The Last Dance: Part 5 & 6

It is that time once again, where I dive into my tweets and poorly written notes on my phone to go through the stand out moments of The Last Dance. And as is tradition there were no shortage of moments

*Kobe.

This past week just came right out the gate and hit a brother in the feels. I saw someone on twitter, forgive me for not remembering his name, if I find it I will add it later, but he said we saw Michael give Kobe his roses at his funeral and months later Kobe gives Michael his. It was kind of jarring to see him as it still doesn't seem real that he isn't here. That said hearing the close friendship the two shared in secrecy, and how Kobe felt the most important figure in his basketball life was MJ was very cool. Sidenote, I would pay all the money to see more of the old timers shit talking like Mike, Magic, Larry Bird and others were before the All-Star game.

*Converse and Adidas BOTH fumbling the bag.
So hearing that Nike was not in the top two for Jordan was something I did not know. Converse was king but basically told Jordan go do something before you come at us with an offer like this. Adidas was Jordan's fave but they were not in a good way at that moment.

Jordan seen here with the true boss of Nike

Then the upstart Nike, who owes so much to Mike's mom because she had to basically make him take a meeting with them made the best decision a company could have made. Here we are 35 years later and if you ask a serious basketball fan do they have a favorite pair of Jordans they can answer you without fail.


*"Republicans buy sneakers too."
So I feel like this has been wildly overblown. Given the context of when and how he said it, yeah totally makes sense. Now that doesn't give him a pass on being silent for years, but that just wasn't his path in my eyes. Hero of civil rights? Nope. But he's not a villain either. It's odd that he gets this rep of a guy who hates black people, but Jordan through both his ownership of the Hornets and the Jumpman brand has elevated so many people of color to positions of power that it deserves to be mentioned. Also a Michael Jordan endorsement was not the one thing that lost Harvey Gantt his Senatorial bid against Jesse Helms, the only man worse than Karl Malone in this story.


*The Dream Team
Holy crap. Talk about the greatest basketball ensemble ever assembled. And elephant in the room, Isaiah Thomas not being on the team. While Jordan gets the heat for him not being on the squad, notice no one was sticking up to get him on the team.

Like Ewing I too want to know why Laettner was there over Shaq.

Hell Chuck Daly was the head coach! If it was so important he would have done something to get him on the squad. That said, the footage of the greatest game ever played, aka the scrimmage of the hall of famers was amazing. For years I was sure this was the stuff of urban legends but just seeing these guys I grew up admiring (except Karl Malone, fuck that guy) was amazing. It was practice but my lawd these guys played with the intensity of a thousand suns.


*The King, the GOAT, John Michael Wozniak.

He hit the shrug on Michael Jordan after beating him in some depression era gambling. Your fave could never. 

Well folks that all I got for now. This series has been an amazing distraction given what we're going through currently. So if you would like to send me a piar of Jordan 11's, size 12 holla at me, otherwise ya'll be easy till the next time we meet in these blog streets.