The ESPN documentary “The Last Dance” has also been running on Netflix since April 20. picture: espn
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Review
5 reasons why you absolutely must see the Jordan documentary “The Last Dance”
The Michael Jordan documentary “The Last Dance” has been running on Netflix since April 20. The ten-part series impressively shows how “His Airness” has become a basketball icon and a global superstar. But non-basketball fans also get their money’s worth.
An intimate look behind the scenes
The ten-part documentary series “The Last Dance” by the US sports broadcaster ESPN and the streaming service Netflix shows a unique look behind the scenes of the last season of the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan. The Bulls were the best basketball team in the world at the time and probably the most dominant that the NBA has ever seen. Between 1991 and 1998, coach Phil Jackson’s team won six titles.
The official ESPN trailer for “The Last Dance.” Video: YouTube / ESPN
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Last year – when it was already clear that the team would fall apart at the end of the season – a camera team accompanied the Bulls at every turn and so the documentary offers tons of unpublished scenes. The camera is really everywhere: At the team meetings of coach Jackson. On Jordan’s feet when treated by the physio. Before the training sessions when the stars pull up in a Ferrari. In the “huddle” immediately before the start of the game, when the Bulls motivate each other. On the faces of the players after victory and defeat. In the countless interviews with Jordan in a suit that is far too wide.
Rodman, Pippen, Jordan, Jackson – the Bulls with their trophies. Image: AP
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Many sport documentaries that I saw last had the feeling that they were scripted or played. Not so with “The Last Dance”. As is usually the case with the football documentary “Sunderland ’til I die”, you get the feeling that everything is really real.
The scenes are underlined with interviews with the most important protagonists. Again and again Jordan, but also his former teammates Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Horace Grant and Steve Kerr as well as trainer Phil Jackson look back on the events of that time. Former opponents like Isiah Thomas also have their say.
Impressive character study
Logically, the documentary series is a lot about basketball, sports and everything around it. But the focus is not on the athletes, but on the people and their characters. The main protagonist is Michael Jordan, probably the best basketball player in history.
It impressively shows why Jordan stands out from all others: namely not only because of his talent, but above all because of his work ethic, his discipline, his ambition and his obsession to subordinate everything – really everything – to success.
The 10 best moments in Jordan’s career. Video: YouTube / ESPN
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When he was still playing at the University of North Carolina, he said: “Nobody will ever work as hard as I do.” Big shock when Jordan caught his teammates in the hotel room with cocaine, marijuana and women in his first year with the Bulls. He doesn’t want anything to do with this, the young «MJ» withdraws. Because for him there is only one drug – victory.
When Jordan realizes that he cannot win a title despite outstanding individual achievements, he subordinates himself completely to the team idea on the advice of Coach Jackson. When Jordan realizes that his rather slim build cannot stand up to the hard-playing Detroit Pistons, he quickly trains a few pounds of extra muscles.
Jordan has an unrelenting side and demands everything from his teammates. If one does not sprint, His Airness rebukes him, and not really in a fine way. But the documentary also shows Jordan’s sensitive side: after his first NBA title in 1991, he cries for happiness after seven years of devotion and deprivation .
Not just Jordan
“What is unique about this dynasty?” Steve Kerr, then shooting guard for the Bulls and now multiple master trainer of the Golden State Warriors, is asked in the documentary. His simple answer: “We have Michael.”
Nevertheless, “The Last Dance” is not just about Jordan alone. The series is also so strong because Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, coach Phil Jackson and general manager Jerry Krause are also illuminated. It quickly becomes clear that Jordan would not have worked without them. That the Bulls only succeeded because they worked as a team and weren’t a one-man show.
When Michael Jordan made his comeback in 1995, Pippen had to move back into the second link. Image: AP
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Pippen’s career from poor conditions is shown as the best second man in NBA history, who got revolted last season, but then remembers a better one. Also shown is the understanding that is given to the eccentric “bad boy” Rod Rodman, who, despite all the escapades, pays back with performance.
What is most impressive, however, is how Phil Jackson forms this bunch of different egos into one unit, with how calmly he brings all the superstars in line. His spiritual team concept, influenced by Indian culture and Zen Buddhism, brings a team spirit that was not believed possible. Jackson also breaks new ground tactically, the triangle system he perfected dominates the league for another two decades.
Phil Jackson even tamed star defender Dennis Rodman. Image: AP
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Good versus evil
“The Last Dance” also works so well because the series follows a classic storytelling variant – good versus bad. The good guys are of course Michael Jordan and the Bulls, there are several bad guys. One is General Manager Jerry Krause, who decided last season to give the Bulls a rebuild next year.
“I don’t care if we win 82 games this season – after that you’re damned gone again”, says the small and overweight Krause, about whom Jordan and Pippen keep making fun, to Jackson in the summer of 1997 and thus represents his ego about everything.
And then there are the Detroit Pistons that face the sun three times in a row (1988 to 1990) in the playoffs at the end of the 1980s in the playoffs at the end of the 1980s. 1991 series also deny the Bulls a handshake.
The Pistons’ refused handshake. Video: streamable
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The sympathies are quickly distributed in “The Last Dance”. Although the outcome of the playoff series is already clear, the TV and Jordan and the Bulls are thrilled with the TV. The concept, however, works almost a little too well: Pistons superstar Isiah Thomas at the time has been hostile to the public ever since the series was broadcast.
Memories of the good old days
Of course that is now transfigured, but “The Last Dance” also evokes pleasant memories of the 1990s. At that time, commercialization had not yet become as widespread in professional sports as it is today, and there was still no trace of the Internet and social media. Back then, sport was a little more in the spotlight, even if it was the Bulls and Jordan that heralded the new age.
Back then, life was easier for the superstars. Today, every step of the superstars is watched, a cell phone camera is lurking everywhere, every little thing spreads quickly via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra. Image: AP
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Back then Dennis Rodman’s escapades came to light. The allowed, but arbitrarily extended short trip with Carmen Electra to Las Vegas, which was discussed in the documentary, was widely popularized by the media as early as the 1990s. But the clocks ticked even more slowly at that time. A man like Rodman in an NBA team today is simply unthinkable in today’s slick sports world, where every scandal is inflated into a huge scandal.
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