Official Michael Jordan 'The Last Dance' Doc Thread (NO SPOILERS)

[PlayerNinety_Nine]

Just finished the last part.

shyt was a really enjoyable watch. I always get a kick out of seeing people do the things they excel at. This might be one of the peak examples I've ever seen.

As soon as the credits rolled, I immediately wondered what a Kobe documentary in this vein would have looked like

 

[VegetasHairline]

 

[Consumed]

GREAT POST @Consumed!!! Where it seems we will disagree is that postseason > regular season. Getting busy for 10 games is not better than getting busy for 82 games plus playoffs. That's why he is overrated. And they didn't even win those most of those series. Reggie is the best at what he does, and probably invented the style that he was known for. He is possibly the best non-1-on-1 player. Of course we can watch and breakdown games now, and see how he excelled at what he did, but the truth is that in real time he's a 5x All-Star, was never an MVP candidate (which Clyde was in '92 and once again considered the second best player in the league that year, how ever overstated it may have been), and only brought 1 thing to the table as a player, and it wasn't to the point in which he was going to give you 25 every game. He's a great shooter, not scorer. In an 18 year career, he has what...5 seasons over 20ppg? He could always get off his jumpshot, but ultimately you always knew it was a jumpshot. His career is overstated, and really it started with that '95 Series Game 1.

If you're talking about off the ball impact, you can say that about ANY player. I never said he didn't impact the game in other ways, I said he didn't slash, didn't handle the ball, didn't rebound, didn't pass, didn't defend. All of that is true. Clyde rebounded, ran the floor, handled the ball, played defense, passed - all of that is true. And he did all of that with no left, and dribbling with his head down. Is that not having an impact? How many times did Clyde grab the rebound, or make a defensive play, go coast to coast, and either finish in traffic, or hit someone for the quick layup or J. We can break his games down too, and then it'll probably be realized that Clyde is underrated. Reggie could/did not do any of those things, and the Pacers weren't a high-scoring team to begin with. Rock was a ballhandler. Even as he added weight, he still could break down people off the dribble and power them, and he's still been selected to an All-Star team (by the coaches) more than Reggie. More All-NBA teams than Reggie. In real time, Richmond was seen as a better player than Reggie, but Reggie managed to stay relevant longer.

The Pacers were not considered contenders in Real Time. They were viewed on the level of the Hawks as a mid-tier team. That is true. Even in '95, the contenders were Knicks & Magic, and Houston & Phoenix, with Sonics also being mentioned. I'm gonna look and see if I can find articles/odds that would confirm it, but that entire era was mainly Bulls vs Knicks. Larry Brown was being heavily criticized as a coach. Matter if fact, didn't he leave Indy because he didn't think Reggie was a great player, and one he could win with? That's all I'm saying.

To me it's always seemed like the media elevated Reggie's status (based on 1 playoff series), and Clyde gets unfairly omitted. To prove it, they never even show the Orlando series...the series he actually went off on. They say "Pacers the only team to push the Bulls to 7 games", but forget that '92 Knicks/Bulls series went 7, and they don't even show Pacers/Bulls games. But Game 1 vs Knicks gets (used to get) shown all of the time. Game 7 gets shown for Ewing missing the layup.

As for Jordan, and the '98 Pacers may have been their biggest Eastern challenge that year, but overall yeah right. And that was the only time they ever met in the playoffs, and Reggie played like trash, so how could he say that? The Knicks & Bad Boys were the Bulls rivals in the MJ era. Everyone but MJ says that. The Knicks ended Bad Boys, and it became just them. The Knicks/Bulls rivalry was so intense, that when John Starks got traded to the Bulls, he got booed every time he touched the ball, and ended up being there for less than 10 games MJ got mad because Clyde was viewed as an equal, but that's because he's an a$$hole, not because it wasn't (close to) true. The only person MJ has been allowed to be compared to him is Kobe, and it wasn't until after he retired...the second time. He scoffed at all of the "Heir to MJ" comparisons.

I get the sample size of the RS is larger, but the playoffs are where the consistency of stars is tested most. If not for the playoffs you'd think David Robinson rivaled Hakeem or Harden was better than Kobe for instance. So I do weigh that heavily, and we have a 100 game sample size of Reggie in the playoffs so it does give a good picture of his reliability. I'm also higher on what Reggie did in the RS during his prime (21 ppg on great efficiency is nothing to sneeze at). We can agree to disagree on this though.

Reggie was not viewed highly in his own time, I know. I thought he got penalized for being the exact opposite aesthetic of the face of the league, Michael Jordan, compared to Mitch Richmond who was anointed as the next man up. At the time off ball play wasn't focused on in the way it is now with Golden State. We know that Curry is doing a ton for his team off ball but Reggie didn't get that same benefit at the time. They also would look at raw FG% and think that capture shooting consistency when it doesn't weight threes or free throws. These are things that are foundational to his game as a scorer.

We can disagree on what a great scorer means. I think if a guy, in a eight year period (726 RS games!) averages 21ppg on 48/40/88 or 62 TS% if you weight his free throws, threes, that is a damn good scorer. And then you consider in the 90s players weren't nearly as efficient as they are now and Miller looks even better when compared to guys in future eras. He is of course not Jordan, Hakeem level because he can't assume their volume at their apex but it's still a stretch that not a lot of guys are matching. Then you get into the playoffs and in his scoring gets better while not losing that efficiency. Even though he's playing physical defenses that you'd think would cause him to struggle more often than not.

With Drexler, he does score three points more than Miller in his best stretch in the RS ('88-'92), but I don't see this as being a huge difference when you take into account shooting consistency and Reggie making better use of his possessions.

If Drexler were a guy that were just an unstoppable force in the way that MJ, Hakeem were, if he had little to no dips in his production like Chuck did while posting crazy percentages (never went below 24ppg in his prime in the playoffs), or if he were this great defender where it mattered less how much he scored, then I'd be with you more. But instead he never had a playoff run (or regular season) where he'd average 30ppg and clearly eclipsed what Miller has done in his peak. His points were gotten more so by persistence rather than him being just unguardable. He'd work off pin downs, get put backs, try to take his man into the post, leak out into transition, use his strength advantage, anything he could to get a shot up. All time great motor. But none of these things were really dominant skills. So you do have runs where he averaged 22, 21, 21 in his prime. And runs where he'd average 27, 24, 26 in his prime. Then you look at Reggie and he's doing pretty much the same except with better accuracy, getting to the line more, trading those long twos for threes and probably hitting them at a better rate than Drex did.

The Knicks/Reggie thing has been overblown, for sure. To the point that nothing else he has done is recognized at all. I mean at age 34 he dropped 41 to closeout Ray Allen's Bucks in 2000 and I feel like it should be talked about more because they are so often compared to one another. He made a 24 y/o in his prime Allen look BAD in that game. But no one remembers they even went h2h in the playoffs. No one remembers he played AI's Sixers in b2b playoff runs and torched them both times, though losing in '01. No one remembers his performances against LA in the finals either.

I don't think Reggie's career is overstated, though. Just individual moments that get talked about nonstop. You don't see people really talking about him outside of clutch shooting. Not mentioned among best scorers in any context, not mentioned among top five SG's much (and if you do, it'll start a debate), and when people look back at his stats they see a guy who only made five all stars, a few All-NBAs, not a lot of volume in the regular season and never won a title. So I lean in the direction of his career being underrated because what he did outside of New York and maybe Chicago in that one game in the playoffs has been forgotten and the box score doesn't really do justice to how good he was for Indiana. What I'm saying in this thread is a not a common opinion as most would agree that Drexler was better.

It can also be true that Clyde's career is overlooked. And I do think his motor is underrated, you don't see a lot of stars work as hard as he did. But when you do mention him people can at least look at his stats and see that he was putting up great numbers, see he won a title, look up some of the dunks. Reggie on the other hand doesn't have that. Literally all that gets mentioned is the Spike Lee drama and that one shot against Chicago. So if you never watched him play or and you're just reading stats you'd think he's not that good and his career is lost in history. Not saying you're doing this, but a lot of people who look back at older guys just check stats and no film.

The most underrated player on those Blazers teams was Terry Porter for sure. He was 1B to Clyde in that '92 finals run and definately their best player in the Conference Finals against Utah where he dominated Stockton. Imo he's better than anyone Miller played with in his prime. But when you mention him no one really knows who you're even talking about except people who watched that team. All of the credit goes to Drexler.

The Pacers were consistently a top ten offense in Reggie's prime and their playoff offenses were strong. He didn't attack an opponent in as many ways as Drexler no, but I'd just argue this doesn't matter as much as attacking a defense so powerfully in one or two ways that are just difficult to deal with. I think its more stressful for a defense to deal with Reggie's shooting than anything Drex can do on the floor.

I think he says they were their toughest opponent because they were only the 2nd team to push the Bulls to seven games, and in G7 against the Knicks the Bulls blew them out while against Indiana it was a dog fight. Part of that is the Bulls just weren't as good as they once were so maybe he's looking at it from that perspective. Also possible he's embellishing because its Jordan. But you can't tell the story of the 90s without Indiana and how tough they were to eliminate in the mid-late 90s, so either we call that era weak or we do acknowledge they were a good team as led by Reggie.

I do understand the argument for Clyde being better, just am higher on what Reggie was and maybe lower on what Clyde was though I appreciate him too. Not saying Reggie is clearly better or anything but his argument is good.

 

[Fani Willis fan]

That double clutch MJ shot, he damn near forced that shyt in. Larry knew

 

[Geordi]

Bruh, when I heard him say "Kenny", my heart dropped. I thought he was gonna say Kenny G. The amount of that would've filled this thread

Just the image of dudes in the gym lifting weights to the hardest gangsta rap music or heavy metal, while MJ the most diabolically competitive athlete ever is getting down to "baby girl I love you sooo much"

 

[superunknown23]

I like what Bob Costas said on SVP after the doc. Svp seem like a low key jordan hater. But anyways, like some folks on this board, svp was going down the "mj has been mythologized road" and so many "paul bunyan type stories" have been created about him, so he straight up asked bob how close was michael to the stories. And bob was like "......pretty close. What you've heard, is basically what you got."

And just like I always say to that mytholigization claim, costas said the same thing and was like "there's tape on him. Whatever you heard, you can go to YouTube and verify it. Some athletes are legends because of the tales you've heard about them over the years that can't be verified. Satchel Paige is a legend. Babe ruth is a legend. Michael...it's all true."

That’s the thing I like about YouTube. It killed the whole mythology shyt. The evidence is widely available.
My dad was a Knicks fan and he used to tell me crazy stories about some magical shyt Earl “The Pearl” Monroe was doing. Now after watching entire games from the 60s and 70s on YouTube, I’m like “sure, he was flashy but those spin moves are nothing special today.”

 

[Easy-E]

Kenny Lattimore getting the most random unexpected shout out

Bruh, when I heard him say "Kenny", my heart dropped. I thought he was gonna say Kenny G. The amount of that would've filled this thread

People forget MJ was born in 1963, back when black music was diversified.

There was a thread where we were clowning MJ for not being super familiar with Public Enemy like there wasn't about a hundred more popular black artist as Hip-Hop was finding it's way into pop culture.

Nowadays it's dude rapping to other dudes or dudes rapping to women (aka "R&B" "singers")

Folks online really complaining that they skipped over the Wizards years like this not a Bulls doc.

Not as bad as the people wanting to hear from Juanita Jordan

 

[beenz]

someon PLEASE tell me they got a gif of mike bopping to the new kenny lattimore CD on the bus

 

[MikelArteta]

That double clutch MJ shot, he damn near forced that shyt in. Larry knew

there are only a few players in any sport you make sure to never leave time on the clock

 

[superunknown23]

Let’s discuss the list of things that Jordan did in his life that “doesn’t make sense”



Him dragging through a game with food poisoning is pretty low on that list..

​

Morons have called out this story with their corny conspiracy theories.. Probably the same dummies that think Pac is still alive in Cuba..

Like MJ could slip to Vegas unnoticed by the media, patrons and strangers there... drink his ass off... get so drunk that he missed the morning practice... a hangover so bad that it lasted ALL DAY and even the Bulls medical staff couldn’t handle... before a pivotal game with the series tied 2-2

 

[606onit]

Jordan bobbing to some Kenny Lattimore


I guess Jordan really didnt listen to hip hop like that

 

[Mr Hate Coffee]

Because you're stuck on players, not on teams.

He eliminated the most 60 win teams too tho.

 

[606onit]

I used like 4 diff email for streaming trials to watch this live even Went over a fat chicks house one weekend





I’m going miss y’all

U dont know how to get espn out the mud? aiiight

 

[The axe murderer]

 

[NYC Rebel]

He eliminated the most 60 win teams too tho.

Put those teams up against today’s and the 80s 60 win teams.