Pippen: *plays great and helps Mike win 6 titles*

Jordan: I took that personally

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I think it's important to skim through reactions from younger fans or people who weren't basketball fans. For example I'm listening to Pat McFee and people on Rogan's podcast react. From those reactions you can more clearly see the skewed narrative pushed by the "documentary" from people who repeat what they learned from the show rather than what actually happened. For example Kukoc gets no screen time compared to Kerr yet Kukoc was more important than Kerr. Maybe that's because of availability or whatever, I don't know, but it's a skewed perspective.

I don't know why the 1994 Bulls were covered in a doc about Jordan. Jordan was not employed at the time. If anything 1994 should have demonstrated Pippen's ascension into superstardom yet the most important takeway was the 1.8 thing. It was stupid and incoherent, just like the doc's timeline.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

I think Oakley had the best quotes of any player ever, especially when he was on the post-dynasty 2001 Bulls.

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yea the timeline/flipping back and forth stuff was kinda weird. Like all of a sudden we had to flash back to learn about Steve Kerr's Dad ?

You just like to disagree.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I never even knew that about Kerr, but I'm also not sure why it belonged in the series at all.

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The documentary also glossed over the fact that Pippen was switched onto Magic in 91 because Jordan couldn't defend him that well whereas Pippen utterly destroyed him.

And you're absolutely right about the documentary's inexplicable marginalization of Kukoc, who made many big plays for the Bulls throughout the 2nd Threepeat. It was almost as if Jordan/Hehir refused to credit Kukoc with any significant contributions to the team because doing so would in some way validate Krause.

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I will say I think it is fair criticism to say that Kukoc did not get fair treatment. If anyone should be upset about things it should be him.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

The Jordan retirement was pretty important in the storyline of the Bulls dynasty.

This really wasn't a story of one season. It was the story of the building of the Bulls dynasty. You could ask the same question why they showed the pre-title seasons too if it was truly about one year and only that year.

I do think they downplayed Pippen a little bit too much in it but he also did a lot of things that did define his legacy with some negatives. It's not like they ignored the negatives of Jordan either. He was a jerk. He was a huge gambler. He was going out and partying prior to big games.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yea exactly. It was mildly interesting, but why was it included other than some random connection to Jordan's dad being killed as well

Because they needed to fill out 10 episodes?

I can't remember where they were playing, but in college, the opposing fans starting chanting "PLO, PLO!" when Kerr had the ball.

It was Arizona State students.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur

They should have talked about Craig Hodges visiting the White House in a dashiki.

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Kerr is likely the second most famous name to younger NBA fans in the documentary. Maybe Phil Jackson is still higher. It seemed to be thrown in to basically say "This coach was also an important part of the Bulls dynasty".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They should've included Kerr's 4 peat

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

That makes sense, given the rivalry....

Pippen is no Burrell though. Pippen is a co-star of Jordan's, not a supporting cast member. He should have received more deference. Jordan's first comment in his HOF speech was about Pippen. YouTube it - it's the first thing he said. It seemed that three seconds' worth of honesty was too much for Jordan to carry over to this hagiography/Jordan brand propaganda.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Just making things up now? Jordan said in the doc Pippen was the best teammate he ever had and he never won a title without Pip there.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Kerr's story was included because he's a high profile figure now for one, but it also showed how distant Jordan was from his teammates. They had this unique bond, but they never talked about it. Jordan treated him like trash until he his a shot in the Finals. Then Jordan said he earned his wings.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

CHANTS JUST FINE!

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This goes back to the incoherence thing - is this about the 1998 season (which is where the title comes from) or is this about the Bulls dynasty (circa 1990-1998)? Is this about Jordan or the entire team? It doesn't fall neatly into any of those categories, which is a major blemish. Even the reaction of the people who initially expressed no interest in being interviewed (Stockton and Malone) couched their lack of interest in terms of not wanting to be part of a Jordan puff piece. Yet you say it's about the dynasty, interviewees say it's about Jordan, someone else says it's about 1998 only, so what is it?

Either way you slice it, if Pippen is involved, no objective and comprehensive piece can conclude anything other than he made up for his missteps in 1989 and 1994. He redeemed the migraine stuff by showing up in 1990 and as TM said he absolutely shut Magic down and changed the course of that series. He blossomed into a star in the first three peat and into a superstar when Jordan left. He redeemed 1994 by owning it initially and then continued to be the second most essential player in the subsequent three peat, despite the issues with management and his own injuries. In real life, he was disrespected, undervalued, underpaid, underappreciated, yet still rose to the occasion to win those six titles. He did not get a fair shake in this show.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

It also should be pointed out that Pippen got a ton of credit for playing through his back injury in the final game in 1998 which was playing up the redemption angle from some of his prior issues like the 1.8 game.

I think you just didn't like it because the documentary made too good of a case that Jordan was the all time great. I guess they should have had a section about how he wasn't as talented as LeBron.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It was clearly about the whole dynasty. You seem too hung up on the title of it. It very easily could be viewed as the "last dance" of the dynasty.

Yeah, and he gets the most credit and screen time outside of Jordan in the whole thing.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

He deserves more than a line. Within the narrative, he wasn't represented fairly and his contributions were diminished. His faults were magnified while Jordan's faults were recast as unique magical powers that propelled people to achieve things they otherwise wouldn't have without someone punching them in the face and calling them bitches and hoes.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

I don't understand this point. It's quite clear the documentary is about how Michael Jordan turned one of the worst franchises in sports into one of the best dynasties in the history of sports.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm coming at this from a narrative point of view. If it's about the dynasty then the missed several key pieces, including Kukoc like I already mentioned. It was about Jordan. I don't have a problem saying Jordan is GOAT and the best player in the NBA at the time. I do have a problem when the show dimishes other pieces, presumably at Jordan's direction, while extolling Jordan. That's not a documentary, that's a puff piece. Hope my take doesn't make you think anything less of Michael Jordan when you pray to him before going to bed.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Kukoc was good but let's not make him into some superstar here. He started 20, 15, and 52 games on the 3 Bulls titles he was there for. He averaged 13 ppg every year for those teams.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Revisionist as hell. Kukoc was star 3a. A 6th man only because he played on the same team as Rodman and Pippen. He's a 18-7-7 guy on any other team, especially when he figured things out around 1995/1996. He's the only guy who could create his own shot after Pippen and Jordan and was a more natural and effortless scorer than Pip.

EDIT: he also won regular season games when Jordan or Pip didn't have it and everyone remembers the four game winners he nailed as a ROOKIE in 1994, including one in the playoffs.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan.

That is pretty much the case with retrospectively looking at those Bulls teams.

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