Michael Jordan’s ‘maddening’ Bulls dynasty take irks Jerry Reinsdorf

“The Last Dance” was a fun trip back in time. But the docuseries dominated by Michael Jordan’s point of view left out so many details of the 1990s Bulls dynasty. At the conclusion of the final episode — after owner Jerry Reinsdorf said it would have been too expensive to bring back the core pieces …

“The Last Dance” was a fun trip back in time. But the docuseries dominated by Michael Jordan’s point of view left out so many details of the 1990s Bulls dynasty.

At the conclusion of the final episode — after owner Jerry Reinsdorf said it would have been too expensive to bring back the core pieces — Jordan calls it “maddening” that the roster was decimated after winning a sixth title in eight years, claiming that the key players could have been brought back on one-year deals and that he never had a conversation with Reinsdorf about why the team was broken up.

Perhaps the past two decades have blurred the legend’s memory.

“I was not pleased. How’s that?” Reinsdorf told NBC Sports Chicago about Jordan’s remarks. “He knew better. Michael and I had some private conversations at that time that I won’t go into detail on ever. But there’s no question in my mind that Michael’s feeling at the time was we could not put together a championship team the next year.”

Reinsdorf said the biggest reason is because Jordan wouldn’t even have been able to play when the next season started.

“The thing nobody wants to remember, during [the] lockout, Michael was screwing around with a cigar cutter, and he cut his finger,” Reinsdorf told ESPN. “He couldn’t have played that year. He had to have surgery on the finger, so even if we could’ve brought everybody back, it wouldn’t have made any sense.”

Jordan claims he wouldn’t have suffered the accident — one month before the lockout-shortened season began — if he believed he was coming back. Fueled by an ongoing feud with general manager Jerry Krause, coach Phil Jackson determined it was time to step away.

“I asked (coach) Phil to come back. Phil said no. Michael said I won’t play for anybody other than Phil,” Reinsdorf said. “I met with Michael on the 3rd of July of that year and I said to him, ‘We’re in a lockout. Who knows when we’re going to play? Why don’t you wait until the lockout is over and maybe I can talk Phil into coming back?’ And he agreed.

“When the lockout was over, I still couldn’t talk Phil into coming back.”

When Jordan mentions in the final episode how nearly everyone would have been willing to come back for a chance at a fourth straight title, he acknowledges bringing back grossly underpaid wingman Scottie Pippen would have been a challenge, with the Hall of Famer — who repeatedly asked to be traded out of Chicago — finally a free agent.

“OK, let’s take that hypothetical. Scottie had Houston offering him a multi-year contract,” Reinsdorf said of Pippen’s five-year, $67.2 million offer from the Rockets. “You think he would’ve turned that down to come back for one year? I don’t think so.”

While Pippen had multiple productive years left, Reinsdorf, 84, points out the rest of the aging roster was on its last legs.

“Dennis Rodman had gone beyond the pale. As it turned out, he played 35 games after that,” Reinsdorf said. “Luc Longley was on his last legs. If we had brought that team back, they were gassed. Michael had been carrying that team.”

Doubt will always exist about when the dynasty should have ended. Reinsdorf, though, said there should be no debate about the game’s greatest player of all-time.

“This is history. It makes for fascinating stuff,” Reinsdorf said. “And ‘The Last Dance’ obviously should establish in the mind of any person with normal eyesight that Michael was beyond a doubt the greatest of all-time. In my mind, anytime anybody wants to talk to me about comparing Michael to LeBron (James), I’m going to tell them to please don’t waste my time.

“I’m really pleased it showed how great Michael was to people who hadn’t seen him play. I’m truly tired of people trying to compare LeBron to Michael when it’s not even close. They should try to compare LeBron with Oscar Robertson or Magic Johnson. Michael was so head-and-shoulders over everybody, and that really came out in this documentary. He was a phenomenon. We may never see another like him.”

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