Michael Jordan ended his NBA career undefeated when it comes to the Finals. His Airness made six trips to the big series and won each one of them, never going to a Game 7. That is pretty impressive and none of the legends in the GOAT conversation have done that. Even Bill Russell lost once in the Finals, although he won 11 of 12 series.
MJ is the only great who went undefeated in the biggest series of all, but he believes he could have an even more impressive record than 6-0. There is nothing wrong with that, but knowing MJ’s competitiveness, of course, he’s going to say he’s not satisfied with that.
During the last episode of the Bulls’ 10-part docu-series, MJ revealed he was willing to sign a one-year deal with the Bulls if that meant the group had another chance to win the NBA title.
ESPN’s sports commentator Michael Wilbon confirmed those words, describing how MJ feels about the 6-0 record in Finals. It’s not like he says that is bad, but he feels he could’ve done more with the Chicago Bulls. During an appearance on ESPN’s ‘Get Up!’, Wilbon discussed Jordan’s thoughts on his own Finals record.
“The shame of ‘The Last Dance’, as Michael says it, ‘we didn’t get the chance’. Everybody who’s ever played basketball on the playground knows this: winners keep playing, winners don’t stop, winners don’t get replaced; the winners keep playing. We got next, they didn’t have next, that’s the chance of ‘The Last Dance’. Michael has told me this a million time, I said ‘aren’t you satisfied with 6-0?”No, I wanted to run it back.’ Run it back is a phrase that translates in any language, you stay on the court if you are the winners and the Bulls management, I don’t know if it’s Krause first, [Jerry] Reinsdorf, they failed that team in that way, they failed Chicago, they failed basketball. (…) You gotta run it back, you gotta give ’em the chance to win that 7th and it wasn’t there. He [Michael] tells you the story of the documentary and he told you right through the end, ‘I wanted to play again.'”
That last season was magical, as we saw during the 10 episodes of the documentary. It would have been great to see how those Bulls would have fared in the 1998/99 season, which was shortened due to a lockout. Many people considered they were tired to make another run at the title, but knowing MJ’s desire to win and having a team with extra rest, the Bulls might have had a great chance to become 7-time NBA champions in 1999.
