A month ago, I was shopping at Sprouts. While in the produce section, I was trying to grab some parsley and cilantro. Less than one foot away, a lady reached over and grabbed her own herbs. The first thing I think is: “Woah, is this lady trying to infect me with Coronavirus?” I jerked back walked away and told my girlfriend how much of an asshole that lady was being. Apparently I had said that a little too loud. Her boyfriend heard me and we got into a shouting match. Bedlam was about to ring out next to the broccoli raab, pandemonium next to the kohlrabi radish.
Eventually, the Sprouts stocker with his twisted mustache yells out, “Everyone chill out, maaaaaan! We are all going to get through this!” His reassurance was honestly settling.
I had to come to my senses. I was not in my old El Paso neighborhood, I was in a South Austin Sprouts in the organic produce section. It probably wouldn’t be smart to get in a tussle and wilt all the watercress and swiss chard.
With this pandemic going on, it is making a lot of us go insane. From my rivalry with the guy next to the hydroponic Bibb lettuce, to how people are reacting to the Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance. We need to take the advice of the fearless Sprouts stocker and just ‘Chill out, man’.
Following each episode, Twitter would rage about how much better Jordan was compared to LeBron James. I am not going to turn this piece into a “why LeBron is better than Jordan” blog. It is to point out the ridiculousness of the highly entertaining “documentary”. I quote the word documentary because it was more of a propaganda film. The film was co-produced by Jump 23 (a Michael Jordan company) and last say on what is to be on the documentary was by Michael Jordan.
Some of the themes of the early episodes were about how much of a punching bag Jerry Krause was. The film makes Krause out to be this dopey/comical character. The depiction of one of the great basketball minds of all-time was downright disrespectful. Krause made the tough decision to fire Doug Collins and bring in Phil Jackson, he drafted Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant in the same draft, drafted Toni Kukoc, and that is just to name a few. Krause was the architect of one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history. Does Krause have flaws? Of course he does. His ego got the best of him saying he has “God’s gift” when referring to his scouting ability, to some of his antics on handling the Scottie Pippen contract dispute, and his infamous spout with Jordan about teams winning championships and not players. The depiction of Krause seemed petty and malicious.
Now that we are close to a week removed from the completion of the series on ESPN, you are starting to see some of Jordan’s former teammates offer criticism to the film. One notable player was Horace Grant. Grant said the film was edited to make it look like Jordan would bully players and no one would ever come back at him.
"I would say [it was] entertaining, but we know, who was there as teammates, that about 90% of it -- I don't know if I can say it on air, but B.S. in terms of the realness of it," Grant said. "It wasn't real, because a lot of things [Jordan] said to some of his teammates, that his teammates went back at him. But all of that was kind of edited out of the documentary, if you want to call it a documentary."
Now that we have all seen “The Last Dance”, people have lost their collective minds. People that never actually seen a live Michael Jordan game, are now convinced that LeBron James isn’t even close to Michael Jordan. On Twitter, the debate of the “greatest of all-time” was raging. The theme being “LeBron could never do this”. Even Paul Pierce saying he wouldn’t even put LeBron in his top-5. There has been just a lot of ridiculous takes.
The film is going to show Jordan’s highlights. It is going to show the great shots, dunks, steals, and the celebration of winning the championships. What those films are not going to show are the missed shots, the mid season slumps, etc.
Michael Jordan basically Ether’d LeBron with this film. LeBron couldn’t even have his own version of “Supa Ugly” because of the lock down. That is what this debate has turned into: Jay-Z versus Nas, a great versus a great. If someone was to come up to me and say Michael Jordan is the greatest of all-time, I would tend to agree. You should also have LeBron up there at least in the top-3. Saying LeBron isn’t a top-3 player is pretty ridiculous. It is crazy that this film has taken LeBron to arguably the best ever to not being in the top-5. Did something happen during the pandemic that I am not aware of? When did his status go down? Just that 2016 series alone should put him in that conversation.
Although I did enjoy “The Last Dance”, we have to see the film as it is, a propaganda film. It was very Jim Kung-Un-esque. Jordan basically had a documentary made about him to show how great he was. We all ate it all up. With sports all on hold, this was our sports moment we could all enjoy together. Too bad it turned our brains into sludge. Instead of enjoying the greatness of a player, social media turned this into a moment to trash other players. It was very Jordan like, the film targeted people that crossed Jordan and punished them.
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