Michael Jordan: Greatest Of All Time, Still Kind Of An Ass
Has there been a bigger chasm between the greatness of a player and his likability among colleagues than there is with Michael Jordan?
The Greatest Of All Time barely squeaked into the Hall of Fame on Friday (perhaps you heard?) providing the media with a reason to parade out all the old clips and legends of his past greatness. It also provided reasons for many of the premier sportswriters to revisit some of MJ’s old relationships that many have forgotten in the last decade.
One such reunion was re-explored because of the induction itself. The Massachusetts media (from where the Hall of Fame resides) reported that former Bulls GM Jerry Krause, the man who pieced together key players in those six NBA championship seasons, would not be attending Jordan’s induction ceremony. Most Bulls fans remember that MJ and Krause were never close (think: Wicked Witch of the East and the Munchkins). Fifteen years ago, news of their rift wouldn’t have been news. But now? Now, we’d expect bygones to be bygones, right?
If there is one theme that permeated His Airness’ Hall of Fame induction, it was that it cost a lot to be as successful as Jordan was, grace and gratitude being foremost among the tolls.
“Winning is hard to do and there’s a price that you pay for it,” said Scottie Pippen in his only comment in Jordan’s induction video. “And that’s how I saw Michael as a player. He wanted to prove that he’s a winner everyday.”
The unspoken suggestion in Pippen’s statement is that Jordan’s price was being considered an insufferable ass by almost everyone that knew him.
For his part, Krause DID blame his absence at the ceremony on a longstanding beef, but not the one with Jordan. A former board member of the Hall of Fame, Krause long ago publicly swore off returning to the organization until they elected Tex Winter, the longtime Bulls and Lakers assistant coach who invented the Triangle Offense that had just as much to do with Michael Jordan’s championship rings as Scottie Pippen.
From ESPN (where you can also listen to Waddle and Silvy badger Krause for 10 minutes trying to get him to admit that he hates Jordan):
“The Hall of Fame thing is personal with me,” Krause said. “I’m not walking back in there until Tex Winter is acknowledged. After Michael’s fourth year, we put in the triangle offense. That allowed players within that offense to post up and get isolations. Michael didn’t have a post-up move at the time, so that summer he worked his butt off to learn how to post up a player. He worked so hard that he became an unstoppable offensive force, and also a better defensive player because he didn’t have to use as much energy on offense to score.”
Hand it to Krause for at least having a ready excuse even if that excuse is as weak as his bacon-wrapped heart. Short of showing up, there’s very little Krause could have done not to appear as if he was slighting Jordan, which is something that no one should care about and most people don’t. Unfortunately, there’s one person that does and unfortunately that one person is pretty important to the story.
Michael Jordan cares. Even upon his final day of relevant basketball glory, Jordan can’t let it go. No. He can let it go, he just doesn’t want to. For such a larger than life character, Jordan appeared shockingly small on Friday. Adrian Wojnarowski did a wonderful job analyzing Jordan’s speech. But here’s the Krause portion of it:
“Jerry Krause is not here. I don’t know who invited him. I didn’t. I hope he understands [...] he was a very competitive person, I was a very competitive person. He said “organizations win championships.” I said, “I didn’t see organizations playing with the flu in Utah. I didn’t see them playing with a bad ankle. Granted I think organizations put together teams, but at the end of the day the team’s got to go out there and play. So in essence, I think the players win the championships. The organization has something to do with it, don’t get me wrong. But don’t try to put the organization above the players because at the end of the day the players still have to perform. You guys have to pay us, but I still gotta go out and play.”
Honestly, does that sound like a quote from a Hall of Fame induction speech or a sound byte from a press conference immediately following a losing effort in a playoff game?
Remember how distasteful everyone found James Cameron’s bloated “I’m the king of the world!” Oscar speech? Jordan’s speech was like that without an orchestra instructed to play him off after 60 seconds.
Krause said “I’m just a guy who helped build a an organization and the organization was good enough to win championships,” which most people wouldn’t believe is actually how he sees himself, but the effort is what counts in a situation like that. The Jordan/Krause era is over in Chicago, continued animosity makes the aggressor look foolish.
If Jordan had any colleagues left that liked him, perhaps they would have let him in on the secret.
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Jordan photo (left) courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Reuters
Jordan photos (center, right) courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP
Jordan and Krause courtesy of Flickr
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