Doc review: The Last Dance

 

There was something about watching The Chicago Bulls in the 1990s that looked different. That this team, the organization, the players, and the fans all knew they were the best there ever was or ever will be. They knew it before they won their first of six NBA championships and the rest was just proving it to the world that didn’t know any better. The very first time I saw how they introduced their starting lineup on the NBA on NBC (insert obligatory “YES!” From Marv Albert), I was in love. “That’s how they do this?!  Oh I’m here for this whenever the Bulls are on TV!”

I’ve never been able to care about the NBA since January of 1999. Not like I did before. Nobody excelled in the sport like Michael did in my mind, and nobody ever would. Basketball was over. It was finished. Everything after MJ was 2nd tier.  I’d seen the greatest player on the greatest team ever, what was anybody else going to show me that could capture my attention?  It seemed so many were quick to move on and forget.  Soon a new generation would come along that wasn’t there to see it. Would history forget just how special this team was?  No professional team in any sport has ever dominated a decade like this both on and off the court. Anyone who wasn’t alive to see it may never see anything like it in their lifetime. That’s how rare the air you were breathing was whether you were watching inside Chicago Stadium or on your couch at home. 

To beat the Bulls in a game could be done. You could catch them on an off night. To beat them in a post-season series you were going to have to assemble the best players in the world that weren’t already playing for the Bulls and have to go to war for every minute and second of every game, and that still probably wasn’t good enough. If it was enough in the 90s, than you played a team that had not yet blossomed into its full potential (1990) was temporarily handicapped (1994-1995) or was post Jordan (1999). The other six seasons, the very very absolute best of the best was not good enough on their very best day. 

I was worried that all of this was buried in the past, relegated to mythology as once dominant but couldn’t hang today. That’s total bullshit. Nobody since can go back in time and fare any better than Patrick Ewing, Isaiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Mark Price, John Stockton, Reggie Miller, Gary Payton, or Magic Johnson fared against the repeat three-peat.

So we here are eternally grateful that the proof was in a vault, waiting to be unleashed. And the 90s Bulls have found a way to dominate and silence all doubters once again. But we also get to see all of the warts too. They were human beings who did inhuman things, but still human after all. It only makes us here at the Big Empty love and appreciate them more.