Michael Jordan’s highly anticipated docu-series, “The Last Dance” will air on ESPN and ESPN2 tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Many of us have been already waiting in anticipation for this documentary even before the virus shutdown all major sports around the world. The documentary was even pushed ahead of schedule in the midst of all of this happening and the world couldn’t need it more. This is really the only new sports content we will get other than Chinese Professional Baseball League highlights, so I highly encourage you to tune in.
The documentary mainly focuses on the 1997-98 season of the Chicago Bulls, but goes in depth on Jordan’s career. Not only do we get exclusive access to one of the Bulls most iconic seasons, but we’ll get an even better look at Jordan in his earlier seasons and his attempt to play professional baseball. Included is never before seen footage and anecdotes from Jordan’s former coaches, friends, teammates and exclusive content of “His Airness” himself. Jordan who is usually tight lipped when it comes to speaking with the media believes that the documentary will make him seem like a horrible guy, so there might be some interesting stories told within the next few weeks.
The way this whole documentary came to fruition is pretty remarkable to be honest. Adam Silver who was head of NBA entertainment back in the 90’s before becoming commissioner, was one of the main driving forces behind the documentary. He knew that this 97-98 season might be one of Jordan’s last years, along with that iconic Bulls team. No one on Earth was more famous than Michael Jordan at the time, and as one of the representatives to archive their sports greatest moments and players, he knew that they would not get a better opportunity than this. Silver knew that getting Jordan to sign off on something like this, was going to take a big gesture on the NBA’s part. The one thing he offered Jordan that interested him was “control.” Silver offered that if the NBA would have exclusive access to the team and Jordan during that 97-98 season, they wouldn’t use the footage, any of it, without the consent of Jordan himself. The over 500 hours of footage would sit in a vault in Secaucus, New Jersey, until they would get his approval. If not Jordan would have one of the greatest home movies ever created. Silver knew that this was risk, because the footage could have never seen the light of day, but the most important part for him and the NBA was to just capture the footage.
Flash forward to 2016 and all the footage is still sitting in it’s vault. LeBron James has just won a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers and is parading through the streets of Cleveland. Producer/Director Mike Tollin has a meeting with Jordan to pitch his vision for using the footage to make a documentary. Many have come before Tollin, including the very accomplished Spike Lee, but he couldn’t even get a face to face meeting with Jordan. Maybe the timing was perfect about the whole situation, LeBron had just come back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Golden State Warriors and the discussions of LeBron vs MJ were at an all time high. Tollin has been part of projects including documentaries about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Hank Aaron. He was also apart of movies such as, Varsity Blues and Coach Carter. Even after this impressive resume, there was one specific project that Tollin worked on that caught Jordan’s attention. It was the documentary that Tollin was executive producer on titled, “Iverson.” Jordan told Tollin that he watched that documentary three times and it made him cry. He went around his desk reached his hand out and said, “let’s do it.”
I think everyone is going to be glued to their televisions tonight like it’s game seven of the finals, but that’s just how starved we have been of anything sports related lately. Add in fact the that it’s about one of the greatest basketball players ever to touch a basketball court and it’s can’t miss tv. Jordan’s influence across not only the game of basketball but around the world has been unrivaled for a long time. The only two players to ever join the conversation of being compared to him has been Kobe and LeBron. I was able to see Jordan play only once in my lifetime at Madison Square Garden January 11th, 2003. Although he didn’t don his Chicago uniform, I still got to witness him play for the Washington Wizards and I knew even at that early age just how special a moment that was. The first two episodes air tonight at 9 pm ET, don’t miss it.
The Washed Up Athlete 