The Grant Park farewell will not be it. The three of them will see one another again, at reunions eventually, across the basketball floor sooner than that. They can wave their championship jewelry at one another in passing, identical rings, enough diamonds to shame the sun.
They are forever Bulls.
A sixth NBA championship is not the end of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and Phil Jackson, not in their separate lives, only in ours, and maybe it is time.
The instant T-shirts announced their achievement as the “Repeat 3-Peat,” the first championship souvenirs to require a working knowledge of math.
As Babe Ruth is a Yankee, as Bob Denver is Gilligan, as Ginger is a Spice Girl, whatever the new role or fresh costume, they are what they are.
They have been with us longer than the house they play in, longer than the library, longer than at least half of our area codes, longer than Dave Wannstedt or Jerry Springer, and I use those two just to get them into the same sentence, the only time it is likely to happen.
Talk about people who need to leave Chicago. . . .
Jackson had suggested to Jordan that Jordan go out on top, easy advice to give, a suggestion Jackson will not apply to himself. Repose will come for the Bulls’ coach, and he does seem to need it.
Compare photos of Jackson and the first title with Jackson today, and you see a man more gaunt and more used, not so much naturally aged as rushed.
Jerry Krause, on the other hand, looks exactly the same, same suit, maybe a longer belt.
Others await Jackson’s disposition–Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles (“I’ll take their calls,” Jackson said)–and he may have to take his chance soon to get the chance he wants, someplace in the West, where the horizon is the skyline and there is no Krause to block the dawn.
Jackson’s credentials as a coach are already firm. He need not get more titles someplace else, with no Jordan, with no Pippen.
This was his watch, no one else’s, and if Jackson’s epitaph were no more complicated than “He got MJ to pass the ball,” it would be enough.
They will be linked forever in Chicago sports–Jordan and Pippen and Jackson–like Tinker to Evers to Chance, like Butkus and Ditka and Sayers or Payton and Hampton and Singletary.
Hull was never as great without Mikita and Esposito. How will Pippen and Jackson do without Michael, and how will Michael do without them?
How will we do without them, come to think of it?
My best guess is this: Jordan returns, Pippen leaves, Jackson takes a year off.
“Michael has probably five years left on his career, even before he begins to decline,” Pippen said.
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Pippen, so eager to be rid of the place that gave him his game, his fame and his lasting identity, can be forgiven his selfishness. Certainly he is as allowed to have it as was Jordan when he left Pippen holding the franchise.
“To play without him is a slap in the face to me,” Jordan said, forgetting that Jordan’s slap to Pippen was with a closed fist.
Pippen had his time as the main Bull, and not a bad time it was, though it always will be defined by two bad moments: the Hue Hollins call and the 1.8 seconds against the Knicks.
Their reunion has given each not only three more titles but a greater appreciation of the other, although the worship still seems to flow Pippen to Jordan.
“It has been great,” Pippen said. “Even with the ups and downs, the good and the bad, our careers have been wonderful because we’ve been able to cherish and learn from every moment we’ve spent on the basketball court.”
The ranking in memory always will be Jordan first–he does have his own statue already–with Pippen second and then Jackson.
This was their time and it was our time, and however much time they have away from each other, nothing they do will ever duplicate what will always be the best time.
Jordan will be forever the greatest Chicago athletic wonder, properly a treasure apart from Pippen and Jackson, as if he needed to prove it again with his finish in Game 6 against the Jazz.
The simple difference is the same as between Charles Lindbergh and Neil Armstrong. One did it alone, while one did it with a lot of help. And none of the above, by the way, needed Dennis Rodman.