Last night on April 19, the Micheal Jordan documentary “The Last Dance” aired on ESPN at 8 pm. The documentary mini-series showcased never before seen footage of mainly the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls. It further highlighted the dilemma the team had for their last year with their head coach Phil Jackson and the road to winning their six NBA championships. So, today I am going to break down the first episode out of the ten episodes that will air every Sunday.
The episode included footage detailing the 1980’s Bulls and how the people in the city of Chicago had little interest in the Bulls. The disinterest was because of the many poor seasons the Bulls had in the past. The next scene of the documentary shows Micheal Jordan going to North Carolina and showing the determination of Jordan wanting to be the best. He had a talk with his UNC basketball coach and he told him that he was going to be the best player to ever play at North Carolina. Coach Williams said to young Micheal, “Well, you’ve got to work harder than you did in High School.” “I worked as hard as everybody else,” Jordan replied and also said, “I’m going to show you that nobody will ever work as hard as I will.”
Micheal Jordan would stay longer after practice because he was determined to show his coach that he was going to be the best to ever come to North Carolina. After every practice, Micheal would challenge his teammate James Worthy to a one on one to see how he progressed. The film crew interviewed James Worthy, James shared, “we would finish practice, I would be drenched in sweat and Micheal would always want to play one on one. I was better than Micheal Jordan for about three weeks.”
On March 29, 1982, the UNC Tar Heels’ faced off against Georgetown for the NCAA March Madness championship. The freshman Micheal Jordan has established himself as a threat for the Tar Heels’ and Georgetown knew it. The championship came down to the last couple of seconds in the second half. The score was 62-63 with UNC in the lead. The coach for the Tar Heels’ drew up a play that brought the defense one direction leaving Michael Jordan open for a clear shot. The play came out exactly how the coach expected it to come out with Micheal Jordan wide open for an open shot. Once he made the shot, Micheal Jordan said to the film crew for the documentary, “that’s when my confidence started to come.”
Micheal Jordan wanted to stay at UNC for his last season, but his coach and family convinced him to declare for the draft. In 1984 with the third pick, the Chicago Bulls selected Micheal Jordan out of UNC.
Cordney Abraham Sports Analysis 