Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
The Last Dance and... Trey Burton!
Boy that was fun. There’s too much to cover in this newsletter alone. So I’ll be dropping another newsletter on Wednesday to get more into the current Bulls situation — GM candidates and coach candidates — and also to do a preview of the NFL draft, what the Bears need, and what else they’ve done in free agency (Welcome back, Roy Robertson-Harris.)
These next few weeks are going to be a lot of fun. I’m energized and ready to keep the content coming. Get someone to subscribe to Still Gotta Come Through Chicago today. I’d really appreciate it.
Remember to COMMENT on today’s newsletter: What was your favorite part of the first two episodes? What did you learn? Anything you want me to cover over the next few weeks? What are your thoughts on the Bears releasing Trey Burton?
Before we get into “The Last Dance” reaction, though, a must-listen from the Still Gotta Come Through Chicago archives: JA Adande joined me to talk about Michael Jordan, why the Bulls thought they could make even more money if they went into rebuild mode in ‘98, and the time MJ got him into a party.
Also, THE hype video for the new Bulls era, which I spent WAY too much time making this week — WATCH:
Let’s GOOOOOOOO.
The Last Dance
“The Last Dance” has been so hyped up over the last couple of years that I began to worry that it wouldn’t — and couldn’t — meet the expectations that had been set for it. After the first two episodes, I’m starting to believe it can. I was especially worried that fans would see the Bulls in their final stage and think, ‘Hey, this team wasn’t all that great’ or ‘Jordan isn’t as good as everyone said he was.’ But so far, it looks like they’re hellbent on telling the whole story. That’s good news for all of us.
Before we go any further: To hell with Jerry Krause.
For some of you, this was probably your introduction to that ass hole. If you think that the director is being harsh on Krause, and that’s he’s getting bullied because he’s not around anymore to tell his side of the story, I promise you that that’s not the case. When I first became obsessed with the ‘90s Bulls, I remember running downstairs to grab my Dad and tell him, “Father. Fuck Jerry Krause!” He agreed.
The first two episodes ironically featured a great deal of John Paxson to tell his story from his playing days. You can see the parallels from Bulls management in the ‘90s and the Bulls management we’ve dealt with for the last decade plus. Disgraceful behavior and utter arrogance. Guys who think they’re worth a shit because they were handed the keys to a bank full of money.
The difference is that us younger Bulls fans look back on our front office nemesis and just wish he would’ve kept our second round picks and maybe tried to make the playoffs more often. The older Bulls fans, meanwhile, are like, ‘See, we should’ve won seven championships!” Must be nice. Must be nice.
I think this will be a good primer for Bulls fans who didn’t see the ‘90s Bulls and haven’t studied them religiously for the better part of their lives. The “Cocaine Circus” was introduced, which was a pretty humorous part of the doc, but in reality, was a pretty sad time for the NBA. A lot of really talented players fell to drug addiction and in some ways, Jordan saved the Bulls — and the NBA — from a cocaine-driven demise.
It’s hard to imagine now, but Jordan entered the league when it wasn’t all that. Or, at least, it wasn’t all that in Chicago. It would’ve been nearly impossible to consider how shitty of an organization the Bulls were just 15 years earlier after the Bulls 6th title in 1998.
Jerry Reinsdorf owes a lot of his success to his knack for making good deals in the real estate market. The rest of it? He owes that to Michael Jordan. He only bought the Bulls — who were in part owned by the Yankees owner George Steinbrenner at the time — because the White Sox looked like they may steal all of his wealth from him. Reinsdorf loved sports, so when he saw the Sox may not be a good team to own from a business perspective, he diversified his sports portfolio. The next move of significance that the Bulls made after he bought them was to draft Michael Jordan.
Reinsdorf bought his stake in the Bulls for somewhere between $8 and $16 million. The Bulls are now valued at well over $3 billion — mostly because of Michael Jordan. That alone is frustrating. You saw MJ call out ownership after ‘97 — he said they owed it to this team to allow them to compete for championships until they lost. Jordan made Reinsdorf and Krause. They didn’t feel the need to pay it back.
When Scottie said he wasn’t going to fuck his summer up to get surgery, it sounded ridiculous. But please understand that Krause and Reinsdorf had disrespected him for years. They knew they got away with one when he signed that long-term deal, and they knew how they did: As the doc showed, Pippen wanted to take care of his family.
A quick interjection here, yes I’m interrupting myself. But just know that Reinsdorf has taken care of Scottie since. He essentially had paid him — up until he was fired this month — for the last 20 years to do literally nothing. Scottie would even go on TV and trash the Bulls and still cash millions of dollars worth of checks from the Bulls organization. In some ways, Scottie ended up being the annoying one. He recently said, when fired, “I like to be associated with winning.” Scottie had some serious financial troubles after playing and the Bulls helped him out big time. So, no need for the tiny violins over his pockets anymore.
Anyway.
The Bulls thought underpaying one of the best players in the game was a win for them, but that was shortsighted. That way of thinking has plagued the Bulls in every year since. Why do you think no free agents want to play here? Dwyane Wade even cited the Bulls treatment of Scottie and co. as one of the reasons him, Bosh, and LeBron decided not to come here in the summer of 2010.
That also proved why Phil Jackson was the perfect coach for the situation, the only reason the Bulls were able to hold onto their dynasty by a thread when they had management who actively wanted to kickstart a rebuild in the middle of it. He didn’t mind that Scottie had in some ways sabotaged the beginning of the ‘97-’98 season. He had a reasonable gripe. That way, even when Scottie despised the guy running the show from the office building, he still felt loyalty to the guy running the show on the court. In the end, that type of leadership led to another Bulls championship.
The parallels between the 2010s Bulls and the ‘90s Bulls are borderline eerie, championships aside. Remember when Tom Thibodeau entered a lame duck year, and the media was already reporting that the next guy — a guy from Iowa State — had already been chosen and would be taking over no matter how well the team did? In fact, when pressed on whether Thibs would be back, Bulls management even said something to the effect of, ‘He might be back if we win a championship.’
Even if Thibs did win a championship in 2015, (which they could’ve by the way, had David Blatt not gotten away with calling a timeout he didn’t have in Game 4 in the ECSF. God dammit.) I don’t think Thibs would’ve been given the nod over Hoiberg. Just like Tim Floyd replaced Phil Jackson.
All because Krause thought he was the guy who made the team go, not the best basketball player of all time, plus another top 50 player of all time. And look where it got us. We’ve won one Eastern Conference Final game since.
“The Cubs have been rebuilding for 42 years,” MJ said.
He wasn’t wrong. Championships don’t come easy. Krause thought they did because he had MJ.
The winners
MJ. I’m sure that this doc will show a darker side of MJ, which, you should know exists by now if you’re a fan of the NBA. A lot of that has been out of the closet since Sam Smith wrote “The Jordan Rules” in the early ‘90s. What I thought was remarkable about the first two episodes is how it showed the brighter side of MJ at some points. Him genuinely laughing, then nearly crying, at a note he had written to his mom in college. Celebrities, they’re just like us. Nothing like gambling 100 bucks on a college football game at 20 years old and texting your mom the following Monday, ‘Hey… I may need some money.’ MJ and I… we’re not so different after all!
Not to mention all the golden quotes.
To a reporter: “How has it been transitioning from college to the NBA?” “It’s been pretty easy…”
To Danny Ainge: “Tell your boy [Dennis Johnson] I got something for him tomorrow.” 63 points later…
To Bulls Head Coach Stan Albeck, regarding the front office’s imposed minutes limit: “Stan, fuck those guys, man.”
To Jerry Krause on risk-reward: “It depends on how bad the fucking headache is!”
Additionally, MJ showed his appreciation for Scottie in a way we hadn’t seen before.
“You should never mention Michael Jordan without Scottie Pippen.”
Bob Knight. The man said Jordan was the greatest player he’s ever seen in 1984. 1984!
Scottie Pippen. Scottie got a lot of credit, maybe even a little too much. We got a little crazy with some of the Pippen stanning there. Scottie is an all-time great, he was not one of the five best players in the NBA in 1998.
Roy Williams. Some of you probably didn’t know that he coached Jordan. That one quote about Jordan being able to turn it off and turn it on, but never turning it off, was both nonsensical and awesome at the same time.
The Losers
Jerry Krause. As Jack Silverstein pointed out on Twitter, Phil Rosenthal put Krause’s situation best: He was a person that deserved more credit than he got, but wanted more credit than he deserved. Krause was a good GM, at times. He remade the Bulls roster on the fly between the two 3-peats. The only players that were around for both runs were Pippen and Jordan. But he was an arrogant and delusional man. So delusional, in fact, that he tried to start a rebuild after a team had won two championships in a row.
You’ll also notice the resemblance between the Space Jam shot caller and Krause:
You don’t want to pile on a guy who isn’t around to tell his side of the story. But trust me, everyone that was around those teams agrees that he was a nuisance.
The 84-85 Bulls.
I’ll leave it at that.
What else?
I wrote this before the episodes dropped. But the Bulls being dismantled after 1998 is really one of the all-time Bulls what-ifs.
It’s hard to bitter about six championships in eight years. That’s unless your basketball memory only reaches as far back as 1999, like mine.
But it’s worth considering why more aren’t at least a tad bitter about it. The ‘98-’99 season was a lockout year and completely up for grabs. The New York Knicks — who were 27-23 in the regular season and the Eastern Conference’s 8th seed — made it to the finals, before eventually losing to Tim Duncan, David Robinson and the Spurs.
Chalking the Bulls up for eight titles from ‘91-‘98 is a faulty exercise. The death of Michael Jordan’s father aside, the Bulls were running on empty. There’s a reason why no team in modern NBA history has won more than three titles in a row. Jordan’s year and a half off from the hardwood was necessary for the back half of the dynasty.
But ‘98-’99 — that was in reach. And that’s just assuming the Bulls would have kept virtually the same team, and not tried to re-work a roster around the greatest basketball player of all time, who had just had another MVP season.
I’m very grateful that I can stop bitching about the Bulls front office for the time being. As you can tell by the makeshift, poorly-edited video I spent all Wednesday night making, I’m looking forward to turning over a new leaf.
Besides Dick Motta in ‘71, the only two coaches to ever win NBA Coach of the Year with the team were eventually forced out against their will — with similar sentiments, too.
Phil Jackson was told he would not return in ‘98-’99, even if the Bulls went 82-0.
Tom Thibodeau was told the same in ‘14-’15, despite leading the injury-shaken Bulls to yet another successful season.
Man, I can’t wait for next Sunday!
Some great Jordan reading material for your pleasure from this past week:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29041173/the-michael-jordan-knew-be-revealed-world
A great piece from NBA writing legend Jackie MacMullan on the side of Jordan she got to see while covering him.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29035071/why-michael-jordan-scoring-prowess-touched
An awesome explainer through shot charts on why we’ll never see another scorer like Michael Jordan.
The Bears Release Trey Burton
If it weren’t for Mike Ditka, the Bears tight-end ineptitude may rival its QB ineptitude. The magnitude of each position aside, the franchise’s handlings with both have been consistently embarrassing.
Martellus Bennett was productive. He also slammed Kyle Fuller to the ground in practice, called the rest of the team a bunch of bitches (he may have had a point), and repeatedly had issues with his contract situation.
Greg Olsen was a generational tight end and the Bears traded him, the worst miscalculation the Bears made this century until they drafted Mitch Trubisky over Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 NFL Draft.
The signing of Trey Burton seemed like a promising diversion from the tight end woes. He had by far the best year of his career with the Bears in 2018 and played 16 — notably, not 17 — games. He seemed like one of the ancillary, yet vital, cogs that made the offense serviceable.
Over time, beginning with his night-before scratch from the active roster prior to the playoff game against his former team, the Eagles, Bears fans started wondering if he had the mental fortitude to be a real playmaker moving forward.
A groin injury, sports hernia surgery, hip issues, and a calf injury all contributed to his demise in 2019. The primary motivation that led to the decision made this week to cut him will likely be argued over the coming months. Likewise, who Trey Burton is as a football player will be disputed.
Was he mentally incapable of being a key player on a marquee franchise?
Did he have legitimate anxiety issues out of his control that we should sympathize with?
Were the aforementioned injuries to blame for the first two questions surfacing at all?
Like most story lines caught in the sports narrative world, the answer is probably somewhere in between. Burton probably did have a relatively significant groin injury prior to the Eagles game. But he also refused to participate in the “Philly Special” play with the Bears against the Giants, forcing Tarik Cohen to take the lead.
The week after, he went on ESPN 1000 to honorably come clean about some of the real anxiety issues he deals with. Even though the Bears claimed that did not have to do with his inactive status for the playoff game, the fact that he felt that he needed to get that off his chest the week after makes those claims somewhat shady.
Burton has some serious, physical health problems. He also clearly has some dead serious mental hurdles that he unfortunately has to manage.
But he also probably does lack the “killer instinct,” as it is often dubbed, that most star players in the NFL have. It’s okay to acknowledge his shortcomings in that area without diminishing or stigmatizing his bouts with anxiety.
But why did the bears do it?
The Bears are going to officially cut him after June 1, which will save them $2.8 million of cap space per Over the Cap. Still, $5.75 million in dead cap will be attributed to Burton over the next year, meaning that they did not thing he’d be worth $2.8 million in 2020.
Jimmy Graham is still a questionable signing, but if there’s one thing about Graham that’s redeeming at age 33, it’s that he doesn’t miss games. He’s played 16 games in every year since 2015. The Bears, then, I guess see Graham as Trey Burton but without the injuries.
Now, among other priorities, it’s time for the Bears to get a serviceable TE option in the draft.
We’ll go over that and a lot more on Wednesday.
Thanks for reading, as always. Next newsletter will be the best one yet, as always. Leave a comment and let’s have a great SGCTC Monday.
The one common theme in the hilarious drama that is the Chicago Bulls is Jerry Reinsdorf. He is a typical awful leader. Someone who tells everyone he deals with exactly what they want to hear. He tells Krause he has his back and the decisions are his and then he flies to Montana and negotiates a deal directly with Jackson. If Reinsdorf disagreed with any of Krause's decisions, he would have overruled him. He didn't but he loves to sit there and pretend he had nothing to do with it.
The fact that the same situation occurred 15 years later with a different GM, Coach and Players tells you it was Reinsdorf all along.
I loved the kids getting interviewed at the United Center who said something like- "Mom and Dad asked us if we wanted Christmas presents under the tree this year or if we wanted to see Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman play.... we chose the Bulls".
Get these people certified ASAP! I recognize they are now in their late 30s, but someone's gotta show them love for that dedication