:26
Maybe Isaiah wasn't good enough for how annoying he was.
Yeah.
Where Jordan was.
You just had to respect him.
But it seemed to me, and it could be biased.
Again, we're watching the documentary.
It seemed to me that that could have been how it went down, that Isaiah had soured his relationship with several of the players that would be on the team.
And for the betterment of the team and the experience there, they're like, why don't we just take that one bad apple out?
Everybody else gets along.
We talked about this a little bit on the Patreon.
First of all, difference between Isaiah and MJ.
Isaiah's team was physically brutal.
Michael was a fucking mercenary killer, mentally, verbally destroyer, you asshole.
Isaiah was an asshole, and everybody behind him would hurt you.
And it's like...
No, it's not on Isaiah.
It's not on Isaiah, but he's the leader of that.
And also probably fuck that whole team.
There's no other Pistons on the team, except the one guy who probably could have vouched for him and got him on the team.
The head coach of the fucking dream team is Chuck Daly, also head coach of the Pistons.
So that's who was head coach.
So if it's just one guy.
No longer head coach.
Yeah, okay.
Was head coach of the Pistons?
So if it's just one guy who seems to have a pretty good relationship with Mike, because I think he shook Mike's hand in 91.
Mike's going to remember that or 89, 90, whatever.
Mike's going to remember that.
Chuck could have gone to Mike and said, hey, man, IT, whatever.
Let's have a conversation.
Question.
Do you think that Chuck Daly's relationship with IT was soured?
Oh, because he got fired.
I mean, you don't think that IT could go to the organization?
And maybe it's a different time.
I think, like, we're looking at this documentary, and I think a lot of the questions we have come from a place of not understanding the power of athletes back then versus now.
Athletes had way less power.
The fact that Jordan couldn't get Reinstorf to fire Krauss is mind-boggling to me.
He really couldn't get it to happen.
He had said, I'm going to get that guy fired, and then it didn't happen.
Right.
If LeBron wanted anybody fired, fired.
Anyway.
Simple as that.
I mean, any star of any team could probably get a GM fired.
Any star.
Especially a star of like Michael Jordan's caliber.
It's shocking.
You know what?
And that's probably what changed the power from owners to players.
Maybe.
Because it's like.
It had happened, though.
You chose your exact GMs over the players, and now you see how the bulls have gone since he left.
Yo, that's great.
This is what happens when you choose the GM over the player.
The player leaves the fucking league twice when the league needs him.
Yeah.
We can't let that happen again.
Yo, give them more leverage.
And then that's what really fucked up a lot of organizations because they were putting in these sycophants instead of people that were willing to do the right thing.
And sometimes when you need to do the right thing for a franchise, you're going to ruffle some fucking feathers.
Which also makes Phil that much more impressive, though.
Like the fact that he could, he's the guy that can do the right, do right by the team and reach the player on a level that helps him understand why it's right for the team.
So do you think Daly had an issue with Isaiah or at least wasn't that friendly with Isaiah?
I think maybe Isaiah had, there had been some strain.
Maybe Isaiah thought, maybe I don't personally dislike him, but maybe he's not the direction we need to go to win.
I want to get back to the promised land.
Son, they're going to win no matter what.
They know going in there, they're going to win.
It's not even a question.
I kind of think the players didn't respect IT as much because it's like, yes, he was nice, but I think he was playing.
Oh, I thought he meant dream team, not pissing off.
I think he was only nice because the rest of his team would beat you up.
Or Jordan said.
It was good guy, bad guy.
Good cop, bad guy.
Jordan said in the documentary, he's the second best point guard behind Magic Jaley.
Yo, Jordan's honest.
He's like, I respect his game.
Everything's cool with him.
The dude is one of the best players I've ever seen.
He's second best point card outside of Magic Johnson, right?
High praise.
Yeah.
But what does he say afterwards?
Basically, he's an asshole.
A lot of guys didn't like playing with a lot of something like that.
Dude, I think people underestimate that.
They're looking at this like a vacation, and you don't want to bring someone annoying on vacation.
We all have people that are in our friend groups that were like, do we really want to have them come?
And what do you need?
What role is he going to play?
Point guard?
You got Magic?
You got John Stockton.
Magic could play forward.
Listen, you can always, you don't need Christian Leightner.
You know what I'm saying?
You don't need Chris Mullen.
There are guys that you could move around.
Right.
Right?
Like, we could look at the roster and be like, who's he going to replace?
They're replaceable guys on the team.
Fair enough.
Right?
That being said, if you're a douchebag and we got to put up with you this whole time, we got to have a little bickering.
That's fucked up.
And think about it.
They didn't.
And all the people on that team really bonded.
Yeah.
Like, big time bonded.
All the stories that come out about the dream team are these like interesting relationships that were built.
Like Patrick Ewing and Larry Bird were like fucking kindred spirits.
Oh, I didn't know.
Yeah, they became like best friends on this trip, you know?
And like all these cool relationships found.
Obviously, Charles and Michael were close, but I think Michael really found someone who didn't care if he was famous or not.
Yeah.
Right?
He just found someone who just didn't give a fuck enough that they could be like normal together.
Yeah.
I mean, that could be a whole section of this by itself.
This should be 20 episodes, and it infuriates me that it's only 10.
Yeah.
10 episodes, not nearly enough.
There needs to be a sequel.
I don't give a fuck.
Do it somehow.
Okay.
So there's one thing.
So we understand what happened with IT.
We think it's reasonable.
Let's take some of the blame off of Jordan.
IT probably won't, but there are other people that were happy he wasn't on that team.
Yeah.
Right.
And he didn't impress his coach enough, Chuck Daly, that he wanted to go to bat for him.
Next question.
Republicans, and I thought this was an amazing part of this documentary and so fucking cool.
And like, part of me really admires Jordan for having the balls to do this.
Yeah, break this part down.
Okay.
So he, the line about Republicans buy sneakers too, that we've all heard about Michael Jordan, right?
Comes from a North Carolina election where a guy was running for governor.
Yes.
I believe his name is Helms, and he was running against this guy named Gant.
Helms was like this fucking racist white guy who was running for his fourth term.
And Gant was a black guy, right?
Coming up, I guess that would have been his first, you know, time as governor, et cetera.
And Gant, I guess, asked for Jordan's endorsement to do like a commercial.
Yeah.
And Jordan said on a bus or like on the plane, like with a bunch of other players there.
He goes, Republicans buy sneakers too.
Yeah.
Right.
These two episodes are really interesting because you get into Jordan's business mind a little bit.
Yeah.
There was the whole like Reebok thing.
Yeah.
So like Reebok had sponsored the Olympic jerseys and there's a big Reebok logo on the jersey and Jordan didn't want to wear it because they had to do it.
The Olympic warm-ups where you get the gold medal has a big Reebok logo over the chest.
And if you watch the gold medal celebration.
Well, they told him if Reebok tried to say, if you don't wear this jacket, Jordan didn't want to wear it.
Like if you don't wear this jacket, you don't accept the medal.
You don't accept the medal.
There's a clip of Jordan in the car saying, This is the guy, whatever the guy's name is.
He's a dickhead.
They think they're going to break me.
No, I got some shit for their ass.
They said, I got some for these motherfuckers.
So then go ahead at the medal ceremony.
If you look at Jordan in the medal ceremony, he's wearing the jacket because all they said is you have to wear the jacket.
And draped over that jacket is a massive American flag that just happens to be covering the Reebok.
And how do you hate on that?
You can't tell him not to have the American flag on him.
And we know what he's doing with the flag, but the public doesn't really know.
He's kind of using the flag, if you will.
But it's fire.
And it goes into Jordan's brain.
Like, Jordan is out here, maximum alpha-alpha competitor, and he's going to get what he wants by any means necessary.
And you looked at that, I'm sure, as some kind of competition.
You think you get me?
You think you can tell me what to do for me?
I think that could be me.
Why did I get into that?
The election.
Oh, yeah.
So the election.
So apparently he goes, they ask him for the endorsement, and he goes, listen, I don't, and I'm paraphrasing her.
He's like, I don't know anything about that.
I'm not going to speak on something I don't know about.
Right?
I don't know what the guy stands for.
I don't know his politics, et cetera.
So I can, but I will make a contribution to his campaign.
And he makes a contribution to his campaign, his being the black guy.
Yeah.
Which is left out of the story, which I fucking like.
And he goes, I never looked at myself as an activist.
Yeah.
I look to myself as a basketball player, and that was my singular focus.
And the way that I make change is by example.
It is really, really interesting because there's always this pressure on black people.
And Barack Obama summarizes it perfectly on the show, right?
He goes, that black people are looked at as great crossover stars as long as they don't get too political.
As long as they don't ruffle too many feathers, et cetera.
They're universally accepted.
And the second you get into politics and start becoming an activist, then you could separate.
Everybody in San Francisco loves Colin Kaepernick, even when he's not playing great, until all of a sudden he starts taking a knee.
And that's, who the fuck is this guy?
He can't play ball, this, that, the other.
I thought it was incredibly brave of Michael Jordan to do that.
You know what's going to come with it.
You know the cost of it.
And I know there's a lot of people listening right now.
It's like, you have a responsibility to stand up for your race, to stand up for these things.
And I agree with you.
I completely agree with you.
I'll never be able to understand it as I stand here as a white guy and I'm coming from a majority where I don't need to every second I get represent whiteness.
That being said, does he have a greater impact as Michael Jordan, the superstar, than Michael Jordan, the activist?
I think so.
Are there any activists in his era?
I'm not talking about Martin Luther King.
I'm not talking about Malcolm X. I'm talking about in Michael Jordan era and afterwards.
Are there any activists that have had the global impact Michael Jordan has had?
You could argue Muhammad Ali and that's the guy.
In his era, though.
In the 80s?
No, I don't know.
Who was really political in the 80s?
I don't know what happened.
I mean, Jesse Jackson.
I mean, there's tons of people.
Like celebrity-wise.
It wasn't a time.
I'm not talking about celebs.
I'm talking about any activists, politicians, etc.
Jesse Jackson, I guess.
Did he create as much change?
No, no, no.
Nobody created change that Jordan created.
So at the end of the day, if the goal is to create change and he goes about it by not being political and potentially alienating half the country, if he simply just goes about like, I'm going to go show by example what I can do.
It's like, you don't think that there was a few kids of racists that grew up idolizing Michael Jordan and had a really hard time hating black people because their fucking hero, their God was this black guy?
I would argue you could do, you could find it.
And Jordan, again, is a brilliant guy.
He could find the way to be like, you know, this guy's just whatever.
We just can't stand for racism.
This guy said some racist.
It's a little weird, though, because Jordan has the reputation of not being on really the side of the people.
He's always just been like, hey, all I care about is making money.
And I thought he's always stayed out of politics, has never really donated, never really tried, never gives back that much.
He doesn't want to alienate people by speaking.
He'll donate money.
Behind the scenes.
And that's why the black community kind of like looked down.
I'm like, yo, you can bring about so much change with your power and you refuse to do it because you don't want to.
Andrew's argument is, and this may be Jordan's too.
I don't, I make the most change by not alienating people with opinions that could alienate them.
I'm going to play basketball at the highest level, supreme athlete, the greatest ever, quite possibly.
And then you will worship me and then you will probably, hopefully rethink some of your views.
Hopefully.
I got a comic friend, and I won't say his name, but he happens to be Mormon, right?
Devout Mormon.
He's fucking hilarious, right?
I will only reason I'm not saying his name is I don't want to, I don't know if he would want me to say this, but right?
But he never speaks about being Mormon.
He just goes out there and tells fucking hilarious jokes.
Clean, hilarious jokes.
Clean and hilarious jokes.
And I asked him, I was like, why don't you ever talk about it?
Like you could be the biggest Mormon guy ever.
Like they would come out for you and like this would be, he goes, I do more for the community by not talking about it.
I go, what do you mean?
He goes, I normalize it.
When people just come out and see me and they don't feel like it has to be a Mormon thing, it's just, hey, I'm going to see a comic.
The next time you see a Mormon person, you're not going to look at them like some weird cult.
You're not going to say, oh, that's, oh, that's a Mormon.
What's a Mormon?
That's a, I've never met a Mormon.
You're like, oh, that dude.
Oh, yeah, I think he's Mormon.
That's the idea.
Yeah.
And look, whether it works or not, who knows?
But it is one way of going about it.
And we'll never know if Michael Jordan was politically activated, if he would have created more change because we can't go back.
But it is undeniable that he has created change and has created, I mean, he was the most beloved figure in the world, a black American man, the most beloved figure in the world.
Yeah.
There has to be a certain amount of progress attached to that for sure.
I'm sure it's attached to it, but it's still without him doing anything.
So it's like, it's just the fact that he was such a great player and people idolize him.
And that's what does it.
He still actually does that.
I don't know one way or the other.
And I don't think we can know.
To Andrew's point, his whole thing, when he even talked about the marketing of his sneakers, essentially he goes, all I wanted to focus on is being the greatest player ever.
That was the marketing for my sneakers.
So I could, if the, and that's sneakers, that's directly his bottom line, his main source of income.
Yeah.
So you could also argue his logic would be, if I want to make any change societally, the best thing I can do is focus on my craft.
And that will bleed into everything else.
He was singularly focused on his craft and that fed everything else.
And he says that exact line.
Now, the one thing I thought was interesting, because I do look at it like, you could have said something.
But one thing that I noticed was the only one who seemed to have like an understanding of what he was going through was Barack.
Barack.
Barack gave him some sympathy.
And he said something like, Michael was still figuring out who he was as a man or something like that.
And that's a lot to figure out at such a young age.
Barack is the only person.
There are three people on earth who would understand what Michael Jordan is going through, was going through at that time.
It's Barack.
It's Michael Jordan.
It's maybe Oprah.
And low-key, Barack, and I don't know enough about Oprah to say, but like Barack, I'm sure black people, the second he got into office, want him to get in office and be like, all right, first thing we're doing, everybody gets the 40 acres of a mule.
We want it.
You know what I mean?
We didn't get it.
I mean, Patrice had that funny joke about everybody gets a white slave.
They don't have a white slave by that.
Understanding Michael's Pain00:02:13
You know what I mean?
Like, and now, but he also knew, but he also knew he couldn't do that because the biggest fear of all those white people that weren't going to vote for him was the second he gets in office, everybody's getting a white slave.
So he understood that responsibility.
And I would say by him being black and being president of the United States of America, that alone, even if he does nothing else, that alone has such an impact on little kids growing up, realizing that they could reach the highest level of power in the entire world if they want to.
That itself, showing is oftentimes better than telling because telling, while we agree and it's sweet and it's nourishing, you know what I mean?
It's like you go to a church service or any of these things.
I've been to plenty of the churchers and I feel great when I walk out, right?
It's like candy.
It's like you're chewing it.
You're like, oh, I feel positive.
I want to hug people.
Everything's great.
And then a few hours later, you're like, okay, it goes away.
Maybe the next day you forgot all about it.
Showing doesn't go away.
Telling goes away.
Showing is always there.
I can't be president of the United States.
That guy was.
Why can't you?
Well, it's dividend.
That guy was.
I hear what you say.
And I think Barack is the only one that gets the weight and the pressure of what the fuck am I supposed to do?
How do I navigate this?
White people are going to be alienated if I do this.
Black people are going to feel alienated if I do this.
I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.
That pressure has got to be so fucking crazy.
If you're Jordan in the 80s or Barack in the odds trying to be president, like that has got to be, and it seemed like Barack was the only person that really got what Mike was going through as I watched it.
Yeah.
No, it's true, you know.
And that's when I kind of checked, because I was watching it like, come on, Mike, come on.
I don't really believe this.
But then when Barack said it, I was like, you know what?
I cannot believe it.
I also don't, I have no fucking clue what that was to go through life like that with that much pressure on you.
And that's what episodes five and six really kind of hammer home is the amount of pressure that Mike had on him from the outside world.
Yeah.
And I think that's where the resentment from.
I felt like this was the resentment that he had for like the media and just people in general came from.
Like he said something really pointed.
He goes, and he kind of rolls his eyes when he's saying it, but he's saying it as an old person with the Hennessy eyes, right?
Believing The Narrative00:15:03
He goes, I got, I know I'm never going to live up to their expectations.
He goes, you're never going to do what people want.
Some people want this, some people want that.
You will always let them down.
So you can't, your goal can't be to make them happy because there will always be a group let down.
If I support Gantt, then the Republicans are upset.
If I don't do anything, then the Democrats are upset or whatever.
It doesn't matter what it is.
There'll always be somebody unhappy.
And he didn't realize that till he got knocked off the pedestal.
Yeah.
He didn't realize that till he started to feel the criticism.
Of course he was a media darling.
When the media loves you, you go in there and talk to the media and they're like, great game, Michael.
You're awesome, Michael.
You're the truth.
It's your league, Michael.
You love talking to him.
But when you go up there and every question is, so are you a gambling addict?
How much money do you owe to Esquinas?
How much money do you owe to the Jerry Curl?
To the Jerry Curl guys.
He had bad luck against Jerry Curls, the black guy and the white guy in the locker room.
The white security guard that took his 20 bucks.
That white security guard was hilarious.
When he Jordan shrugged him after taking his money, did you see?
Oh my God.
This guy's a legend.
And this is again how competitive Jordan is.
They're playing a game.
He's playing a game with security, a competition where you try to throw a quarter and get it as close to a wall without touching the wall, without eight feet, like eight feet away.
Get it as close to the wall as you can without touching the wall.
And it's just, they're putting.
He's got to stop you.
That's really having money where it's like, you come up with anything you can to gamble on something like that.
The fucking security guards who are with it, he's playing with security guards, not players.
Oh my God.
The security guards are bodying him.
Yeah.
Oh, they're playing for just 20.
20.
But to them, he wouldn't even play back in the fourth.
No, I know that, but I'm not sure.
But think about 20 back then is like, it's at least 100 now.
At least 100.
I don't think that's.
No.
I don't think that's 20 in the 80s.
That's 40 years ago.
It's 98, first of all.
Oh, word.
Son, how long?
How much is 20 back then, though?
You didn't even go 84 when he's a rookie.
And he, first of all, doesn't drink, smoke, gamble.
You went back to 80, son of a bad one.
Yo, they really got to get into when he started drinking, smoking, and gambling.
I want that.
There's a couple things they're not explaining.
First of all, very basic thing from last episode I forgot to bring up.
I wanted to know why the fuck against the Lakers he went up and under on that one play that everybody, the highlight where he's going up with his right hand and then comes down with his left and spins it off.
He's going to flex on you.
For what?
I want to say nobody.
I didn't know.
Was it just, hey, you know what?
Fuck all you guys.
Because he could have just went up.
He just had to like.
Magic left some AIDS on that fucking ribbon.
I ain't dunking on that shit.
You gotta mind the fuck that.
Also, 20 bucks in the 90s is about 40 bucks in purchasing power today.
Yeah, that's kind of what I figured.
Now look at the 80s.
This guy answers.
He's like, so that gotta be 100.
Yo, you want to know something?
I almost went with 200.
I almost went with 200, bro.
I almost went with 200.
244?
I can't wait till I'm old so I can do that to my kids.
That's how that shit happens.
You know, parents are like, well, I don't even get a Snickers for a nickel.
Oh, fuck.
I've been thinking about this the whole time.
The smoking and drinking.
No, no.
That's that I say for during the podcast only.
But him smoking, drinking, whatever.
And there's a scene in 98 where I guess they're, I don't know what's going on him and Scotty, after a win, they got to like 60 wins or whatever.
They're drinking beer with Phil.
Just drinking a beer right after the game.
And then Michael's like, man, when I played, back when I was a rookie, they used to smoke cigarettes at halftime.
Drink their bag.
They get them from a coach.
Whatever.
And he's drinking his beer, but then the second he walks outside, it's like 250 media people all waiting for him.
Mike's right in his face.
I mean, it's a fucking sea of people.
And the first question.
So, is this your last game here?
And it's like, man, fuck.
Can you imagine?
Well, you would need to drink just to deal with that.
I wonder if, yes, you're 100% right.
I wonder if he did that on purpose because he enjoyed the attention.
He enjoyed the power.
Making the organization wonder if it's his last year.
Make the organization do whatever he wants, you know, bend the knee completely because they're like, we got to be nice to Michael.
I mean, maybe he looked at, yo, real talk, maybe he didn't trust Krauss.
Maybe he looked at the way Krauss treated Pippen.
He looked at the way Krauss treated other players on the team.
He's like, yo, if I lock myself down for another six years, seven years, eight years, 10 years, then they could do whatever the fuck they want with me.
They could dangle me as a carrot for trades.
They could completely ignore all my demands because they got me locked in.
The only way I can maintain leverage here is if I say I, if I sign these one-year deals or two-year deals, whatever he did, those last two years were two-year deals, maybe one year.
One year.
One-year deals.
So if I sign these short deals, kind of like what LeBron was doing.
100%.
Right?
That's how I maintain leverage with this organization because they're not going to fucking fire this fat fuck, Jerry Krause.
So what I'll do is make Krauss do whatever I say.
It's kind of a smart move, but then you got to deal with the cost of that.
No, but to your point about wanting people to wait and whatever, I think you said this on another episode.
You think he knew he was going to retire?
There's a scene in this, I don't know, episode six or five, but the hotel, the camera crew comes into his hotel room and he's laid out on the couch, smoking a cigar, and he's like, this is not a life you envy.
This is the only privacy that I get is in this hotel room before you motherfuckers.
Whining.
More whining.
Motherfucker loves whining, bro.
But he's crying, but he does say, I will not miss this.
And I am, I'm done with this.
And I will not miss it.
And I think he might have been saying, I know I'm going to retire.
I'm done.
Yeah.
I'm done.
That's what I'm thinking.
You hear whispers of.
You hold it over everybody's head because you kind of like the drama.
These guys all like drama.
LeBron loves drama.
Mike loves drama.
They love the attention.
They love that holding it over people's head, like you said.
They love something about it that is, you're going to wonder all year.
It's a power move.
You know how he said when he went, he would go up and he'd gamble with Will Perdue and John Paxson in their card game.
And he goes, and they're like, why are you coming here?
Like, you guys are playing card games in the back worth like, you know, tens of thousands of dollars.
We're playing $1 a hand poker.
He goes, I love your money in my pocket.
That's a power thing.
That is an alpha thing.
What is Jordan's biggest deal?
He needs to be the alpha.
He's going at the alpha.
First practice for the Bulls.
I'm trying to find who the best players and I'm going at him, right?
He's in the Bulls organization and they don't let him feel like the Alpha.
Right.
They don't let him have his coach.
They don't let him fire the GM.
Yeah.
That's got to eat at him.
So what do I have to do?
I'm going to do a power move.
I'm stepping away from the game.
Fuck you.
Okay, I'll come back, but I'm going to come back only if you pay me this amount of money and I get to do whatever I want and we get to maintain this.
Boom.
Third year on the second three-peat.
I'm not coming back and Phil's not coming back.
Jerry Reinhorf goes to fucking Wyoming, Montana, whatever it is.
Please come back for one more year, Phil.
This is him trying to prove that he's the alpha of the organization.
Yeah, maybe.
I wonder if that's all it was.
It's not gambling addiction that forces him away and David Stern having to step in and his dad getting killed because he was a gambling addict or whatever.
It's simply coincidental with the dad thing.
And how do I force some sort of power over a powerless situation?
Yeah.
That's interesting.
You know, I was also thinking of the second three-peat or the first three-peat where he walked away.
Yeah.
I remember you said something about somebody that you knew saying like when the Warriors.
Hold on, hold that thought.
I'm going to shit my pants.
My bad, y'all.
I had to take a little shit break and we lost our train of thought.
But let's come back and we got to talk about a couple of things.
One, Kobe Bryant.
Yeah, man.
I don't know how we didn't talk about this earlier.
Yeah, man.
That was a really cool scene when they walked by each other for the all-star game.
Yeah.
And kind of acknowledge each other.
And then you saw Michael talking shit in the locker room.
All he wanted to do is go one-on-one.
I'm going to wear his ass out on this end.
And he's going to want to go one-on-one on this end.
We'll see.
Whatever he's saying.
He's talking some shit.
But he loved Kobe.
He loved that.
Why do you think?
I watched After Sports Center thing.
Al was just playing it also.
So Wilbon said Jordan saw a lot of himself and Kobe.
There was a lot of Jordan and Kobe.
And apparently after that game, Jordan said to him, yo, if you need anything, call me.
And then Kobe did call him.
Like during the lockout season, Jackie McMullen said he spent an hour on the phone with MJ asking him about how to guard bigger defenders.
And it was just like, I'm going to have you on the phone for an hour.
And I think Jordan saw that obsession and was like, that is, we all kind of pick guys that we see a lot of ourselves.
And we're like, oh, it's like my little brother.
Yeah.
And that's Jordan's little brother.
Especially if you're that guy, who the fuck else are you going to pass it to?
There's nobody.
Who else would Jordan see himself in?
And the way I think about it is that we all look at Jordan as his competitiveness is like, it got him to where it is, but we also think it's a bit excessive.
But in his mind, it's like, oh, no, this is the way you need to be in order to be great.
So he probably looks down on anybody else who doesn't have that level of competitiveness.
Oh, yeah.
So Kobe is just one of the few people he can actually respect.
I really wish that John Paxson went into more detail about he stopped playing the game.
He just started.
It was BJ Armstrong.
Or BJ Armstrong went into more detail about he stopped playing the game.
He just started.
He just learned how to win.
Yeah.
And everybody else was playing the game.
We were all playing basketball.
Yeah.
And he was just winning.
I don't know how he describes it.
He just understood beyond even understanding how to play basketball and how to shoot or whatever.
He just understood how to win.
It's almost like you figure out a formula for winning.
And then when this, and then when certain things pop up, you can tweak how you need to play.
Oh, okay.
So if we got momentum now, we should keep doing this.
I should keep feeding this guy.
And I would, yeah, I would love an in-depth discussion with him.
I need to talk to him.
I can see what that means.
I just don't actually know what it means.
I bet we can get BJ on the pot.
We got to get BJ on the pot.
Let me call some folks and see if we can get it.
For sure.
I would love that.
And Jordan liked, Jordan and BJ Armstrong had like a little friendship.
I remember some other Jordan thing I saw when he talked about coming back when he thought about it.
BJ Armstrong was one of the guys that got him playing one-on-one that was like, yo, let's play.
First, they started just a little shooting.
Then there was, hey, come, hey, let's have a shooting contest.
Then it was whatever.
Then it was, hey, let's play one-on-one.
And then it was, yo, why don't you guys come play five and five with us or whatever?
And like BJ Armstrong was, it was one session with BJ Armstrong that kind of led him back into playing.
I love it.
Yeah.
Okay, so back to Kobe, the Kobe thing.
It's so fucking sad, man.
Yeah.
Like, you forget because of Corona that we lost Kobe.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
But just fucking, we lost Kobe, dude.
And then this is a reminder that, man, fuck.
It just hurts to watch Kobe in this thing.
Yeah.
But it was cool to also see him acknowledge how much he loved Jordan, even though we all knew it.
I hadn't heard him verbally say it.
Yeah, how much credit he gives Jordan for where he is or was.
And he's like, I hate when people say, like, you could be Jordan one-on-one because he couldn't have.
But you could be Jordan one-on-one.
He's like, well, I got so much of who I am from Jordan.
I don't have five championships without Michael Jordan's guidance.
It was like crazy to hear him say.
Wow.
Kobe was a much more well-adjusted Jordan.
Oh, yeah.
I think I don't know for certain, but I don't think Kobe had the same gambling issues.
No.
So yeah, maybe he was like fucking some hoes on the side or whatever.
Who isn't?
Yeah.
And he'd find me the NBA player of this.
Yeah.
But he'll respect you if you don't.
Yeah.
What are you wasting this for?
But I feel like he was more well adjusted and not in terms of maybe relationships.
Like it seemed like Michael had more relationships.
They could be frivolous, but they were more of them.
Yeah.
Right.
Like, you know, he had Ron Harper and he had these other guys that were kind of like, you know, lapdogs to him in a lot of ways.
But at the same time, like, he had a funny camaraderie with them.
I didn't really see Kobe having that with any of his teammates.
Like, you hear about friendships, you hear about Derek Fisher.
You hear about other guys, but like, how close are we really talking?
I don't know to what we were saying earlier about Kobe and MJ.
Nobody knew they had any kind of relationship until the eulogy.
No, no, I'm not talking about Kobe.
So I'm saying Kobe's friendships.
Maybe you just, you just have no idea who Kobe's friends was.
And then you find out, oh, this guy's got a strong relationship with this person.
You just had no fucking clue.
Connected with MJ.
Ah, okay.
We hadn't, if it wasn't for the eulogy, we would have watched, if Kobe was still alive, we'd have watched this documentary like, what the fuck?
Kobe and Mike talked all the time?
Right.
What?
Right, right, right.
I was blown away when I heard MJ's eulogy.
And it's maybe Kobe's the guy who just like, yeah, I got friendships.
I just don't talk about it ever.
You'd think you know.
It's kind of odd, but whatever.
Or you'd think one of those people would be able to tell a story about him that didn't involve working out.
Right?
Like, that's the only story you ever hear about.
You don't deserve my sneakers.
Take them off.
These kinds of things you hear about Kobe.
Yeah.
Which is something MJ would say.
Oh, God, 100%.
I mean, oh, let's talk about that.
And then maybe we can wrap this up unless there's other things that you want to tap into.
But the five-minute Nike Jordan commercial that just popped up in the beginning of episode, I believe it was five.
Yeah.
Just out of nowhere, there's just an endorsement for Air Jordan.
And that's all it was.
It really had nothing to do with the documentary.
And I think it was baked into the agreement where Jordan was like, okay, I'll do this shit.
There's a few things that we need to do.
Yeah.
Right.
We need to clean up this.
We need to make sure it doesn't look like I kept Isaiah off the team.
We need to make him look like the bad guys.
And you need to plug the Jordan 1, such I just happen to be releasing this week or whatever the fuck it is, right?
I think another Jordan 1 release came out.
Yeah.
Every weekend, another Jordan comes out.
But this week was the ones, right?
Was it the Chicago ones?
No, I think it was the Fire Fives.
Last week was the Fives.
No, they dropped the drawing or whatever as episode one premiered.
That's when they had whatever.
And then they released them Saturday.
I copped it.
It doesn't matter.
Point is.
Point is, but point is like he baked that.
He had to bake that into the deal.
But you also can't, to be fair, you can't discuss Jordan without discussing Jordans.
You can do it without it being that blatant.
It felt like one of the things, like you're watching Sopranos, and like every time someone picks up a Coke and drinks out of it, they're like.
Yeah, yeah.
I did find myself hoping that meant they were re-releasing the Chicago ones.
Also, I'm sorry to interrupt, but like, you know how they eat Snickers in commercials?
Yeah.
Like no one would ever eat Snickers the sideways way.
Like you bite into a Snickers like this.
In commercials, they bite into it.
How do you do it again?
Shut up.
Like imagine this is the Snickers.
Yeah.
This is how you would eat a Snickers, right?
In the commercials, they eat it like that.
They did the sideways tall way.
Yeah.
Put it in your mouth.
Let me see what that was.
Anyway, go on.
What were you saying?
I did find myself hoping, yeah, they're releasing the Chicago ones because I feel like an episode of the children.
Passive Aggression Maxed00:06:06
So my girl wanted a pair of them.
Did they feel like an episode of The Bachelor?
Was it like that?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Like at least that moment.
Just that moment was as egregious as The Bachelor does it.
But like, it makes you want the sneakers because my girl has the ones, but she has them in black and blue.
And she doesn't understand English when I try to explain shit to her.
But she was like, because I was like.
Sounds like they're still fighting.
Oh, it's still there.
But I still got to buy a sneakers.
Yeah.
So she goes, oh, I thought I had the first ones.
I go, you do have, oh, this is something.
I go, you do have the first ones.
There's just a different color.
There's a different color.
And then I was like, just look them up.
And I was like, I was like, I go, the Jordan ones.
And then she says this.
She goes, she goes, Air Jordan ones?
I go, I go, what do you mean?
She goes, well, they're called Air Jordans.
They're called Air Jordans.
Bro, we're at the stage of our quarantine where like, dude, when she corrected me on Jordan, Air Jordan 1s, dude, that was crazy.
But we're at the stage of our relationship.
This is some real shit.
I mean, this is some real shit.
We're at the stage of our relationship where we're pretty good to each other.
We're like polite to each other.
So there aren't that many opportunities to fight.
Yeah.
So we have to take advantage of any moment we get.
Like, for example, like, let's say one of us like drops something and it makes a loud noise.
We'll react big to that, right?
Like, so like, I'll like move a plate and it like drops into the sink.
And then she'll be like, Jesus.
Andrew, calm down.
Relax.
Hey, just relax.
Like everything is gotten out through these little things.
I'll like bang my bike getting into the fucking elevator.
Like the bike doesn't fit in the elevator.
Of course, it's going to bang.
And then she'll be like, hey, you got to be careful.
Like, I'm not trying to be careful.
Like, I want to slam the fucking bike into the elevator.
I'm sort of kind of doing it, but it's only on me.
Because I'll do it.
You're not doing nothing.
If there's a noise, I'll be like, be careful, be careful.
I don't know what the fuck is going on with the noise.
And I don't bother to do it.
I'm just like, be careful.
Yo, she put ice into my glass.
She put ice into the glass and there was nothing in the glass.
And she kind of put it in and like hit the glass kind of hard.
And I was like, yo, just calm down.
That's how badly I needed something passive aggressive.
I was like, yo, you're going to chip the glass.
You need to calm down a little bit.
Think about your stuff.
Like, anything, any criticism that you give right now has to be done with the idea that you're helping.
You know what I'm saying?
If the Brita isn't full, I guess somebody was thirsty.
Passive aggression to the max, bro.
To the max.
That's all it is.
Everything.
Oh, dude.
It's fun, though.
That's a little enjoyable throughout the day.
Oh, yeah.
I leave the dog out.
She'll be like, did you bring the dog back to her sleeping thing?
I'd be like, nah.
She can sleep on the couch.
I don't give a fuck when a dog sleeps.
But she wants to sleep.
She don't shit all over the house.
Sometimes I'll see the shit on the ground.
I'll just leave it there.
I know you had a dog.
Yeah, I know.
I did not either.
I didn't know we got a dog either.
I just found out the dog's a guy.
You had a dog all this time?
Say what?
You had a dog all this time, like throughout the entire quarantine?
Yeah.
Oh, shit.
Throughout our entire relationship.
Big dog, small dog.
Small dog.
Oh, both of y'all are a bunch of pussies.
Oh, yeah.
We get a new one.
We get a new dog and the dog at home don't even know it.
So every time the dog's like a dick to me, I'm like, you thought.
You thought, buddy.
Wait, Mark, didn't you just get a fucking cat?
No, we've had a cat.
Oh, I can't say that.
I'm not sure if I'm going to addition to something or something.
No, you got a cat like three years ago.
Yeah, the cat's lit, bro.
That's why Mark's off.
Who gets cats?
Cat's the best animal.
That's why you come in scratched up.
Cast the Jordan.
That's their love.
Son.
No, it's not.
Cat is a Michael Jordan animal.
Cast the Marcus Jordan of animals.
Son, anyway, so that's my passive aggression.
You ain't got no passive aggression?
No, my girl keeps telling me to go to hell and I keep telling her I'm already there.
She just gets, I'll say something she don't like and just go, go to hell.
And then I'll lean in real hard and I'll go, I'm already there.
That sounds a little serious there.
That's it.
No passive aggression.
Straight up aggression.
We've been telling that you're my greatest enemy.
My mortal enemy.
But we're telling her at the podcast, and she's like, thank God.
What caused it?
What caused it?
I felt that shit today.
So I gave her a kiss.
Goodbye.
On the kiss, I was like, I'm free.
I is free.
Massa.
Massa is no longer Massa no more.
I is free.
I walked out my room.
It was like I crossed a Mason Dixon line.
That bike is your Harriet Dubbins.
That bike is my underground railroad.
Every day you leave the studio is like Juneteenth over again.
Lincoln freeze me.
The Lincoln Tunnel freeze me.
Let's say this one.
We get two plays.
But no other passive aggression, bro?
Nah, aggression, aggression.
Mark, you ain't got no passive aggression with your girl?
Yeah, no, 100%.
What you doing?
What you doing?
Yesterday, she was like, I feel like, I don't know, like, are you bored of me?
I go, yeah.
That's not passive aggression.
It's just passive.
That's not passive aggression.
That's just aggression, aggression.
Yeah, maybe that's just aggression.
I just fixed it.
Mike is a dick.
I was like, how would I not be bored?
Like, are you bored of me?
She's like, yeah, I guess I am bored of you.
I was like, yeah, we've been together all month.
I've seen six people in 30 days.
They just moved in together.
You got other people to talk to.
We ain't got nobody else to talk to.
No, I don't have any roommates.
Oh, they're gone?
Yeah, they're on the farm.
Rebounding From Failure00:08:17
Oh, shit.
So now I'm just like, I've seen six people in 30 days.
Like, yeah, it's tough.
I fucking open the window just so I can hear the people below me on their terrace.
What y'all talking about?
Talk to me.
Everybody.
So, why do you think I bought VR?
Now I'm waiting on me.
So I just went and fixed a bike yesterday.
Yeah.
There was nothing wrong with the bike.
So I'm missing one peg.
Everything's fine.
Bro, I just like, babe, I'm going to go fix the peg because the pegs are easy for you to ride on.
She's like, it's really okay.
I'm like, it's better for you if you ride with pegs.
It's dangerous without pegs.
I went to fix a peg.
I went to fix a bike.
I'm on the west side highway where the bike shop is.
I see the bike shop approaching and I'm like, I'm going to take the long way.
And I just bike up and the bike shop's on like 10th Street.
I just bike up to like 42nd Street.
God damn it.
Son, mad far.
I just went for it.
Winded my hair.
I fell so fast.
Oh, I know.
I was so free, so liberated, dude.
That was good.
Oh, it was beautiful.
I had my Sam Cook.
I had my Sam Cook in.
What was the song?
Having a party.
You having your own little party on the part of the second?
Oh, dude.
It was so good.
Oh, fuck.
Anyway, we'll keep more.
Probably, there's more flagrancy.
We're going to figure it out.
Any other points that really touch you with it?
Do you think Jordan really almost signed with Adidas?
He wanted to sign with Adidas.
I think he definitely did.
And then Adidas just didn't have their shit together and then they lost Jordan.
Yeah, I think it was so hard to predict.
Like, it's easy to look back and be like, these guys are fucking idiots, but I don't think anybody knew what type of like maniacal winner.
You didn't know.
So he was going to sign with a dude before the Nike meeting.
He won.
He won, but they didn't want it.
His mom made him go to the Nike meeting.
He didn't even want to go to the Nike meeting.
His mom was like, you go fly out with these guys.
Go take this meeting.
Nike was like an upstar company at the time, but it would not have worked as well.
And his fucking agent, I see why he kept his agent around this whole time.
His agent said Nike's running technology at the time was called the Air cushioning system or whatever.
Michael Jordan plays in the air.
Air Jordan.
Air Jordan is so fucking perfect.
Yeah, it is.
There's nothing any other company can do that will be Air Jordan.
Yeah.
Air Adidas.
You can't do Air.
You don't have Air Technology.
That's Nike.
There's nothing.
So Air Jordan was like, that was just a fucking, that's exactly how it's supposed to be.
Even though we're learning now that all these air bubbles and sneakers are horrible for your fucking seat and back.
The worst possible fucking song.
Didn't even say this like two years ago on the podcast.
Yeah.
Air bubble bullshit.
We got episodes.
Air bubble bullshit.
That's right.
Yeah.
You would never have an air pillow.
Yeah.
An air mattress is uncomfortable.
Everything about air is bad.
Yeah.
But, you know.
Shout out to Jordan.
Do you think Run DMC had anything to do with his desire to go with Adidas?
Like, because they had the biggest sneaker contract.
And, like, I don't know how much individuals or groups had power over like sportswear, like footwear at that time.
I think I remember inside the NBA, they were talking about sneakers.
And then the sneakers that I think Kenny Smith wanted and Chris Weber, they were both some Adidas sneakers.
I forget what they were called, like pro something.
But Adidas was like the cool company, I think.
Converse is who had a lot of the people, but I think the underground cool shit was like the Adidas.
And he's asking you if you think Run DMC is what made it that way.
I think in 83, they did the contract with the superstar or whatever that chunky sneaker is.
And they had that song, My Adidas.
I know they had My Adidas.
100%.
And I wonder if that impacted Jordan's.
I mean, I assume that Adidas had already touched the culture and that's why they wanted to be part of them.
And like people were probably wearing Adidas.
It was probably a cool sneaker at the time.
And then, you know, the most popular rap band starts wearing them and like it becomes a part of their outfit.
You know, they're in the Adidas jumpsuits.
It really became part of the culture.
And like Jordan was a part of the culture.
You know, he was a product of that generation.
So yeah, maybe that was it.
I guess so.
Yeah, I didn't even think about that.
Thank God he never did.
I know, dude.
It's a whole different whole different world.
They could really do a whole documentary about Jordan through the sneakers if they wanted to.
And how each sneaker affected why they chose to do the twos, the threes, the fours, the fives.
I remember reading a long time ago.
That is, it's like kind of a Jordan documentary, but Jordan autobiography is much more about the sneakers.
It's quick.
It's a quick read.
I forget what it's called.
But Tinker Hatfield talks about all the sneakers or whatever.
I think Jordan almost left after the twos.
Yeah.
Because he hated them.
The twos were trash.
It's like Super Mario.
And then apparently he almost left.
I think he wanted to leave after that.
And he was going to have a meeting to see what the threes were.
And he was playing golf with his dad.
And he was like an hour late to the meeting because he was like, I'm not going to this fucking meeting.
I'm done with these guys.
And his dad was like, honor your word.
Go to the meeting.
So glad because those threes are fire.
His dad and mom changed.
Like they made him a billionaire with those decisions.
It's true.
Whoa.
Isn't that crazy?
Dolores Jordan is the great.
She's the sweetest lady on the show.
It's the GOAT, man.
The GOAT.
That's incredible.
Anyway, y'all, this has been another episode of, I guess, a flagrant review of The Last Dance.
We got two more of these, man.
I'm sad.
I'm going to miss this.
Bro, they need to do 10 more.
Take two years.
I don't care.
Do 10 more.
We're focusing on the rest of these.
Watch.
It's going to be Camera Cruz.
Kobe's got to last every fucking season.
They got one from Kobe's last season.
I don't think it's going to be as good because Jordan won the title that year, and this is just a farewell.
We're basically going to watch that entire documentary to see Kobe drop 60 in the last game.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which we've already seen endless footage.
They almost need to push that back.
They almost need to wait 10 years until people have started to forget.
Yeah, wait 20 years.
Wait until people start to forget who Kobe was and how great he was.
And then do it.
Not about the last season.
Do his whole career.
Well, they'll do that probably.
I'm sure they'll be like this.
Do it like this.
Yeah, exactly.
Same exact format, but fucking wait.
Like, remember when they did the 9-11 movie while the building was still falling down?
The building hadn't even finished falling down yet, right?
And they already got, what's my man's name?
Not Kevin Costner.
Who knows?
Tom Hanks?
Nah, what's the guy's name?
We don't even remember which guy was in the fucking building.
Yeah.
And it's like, bro, we're still sad about this.
I'm not watching this.
Go on to 60 seconds.
Nick Cage.
Nick Cage.
I didn't even know that came out.
Nick Cage.
But like, you know how they did the Captain Sully movie.
Same thing.
We already got a Captain Sully movie.
Just fucking relax.
You don't got to make the movie right away.
Let's see if this moment in history is remembered and then let's revisit it in the future.
You know, what if they made that movie about Captain Sully?
Then it turns out Captain Sully crashed that shit by accident on his own.
It had nothing to do with geese.
What if he was just drinking?
It was like some Denzel Washington flight shit.
Like, yeah, I was a little fucked up.
I thought that was the ground.
Turned out it was the river.
My bad.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, we don't know what's going to happen.
Also, you think they're going to talk about that rappe with the Kobe Bryant shit?
Yes.
I think they leave out the rape.
They have to leave it out.
Because the rapper, he kind of Jordan and his dad stuff.
I seen a Kobe movie that he talked about it a little bit, like the cheating and all that.
Nah, the rappe is different because he admitted to the rappe.
He admitted that in the letter to her that he could see how it wasn't consensual.
How she understood the situation differently than him.
Yeah.
No, no.
But specifically in that way, I could see now.
Non-consensual?
Yes, son.
Are you sure?
Son, it's crazy.
The letter is crazy.
The fact that he rebounded on this is crazy.
Marky.
Nah, let's save it.
Save.
We're going to save it from the floor.
That's what I'm saying.
If you do go through the career shit with him, you have to bring that up.
And then he will be remembered for that, at least for another moment in time.
And he admits to thinking, to understanding how she could feel that's what it was.
He goes, in retrospect, now I see how she thought it was.