- Jerry Krause had mixed reviews as the Bulls’ GM
- Some of the Bulls players had their reservations about Krause
- Despite the back and forth, Krause played a part in the Bulls’ six championships
Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan revealed why the general managers of other NBA teams hated making trades with Jerry Krause.
Krause was one of the faces who played his part in the team’s two three-peats between 1991 and 1993, and 1996-1998. Yet, he wasn’t the other GM’s favorite, which Jordan explained:
“I play golf with these general managers all summer,” Jordan said in Sam Smith’s book, ‘The Jordan Rules’.
“And they all tell me they don’t want to deal with Krause because he’s always trying to rip them off, get something for nothing. It’s why we don’t do anything.”
It’s a well-documented fact that some of the Bulls stars hated Krause. One of them was Jordan himself, while Scottie Pippen was the other. The latter never forgave Krause for almost trading him.
“That really is what tarnished my relationship with Jerry [Krause],” Pippen said in The Last Dance. “He tried to make me feel so special, but yet he was still willing to try to trade [me]. He would never tell me that to my face. I felt insulted. I took the attitude of disrespecting him to some degree.”
And on his part, Jordan had his ways of sourcing information from around the league. He would play golf with the other GMs and would extract information.
But at the end of the day, even Jordan knew Krause did what he did for a reason. And his moves did result in six championships for Chicago.
Jerry Krause Had Good Things To Say About Michael Jordan
While there was enough cold-shouldering and a few calling-out incidents between Jerry Krause and the Bulls superstars, there was no doubt that the former respected Jordan for his professionalism and work ethic.
In an interview from 2017, Jerry Krause said that while he was the general manager, Jordan never asked him to sign, trade for, or draft another player.
“Michael also- the arrogance that he carried with him was a plus. Because he knew he could do things other people couldn’t do. It was a difference between us. But I will say one thing about Michael Jordan. He never came to me and asked for other players. He never came to me and asked me to draft a player. Never came to me and asked to trade for a player. Never once did that happen. Part of it was he thought he was so darn good he could win without ’em … He understood what we had to do as an organization.”
The disrespect Jordan had for Krause made the latter resentful and even slighted, but it didn’t change the fact that he respected the Bulls icon for his understanding of how a team worked.
Although he was a major reason why the team collapsed the way it did after 1998 and why Jordan left the Bulls, Krause did play a role in the Bulls’ laurels.
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