Jordan Rules author Sam Smith was never afraid to call out His Airness.
Michael Jordan mentioned at the end of The Last Dance documentary that he wanted the Bulls to run it back in 1998-99 and chase a 7th NBA championship, but that didn’t happen.
While Jordan’s legions of admirers hyped up his declaration, his critics decried it as a big lie and merely part of the script of a documentary that was made to enhance his legacy. One of Jordan’s staunchest critics, Jordan Rules author Sam Smith, was one of those who called out MJ.
“Would they have won again?” asked Smith. “No. Because that’s like saying, ‘If he hadn’t fallen off that building, he would be alive!'”
A lot of things were going against the Bulls
According to Smith, Pippen had back surgery after the 1997-98 season and was never the same player again. Meanwhile, Rodman was already falling apart, and he suffered a meltdown when he played for the Lakers the following season.
The Bulls reserves, like Luc Longley, Steve Kerr, and Jud Buechler, received big contracts in free agency, which the Bulls would have been hard-pressed to match, especially with MJ coming back. On the other hand, Jordan also suffered a severe finger injury that could have sidelined him at the start of the campaign, perhaps even longer.
“How would his legacy have looked trying to come back without any preseason or camp under those circumstances?” Smith added. “This another-year thing is so pathetic. It’s like a teenager dreaming for years about the girlfriend who dumped him. If only… Move on!”
Smith said The Last Dance was full of lies
During a 2020 interview with 95.7 The Game after the last episode of The Last Dance, Smith went on to criticize Jordan for making up or lying about several things during the 10-episode documentary, and a chase for 7th ring was one of them.
“To come back in ’98 and do what he did and basically walk away when he didn’t have to, and then to pretend that he was the one that wanted to play and they forced him out? Whoever forces Michael Jordan out to do anything? Anyway, such a blatant lie, but hey, that’s part of the mystique of Michael Jordan,” Sam said.
He made a good point there. Sure, the Bulls were disintegrating, but nobody on the Bulls wanted Michael out because that’s MJ. He walked away on his own and never said a word until The Last Dance, which says a lot about whether they would have won in 1999.