The Last Dance has been an incredible documentary on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls final championship season together in 1998. It’s been amazing to see how Jordan’s teammates and the other players across the league rarely, if at all, challenged him. Of course he was the best player breathing at the time so it was what it was right?
However, I found it strange that, other than the New York Knicks, nobody else came at him like the Pistons did in the 1980’s. While I was thinking that watching episodes 7 and 8 on Sunday night Isaiah Thomas tweeted it.
Ole boy said in that tweet, “Only thing I don’t like is how scared everybody was playing against em. Mentally they already lost because they not even thinking they can win. Barkley won MVP and said I’m fine with losing to MJ. If somebody said that these days they would get killed by media and everybody else”
I.T. hit the nail right on the head. If a boy said that today they would be blasted all over social media for not caring about winning or not competing hard enough or just plain giving up before the fight. It’s crazy to me that boyz talk about how soft these cats are in today’s NBA when I’m sitting here watching cats literally kiss Mike’s but while playing against him.
I’m watching him call teammates “Ho’s” and nobody checks him or call him one back. I know boyz talk trash on the floor but he’s the only one talking bruh. He calls you something and you call him something back right? That’s hood protocol. That’s stand operating procedure. I’m just sayin’! He’s the best player walking but nobody is beyond getting punched in the throat for talking crazy to a boy at some point. NOBODY!!!
I guess that cats weren’t trying to get traded for jumping on Mike. You can’t buck up to the franchise player and keep a job on the best team in the league. So I guess winning trumped being a man for the time being.
Last week on Shannon and Skip’s show “Undisputed” Shannon went off about the fact that the story was told that Jordan would tell the Bulls not to feed Horace Grant after games when he didn’t play well. Shannon went ballistic saying that if Mike had tried that with him he would have beaten Mike’s butt and that’s the edited version.
He told folks not to feed a grown man and that grown man didn’t beat the breaks off of him? Like Shannon said, “At some point you’ve got to be a grown man.”
Now it makes sense how easily dominant Mike was. He was literally Mike Tyson. Everybody was afraid of him combined with the fact that he was better than everybody breathing. That makes for a dangerous combination.
I don’t ever want to hear boyz say that these cats playing in the NBA now are soft. Not after watching The Last Dance episodes 7 and 8. Again, I’m taking anything away from Mike. He was by far the best player in the league and it wasn’t even close but at least challenge him. Salute to the Knicks and duns like Xavier McDaniels and John Starks for being some G’s on their way out by at least challenging him.
The reason that most cats don’t like Zeke is because he never bowed down to Jordan. He’s a man and I can respect him for that. Again, don’t ever say that these new cats are soft. Stop me when I start lyin’!
