Stubbornness made Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls as great as they were, and it ultimately drove them apart.
That’s one takeaway from “The Last Dance,” the much-anticipated 10-part ESPN documentary on Jordan’s 1997-98 NBA season and the Bulls era it brought to a close.
Director Jason Hehir repeatedly circles back during the series — which begins at 8 p.m. Sunday, unspooling two hour-long episodes weekly through May 17 — to highlight the dogged determination and steadfastness of Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, coach Phil Jackson and general manager Jerry Krause.
Again and again, the story of the season that completed the second three-peat by the 1990s Bulls returns to how and why these men held tightly to their worldviews and, for better and worse, their refusal to let go of past hurts.
Greatness, “The Last Dance” suggests, comes from not only talent, but also friction, pain, hard work and firm ideas about how things should be.
At a time when ESPN and other outlets are struggling to fill the sports-less void, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic’s disruption of, well, everything, “The Last Dance” is exactly what fans need.
It’s both a perfect diversion and a tribute to shared sacrifice.
For those who lived through and loved the Jordan years with the Bulls, it’s a trip down memory lane, peppered with forgotten details such as the hard-luck household from which Pippen emerged and who Scott Burrell was.
Those Bulls teams were covered heavily and covered well, so there may not be many revelations.
(One of the more amusing exceptions: Actress Carmen Electra hiding in Rodman’s Las Vegas hotel room when Jordan came to retrieve the wayward rebounder, who overextended what was supposed to be a 48-hour leave from the team.)
But for those too young or who somehow failed to pay attention at the time, it’s a terrific primer on just how special those Bulls teams and the rivals that tried to stop them were.
Viewers looking for societal insights, as found in ESPN’s similarly epic-length, Oscar-winning “O.J.: Made in America,” will come away disappointed.
Brief asides lightly address tangents such as Jordan’s famous “Republicans buy sneakers too” crack. But this production from ESPN, NBA Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, Jump 23 and Netflix, which will distribute it internationally, is squarely in the stick-to-sports camp.
Another documentary will have to deal with subjects such as the stress NBA success can put on a marriage or the overseas factories producing Nike Air Jordan shoes.
When former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton appear, it’s for apolitical reasons. Obama talks about being a Bulls fan living in Chicago in the Jordan days. Clinton, a former Arkansas governor, recalls seeing a young, pre-NBA Pippen play in the state.
You might wonder why singer Justin Timberlake was chosen to reflect on the phenomenon of Air Jordans, but the documentary moves on before you’re likely to come up with a very good answer.
The biggest surprise of “The Last Dance” isn’t that Hehir got so many of his 100-plus interviewees — especially the media-wary and reclusive-of-late Jordan — to open up on camera, though that’s impressive.
Far more unexpected is that the much-ballyhooed, previously unseen trove of behind-the-scenes material captured by an NBA Entertainment crew embedded with Jordan and the team all season is not as integral as expected.
There are some closed practices, a few unspectacular closed-door Jordan conversations, scenes on team planes and at least one instance of hanging with Jordan in his hotel suite while he seeks refuge from the ever-present adoring throngs.
But much of the crew’s material in “The Last Dance” seems to be following Jordan through crowds, tracking him and other Bulls through arena corridors and showing assorted buses and cars arriving or departing facilities.
It’s the interviews, both Hehir’s and archival ones, that hold this thing together.
ESPN made only eight of the 10 parts available for review, a byproduct of moving up the premiere date from June to help fill its pandemic programming void. The series is launching before the final two hours have been completed.
So while we know how it ends, we can only guess in what light those events will be cast.
Krause — who died in 2017, six months before Hehir secured Jordan’s cooperation — is one of the few principals who wasn’t interviewed for the project. The Bulls GM is heard and seen in archival materials but often shown on the fringes and a target of derision.
Even those who would cast him as a villain, however, may find it uncomfortable watching Krause hooted down as he attempts to join a team celebration dancing aboard a charter flight. That said, he was an easy mark to start, and he rarely did himself any favors when he dug in his heels.
Players and coaches win championships, but those with subpar organizations behind them rarely do.
Krause was at odds with Jordan, Jackson, Pippen and company, but he also brought them together and gave them a common antagonist, especially during that last season together.
It was long understood that Jordan — the gravity-defying basketball superstar hawking footwear, phone service, soft drinks, cars, underwear and fast food — had a killer instinct.
His adoring public was so dazzled by his winning smile, though, it barely acknowledged how sharp his teeth could be. “The Last Dance” is most impressive when it gets past the artifice.
Jordan’s feats are most impressive when he is shown to be human, able to bruise and be bruised. Sometimes, in fact, he’s downright mean and unapologetic.
“When people see this, they are going say: ‘Well, he wasn’t really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant,’ ” Jordan says in an extended, emotional sound bite about pushing teammates that plays like a soliloquy. “Well, that’s you — because you never won anything.”
Stubborn as a bull, still, and yet so, so great.
