Michael Jordan’s highly anticipated documentary ‘The Last Dance’ is debuting tonight, centered around the last year of MJ with the Chicago Bulls, arguably the greatest dynasty of all time. Jordan took this team to the top, to be considered the best team in history, but at some point during the last decade, that legacy was in danger.
According to Mike Tollin, producer of the 10-part docuseries, Jordan gave the ‘go-ahead’ to ‘The Last Dance’ under extremely curious circumstances. The day the Cleveland Cavaliers were celebrating winning their first-ever NBA championship in 2016, Jordan reportedly agreed to release the documentary.
“The universe has such a funny sense of humor,” Tollin told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. “Because when I woke up, I put on ESPN while I’m getting dressed, and there’s LeBron [James] and the Cavaliers parading through the streets of Cleveland with the trophy that they’d just won.”
Shelburne wrote that MJ was ready to remind everybody why he is the greatest player of all time and why the Bulls of the 90s are the greatest dynasty in NBA history “right after another player (James) and another team (the Warriors) got dangerously close to challenging” that. That 2016 season was one to remember. The Warriors finished the season with a 73-9 record, the best in history, surpassing the 72-10 the Bulls posted in 1995/96.
After that, LeBron took his Cavaliers to return from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals, doing something that hadn’t been done before, making history and getting a little closer to MJ.
Marc Stein of the New York Times also wrote about what led to Jordan’s decision of releasing the documentary. He recalled what Bill Simmons said about Jordan feeling his legacy was in danger during that 2015/16 season.
One interesting theory, which I first heard from @BillSimmons, posits that Michael Jordan finally sanctioned a documentary on his career because the 73-win Warriors — and LeBron James by beating them in the 2016 Finals — were threatening to obscure some of the Bulls' greatness
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 18, 2020
Stein adds how Tollin revealed that Jordan “agreed to sign off on the documentary in their first face-to-face meeting in June 2016 … on the day of the Cavs’ championship parade”.
Here's Michael Tollin, executive producer of "The Last Dance" which debuts Sunday, telling @NYTSports the story of how MJ agreed to sign off on the documentary in their first face-to-face meeting in June 2016 … on the day of the Cavs' championship parade pic.twitter.com/KDr6p9fieQ
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 18, 2020
We all know MJ is a fierce competitor. He proved that during his days as a player and even nowadays he keeps demonstrating he’s not to mess with. For the next five weeks, we’ll get the chance to see Jordan, his greatness, his ups and downs with the Chicago Bulls and how he led that team to be the biggest force in the NBA for the most part of the 90s.
