Last Dance

[navery12]

Jerry Krause Deserved Better in 'The Last Dance'

So, was Krause really a villian or just pragmatic? No athletes age gracefully... no dynasty goes happily into the sunset. What options did he have, given where everyone was, physically, mentally, contract-wise? He was looking at Michael by himself essentially for the next short season.

He could have not run off the greatest player and greatest coach in NBA history

 

[superjohn]

Jerry Krause Deserved Better in 'The Last Dance'

So, was Krause really a villian or just pragmatic? No athletes age gracefully... no dynasty goes happily into the sunset. What options did he have, given where everyone was, physically, mentally, contract-wise? He was looking at Michael by himself essentially for the next short season.

Yep, it worked out great for the Bulls. Bulls record since Krause and Reinsdorf broke up the dynasty, 779-959.

 

[superjohn]

It was always crazy to me how some claimed Jordan pushed off on Russell in his last shot as a Bull (he clearly didn't) yet nobody talks about Reggie two hand shoving Jordan to free himself for the gamewinner. Nobody in the history of the game pushed off as much as Reggie.

 

[Scoe]

Reinsdorf for the most part just stayed out of the way as an owner thats both good and bad. Its kind of like a situation at work where your head boss stays out of confrontations and gives his employees free reign , then years later steps in when its too late to try and diffuse the situation.

MJ's hatred of Krause goes way back, this wasnt talked about in the Docuseries but I remember reading the book "The Jordan Rules", MJ got hurt in the 1985-86 season when MJ wanted to return Krause said something amongst the lines of "your Chicago Bulls property now". MJ and Scottie had said some pretty nasty things to Krause over the years and the toxicity in their relationship deteriorated over the years. Krause did good in his basketball making decisions and rightfully didnt listen to MJS demands of trading away his good friend Oakley for Bill Cartwright and drafting Horace Grant over Joe Wolf,firing Doug Collins and hiring Phil. If you let superstar player run the show your not gonna win championships, in that sense I could understand Krause saying teams win titles not players. Phil had an ego too rallying the team against Krause, maybe they needed that tension to win in 98 who knows.

Bottom line everyone in an organization has ego but Reinsdorf shouldve done everything in his power to keep MJ that shouldve been the number 1 priority then you go from there. The team was on fumes in 98 so who knows what happens as the Bulls were clearly getting older. By breaking it up the way you did your ticket sales went way down and you become less of a FA destination to this day.

 

[Mr. French]

When it originally happened the story was presented as food poisoning, not sure how it ever got changed to the "flu game" but it was definitely afterwards. This was the game story from the Chicago Tribune.

Chicago Tribune: Chicago news, sports, weather, entertainment - Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

www.chicagotribune.com

WTF!!!! You, my friend, are a genius. I tried finding anything last night, and I was yelling to no one, my fiancee, and twitter that this whole story, while the details may now be interesting to hear from MJ, are not new! It's much more convenient calling it "the flu game" when you don't know exactly, and "food poisoning game" sounds stupid on a pair of Jordan 12s.

I knew I wasn't losing it. So the original story just got told 23 years later and people are acting like this dude is a) lying about it, he was really hungover, and b) breaking a HUGE story? I'm more confused than ever, despite the clarity.

 

[dvegas]

I don't think MJ referred to Gary Payton as "the glove" until after 1999 when he ripped off Ricky Moore

 

[Deepster]

Without looking, does anyone know who Scottie Pippen was traded for after that last season?

 

[SubbaBub]

I'm sure Krause thought at one point that as long as he had Michael, he was a good enough GM to build another (younger, cheaper) contender and wouldn't have to share credit with Phil or anyone else except Jordan.

He was also delusional that Jordan didn't hate his guts and wanted no part of starting over.

Everything else is chaffe due the age and expiring contracts of all the other major players.

He's the villian becuase the move was to entice a few of them to stay without going full Ewing and the Knicks and avoid blame when some inevitably left.

Telling Phil he was done before the season should have been a firable offense.

Though in the NBA, gossip and off court drama sells better than the actual games.

 

[Lefty2one]

I'm sure Krause thought at one point that as long as he had Michael, he was a good enough GM to build another (younger, cheaper) contender and wouldn't have to share credit with Phil or anyone else except Jordan.

The odd part of it is that Krause thought this was a good idea when MJ was 34 and clearly gassed. You're going to try to convince MJ to go through a mini-rebuild (which let's be real, it wasn't going to work and if it did it'd take several years) at that age? Seems like a really out of touch thing to even consider.

 

[Scoe]

Without looking, does anyone know who Scottie Pippen was traded for after that last season?

I believe it was Roy Rodgers and a 2nd rd pick, it was a sign and trade.

 

[Deepster]

I believe it was Roy Rodgers and a 2nd rd pick, it was a sign and trade.

And that pick ended up being Jake Voskuhl.

 

[Scoe]

And that pick ended up being Jake Voskuhl.

Interesting, he was a better pick then any of Bulls 1st rd picks from 91-98, Knight was drafted by the Bulls in 96 btw, but traded to the Lakers.