Experts’ biggest takeaways from ‘The Last Dance’ Episodes 5 & 6

May 2, 2020

ESPN’s 10-part documentary series “The Last Dance,” which chronicles Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, continued on Sunday with Episodes 5 and 6.

Jordan and the Bulls allowed NBA Entertainment to follow them throughout the season and document their final championship together. The series features never-before-seen footage, as well as interviews with more than 100 people close to the team.

Here’s what you need to know from the fifth and sixth episodes, which covered Jordan’s rise to “Air Jordan,” the 1992 Dream Team and Jordan’s first retirement.

MORE: How to watch Episodes 5 and 6

ESPN’s NBA experts on “The Last Dance”

Our team weighs in with their biggest takeaways from the fifth and sixth episodes of the series. This will be updated throughout the night.

Tim Bontemps: Even knowing that Kobe Bryant was going to be part of the fifth part of “The Last Dance,” seeing the beginning of the episode — and hearing Bryant both speak and be spoken about by other stars heading into the 1998 NBA All-Star Game — brought back a mixture of emotions.

It was funny to hear the grizzled veterans in the Eastern Conference locker room — a group that included Tim Hardaway, and Reggie Miller, Penny Hardaway and, obviously, Jordan himself — talk about the brash, young kid who wanted to make everything a one-on-one contest. At the same time, it was poignant to hear Bryant speak about Jordan in such reverent tones and clearly show emotion for the person whom Bryant did everything he could to emulate.

“I truly hate having discussions about who would win one-on-one,” Bryant said. “You heard fans saying, ‘Hey, Kobe, you’d beat Michael one-on-one.’ And I feel like, yo, what you get from me is from him. I don’t get five championships here without him because he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice.”

It also was an interesting choice to not have Jordan speak about Bryant in the doc. Then again, he undoubtedly said all he would’ve wanted to in his moving speech at Bryant’s memorial service earlier this year.
Jackie MacMullan: Danny Ainge played for the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1992 NBA Finals and was really concerned because people were saying Clyde Drexler might actually be on par with Jordan. “I knew we were in trouble because Clyde was getting all this hype, and Michael was being very deferential, saying all the right things,” Ainge told me. “I knew he wouldn’t stop until he made it clear that no one — not Clyde or anyone else — was on his level.” Jordan outscored Drexler 39-16 in Game 1 and never looked back. Weeks later, he and Drexler were Olympic teammates, and Jordan rode Drexler so hard some of the players finally asked him to back off.

Andrew Lopez: Just how crazy was Michael Jordan hitting six 3-pointers in a half? That season, Jordan was 27-for-100 from long range in the regular season. In the first 16 playoff games that season, he was 5-of-16. So, just to prove a point that he shouldn’t be in the same conversation as Clyde Drexler, Jordan goes out and drops what is still an NBA-record 35 points in the first half. The shrug toward Magic Johnson, who he was playing cards with, still stands as one of the most iconic Jordan moments of all time.

Eric Woodyard: Honestly, is anyone surprised? Michael Jordan doesn’t like Isiah Thomas even after all these years. Today’s segment proved that yet again. After all these years, MJ also finally addressed the real reason behind Isiah Thomas’ not making the Dream Team — and although he wasn’t directly behind it, he certainly didn’t vouch for Zeke to play on the team, either. The “No Isiah Thomas questions” comment from him was actually funny. This was the first time I’ve heard MJ actually praise Thomas as the second-greatest floor general behind Magic Johnson. I actually was more surprised by that. These are real-deal competitors even until this day.

Mike Schmitz: I would have loved to see Toni Kukoc in today’s NBA, as his game was perfectly suited for modern basketball. A 6-foot-10, fluid point forward loaded with creativity, Kukoc would be a triple-double machine with Luka Doncic-level freedom, constant high ball screens and never-ending space to operate, likely leaving him with a much different legacy. On top of that, his transition would have been far easier, given the international flavor in the NBA now compared to back then. But it was Kukoc, one of the most accomplished European prospects of all time, who helped pave the way for prospects like Doncic. A three-time Euroleague Final Four MVP and two-time FIBA Eurobasket MVP, Kukoc remains a hero for young European prospects and the gold standard for longtime international scouts.

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