As an image, it is as good as any. The Last Dance. Every one seems to agree that Phil Jackson has it right, though exactly which kind of dance is unclear. Cha-cha. Polka. Tap. Rain.
If Big Chief Triangle has thought it up, maybe we would all be wise to take umbrellas to the United Center.
Of all the lasts that there are–last call, last chance, last cigarette, last minute, last supper, last resort–last dance does have the proper lilt to it, the right mixture of romance and sadness, a hint of regret, a breath of comfort.
We shall check the scars sometime in the middle of June and see if it was a dance at all.
Whatever it is, it gives the Bulls, at least, clear definition, however bizarre and baffling.
While other basketball teams embrace the playoffs as the outset of their dreams, the Bulls must face the passing of their own time, completing a self-executing sentence.
Dead men dribbling.
“Maybe there will be a little more savoring going on,” Michael Jordan said Thursday.
What’s going to happen next year seems more vital and more urgent than what is going to happen next week, or next month.
“It has taken on a life of its own,” Jordan said.
Jordan is postponing his final choice–stay or go–until there is a reason to make it, but all that has gone on between Jackson, Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf would appear to finish off another encore.
“There will need to be a lot of mending,” Jordan said. “A lot of bridges have been burned.”
Until then, there is the incidental business of basketball to be addressed, starting with the New Jersey Nits, er–the Nets, a team happy to be at the bottom of the top.
Sharing the Bulls’ world for as brief a time as their energy and ambition will allow is its own reward.
Is it possible the Bulls could lose the series to these ciphers?
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“Not unless we fall asleep,” Jordan said.
Only the Bulls are not allowed to be carefree and careless. Down in Charlotte, players are shaving their heads to reinforce some urgent, ritualistic tribalism, a tonsorial tribute to team unity and commitment.
Hey, the Bulls all used to wear black shoes, which at least could be taken off after the game.
Out west, delusion replaces speculation, with four or five teams playing not for the right to be the final victim but to be the first winner over the Bulls in an NBA Finals.
One coach, I can’t remember which one, observed how in the last days of the season, Jordan finally looked like a “35-year-old.”
“People who take my age as a weak point might get stung,” Jordan said.
This is said now when tasks are light and the body is fresh. What is ahead combined with what has gone behind makes for some serious addition. It may not be a matter of talent, nor of will, nor of distaste for the franchise they all glorify. It may be but simple weariness that finally finishes the Bulls.
“They got a year older and not a year better,” Seattle’s George Karl was saying the other day. “Chicago has beaten five different opponents in their championship quests.
“I can say two years ago we weren’t intimidated by them, but to a degree we were. If we or Utah get an opportunity to play them again, we will be more mentally ready.”
That is why they are doing this, isn’t it? To be the one that’s there when the Bulls finally fail?
The Bulls’ last dance could be somebody else’s first.
“Last dance, first dance,” Jordan said. “You want to do it quickly.”
Rush to dismantle. What a motivation.
As the old cartoon pig, not to be confused with any local general manager, would say, “That’s all, folks.”