Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia 76ers legend Charles Barkley has given his take on one of the main focus of ESPN’s 10-part docuseries ‘The Last Dance’. The documentary follows the last year of the Chicago Bulls dynasty in the 90s, portraying former Bulls GM Jerry Krause as the man who tore apart one of the greatest squads of all time.
Barkley joined ‘The Dan Patrick Show’ to talk about this matter, telling people that Krause is not to blame in that situation. Instead, Chuck said that the guy who should take the responsibility for the Bulls breakup was the owner of the team, Jerry Reinsdorf.
“[Krause] didn’t take that apart. Anybody who thinks that is a fool,” said Barkley. “That thing was all orchestrated by Jerry Reinsdorf. The notion that that little man broke up the Bulls is asinine and absurd. Just use plain common sense. Jerry Reinsdorf broke up the Bulls because he didn’t want to pay anybody.
“You think about this. He let Horace Grant go, because he became a free agent and [Reinsdorf] didn’t want to pay him. They probably won’t talk about that in the documentary. That’s why he left and went to Orlando. He only paid Michael the last two years. When he had Michael at a bargain, he was happy. So he didn’t want to pay Michael. He paid him those last two years and he had Scottie on a great deal. That’s the reason he broke up the Bulls, strictly because of money. But to try to make Jerry Krause be the bad guy, I thought that was very disingenuous by Jerry Reinsdorf.”
The documentary shows that Krause had a similar vision to Reinsdorf’s, which became a huge reason for the owner to sign Jerry, who started his career as a baseball scout for the White Sox. All that said, it wouldn’t be crazy to think that Reinsdorf was the mind behind all the changes the Bulls started to make after the 1997/98 NBA season.
Krause, unfortunately, passed away three years ago and he’s not here to defend himself. Obviously, every story has two versions and he’d surely have his own. However, the fact that Reinsdorf didn’t fire him when he stated his desire to dismantle the Bulls and start rebuilding says a lot about the things that were actually happened behind the scenes at the United Center.
