Michael Jordan

Sam Smith

It appears as if the NBA has decided to settle the Great GOAT Debate.

The envelope please. And the winner is...

And the crowd doesn’t go wild. Because most of us already knew.

The NBA Tuesday offered some endorsement and confirmation by announcing that the league’s Most Valuable Player now will get the trophy named for Michael Jordan.

It’s no secret that the NBA’s most prestigious and valued individual award is Most Valuable Player. It annually designates the best player in the best basketball league in the world, the one player who most towers above everyone else for that season. Every MVP who is eligible has been enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

So it’s not a reach to suggest that the NBA by renaming the MVP award for Michael Jordan also sees Jordan as the figure to represent the best in the game.

The MVP formerly received the Maurice Podoloff trophy, which now becomes the award for the annual NBA regular season best record named for the first commissioner.

“It’s appropriate the NBA has chosen to name the Most Valuable Player trophy for Michael Jordan, whose image on the iconic statue is celebrated in Chicago as, 'The best there ever was. The best there ever will be.’ The Bulls franchise and the city were honored to witness the journey to validation and victory of this tenacious ultimate competitor,” Bulls managing partner Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement for Bulls.com. “It is proper the trophy symbolically depicts his remarkable ascent to the pinnacle of the sports world to also provide the inspiration to others which defined his incomparable career.”

The retitling of the MVP trophy comes in a series of league award name changes that seem to represent who these players were.

The All-Star game MVP was named for Kobe Bryant, who was one of the great showmen of the game and someone who always stood out among his fellow stars. The Finals MVP was named for Bill Russell, the winningest team player of all time who represented the best in team excellence that led to championships. The Coach of the Year is named for the great strategist and winner Red Auerbach. The respective MVPs in each conference finals were named for Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, whose rivalry in dominating their conferences was responsible for much of the massive growth of the NBA. The social justice award is named for civil rights advocate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the sportsmanship award for classy Joe Dumars and the Teammate of the Year award for the remarkable pair of Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes.

The NBA Tuesday also announced new names for the Defensive Player trophy (Hakeem Olajuwon), the Rookie of the Year trophy (Wilt Chamberlain), the Sixth Man of the Year trophy (John Havlicek), the Most Improved Player trophy (George Mikan), and Jerry West for the new Clutch Player trophy.

There is a lesson in league history in the legacies of each of those players that led to their names being ascribed to the trophies which designate their excellence and achievement.

So it’s fitting that when the NBA each year honors its best it’s in association with the name Michael Jordan.

But it’s not because Jordan has the most MVP awards. That’s Abdul-Jabbar with six. Jordan won five times to match Russell. LeBron James and Wilt Chamberlain were named four times. Moses Malone, Bird and Magic each won three times. That’s generally considered the pantheon of excellence in NBA history.

Jordan won six championships with the Bulls, those coming in eight seasons between 1991 and 1998 around a 19-month sabbatical to play baseball in the Chicago White Sox minor league system. Russell was on the most championship teams with 11. Many of his teammates because of his presence have won between seven and 10 titles. Jordan, teammate Scottie Pippen and Abdul-Jabbar come after that group with six titles each. Robert Horry as mostly a role player on three teams squeezes in with seven.

So there’s no precise statistical measure be it points—now held by Abdul-Jabbar with James second and Karl Malone third—championships or MVP awards that determines the best player of alltime. Greatest of All Time, as the acronym goes, is something of a mythical designation because there is no statistical or scientific method or official voting process.&nbsp;

It’s generally considered something of a blend of the so called eye test, that you know what you see, an accumulation of statistics and triumphs and large parts emotion about who means the most and has had the most impact.

The most recent debate generally involves Jordan and James.

It’s previously been about Jordan and Bryant, Magic and Bird, Russell and Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar and Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. Pick your favorite.

The Most Valuable Player trophy, the NBA’s most important individual award, the honor which designates the game’s greatest player at any time, is now being named for Michael Jordan.

Jordan also has contributed a nice touch my requesting the award not be in his likeness, but represent the journey for the winner, which we were fortunate to witness in Chicago.

Not that much wasn’t expected since Jordan was an NCAA champion at the University of North Carolina and star of the 1984 gold medal winning USA Basketball team. But it was an era of centers in the NBA and Jordan was not the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. Guards had never been the dominant player on a championship team and two centers were selected before him. As much as the brilliant shooting of Stephen Curry has change the arc of talent in the NBA, it was Jordan’s impact which got teams believing they could link up a scoring guard with winning a championship.

It truly was a journey for Jordan, enduring the potholes and flat tires of despair and disappointment on the road to success. He was denied by the greats of the game, Bird, Johnson, Isiah Thomas. The narrative became you needed a facilitating scorer, someone in the popular cliche to “make others better,” to win titles, like Bird and Magic. Even like Thomas with his partisans and artisans. In Jordan’s first six years in the NBA, Bird and Johnson won five of the MVP awards.

Jordan snuck one in during 1987-88 by producing one of the greatest statistical seasons in NBA history, averaging more points in a season than everyone but Chamberlain and winning the Defensive Player of the Year at the same time. Jordan had to become the only player to win DPOY and the scoring title in the same year to wrestle that MVP away from Bird or Johnson.

Jordan also suffered annual playoff disappointments, often in cruel and unusual ways, in his journey with the Bulls in attempting to overcome and dethrone the rival Detroit Pistons. The Bulls and Jordan finally did in 1991 after multiple disappointments, and once they did there was no stopping them for six championships in the decade. Only the Celtics compiled a superior decade of titles.

Jordan was named MVP four times in the 1990s, and it’s still debated why he didn’t win the other two full seasons he played during that era.

It became an historic and rewarding journey, which is what Jordan’s career often meant to him, and which the trophy now suitably symbolizes.

Though there is plenty of Jordan subtly placed in the trophy in the creative alliance between Jordan and Nike designer Mark Smith, who worked with Jordan on the trophy.

The announcement adds that the bronze trophy: "Features an NBA player breaking out of a rock to reach for the ultimate rock – a crystal basketball.&nbsp; From the bottom to its top, the patina of the trophy grows more burnished – “raw to refined” – signifying the MVP’s hard work and progression from entering the league to achieving the NBA’s greatest individual honor.&nbsp; The trophy’s reach symbolizes an MVP’s endless chase for greatness.”

“As we worked together on this project, it was very important to Michael that the figure not be a likeness of him, but instead that the recipient should be able to see himself in the award,” Nike’s Smith said for the NBA announcement. "For Michael, naming the award in his honor was recognition enough.”

Got a question for Sam?Submit your question to Sam at&nbsp;asksam@bulls.com

The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Chicago Bulls. All opinions expressed by Sam Smith are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Chicago Bulls or its Basketball Operations staff, parent company, partners, or sponsors. His sources are not known to the Bulls and he has no special access to information beyond the access and privileges that go along with being an NBA accredited member of the media.

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The Michael Jordan Trophy: NBA MVP renamed after the Greatest Player of All-Time

Bulls.com

Michael Jordan came sprinting and bouncing through the door first, pumping his fist. His smile seemed to me more about satisfaction than accomplishment.

Magic was in the Air, but Michael Jordan had taken the air out of Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers. No one realized quite yet, but the tectonic plates of NBA distinction had shifted irrevocably. Their joy was unrestrained, which is predictable at such moments as many in sports have experienced. Yet, it also seemed as much therapeutic for all the hurt and pain it seemed to erase.

A gleeful Jerry Krause even hugged me. That's the definition of euphoria.

That was the night in Los Angeles thirty years ago Saturday—June 12—when the Bulls won their first NBA championship.

Not that anyone really expected much more than one. And certainly not the dynasty the Bulls became.

That's where it began, and I was happy to be there. The NBA a few years before had started to invite the traveling beat reporters and some local and national media into the locker room as time expired in the closing Finals game so we could witness that tsunami of emption and celebration. And get our clothes wet from Champagne spray. I probably should have saved that vest sweater for auction.

No, that's not Champagne, that's a Michael Jordan tear drop.

Michael Jordan, surrounded by his family and the media, is interviewed by Bob Costas after the Chicago Bulls secured their first NBA title in 1991.

We've seen the picture many times of Jordan, his then wife Juanita to his left, cradling the championship trophy in his right hand while being interviewed by Bob Costas for NBC, his parents in the foreground. I was standing just to Jordan's left behind Juanita, leaning down mostly out of camera view to hear the historic comments we know always come from locker room celebrations. The reporter in the middle of it directly behind Jordan literally standing in Jordan's locker was Mike Downey, then a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and later the Chicago Tribune. He was also known as the husband Dean Martin's daughter, so he understood better than the rest of us where the camera would be for posterity.

Jordan was telling Costas he always competed for and sought this title, but if he never achieved his goal he would not be disappointed with his career. I'm glad I wasn't on camera to be seen rolling my eyes.

Jordan had just played all 48 minutes of the Game 5 clincher after 52 minutes in the pivotal Game 3 overtime win during which Jordan suffered a toe injury and then 44 minutes in Game 4. Players apparently didn't get as fatigued back then.

I never get tired thinking about that night and that week and that season.

Front row (left to right): Craig Hodges, John Paxson, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan, B. J. Armstrong. Second row: Chip Schaefer (Trainer), Cliff Levingston, Scott Williams, Will Perdue , Stacey King, Dennis Hopson, Jerry Krause (Vice President of Basketball Operations). Back Row: Jim Cleamons (Asst. Coach, Tex Winter (Asst. Coach), Phil Jackson (Head Coach), John Bach (Asst. Coach), Jim Stack (Scout) and Clarence Gaines Jr. (Scout)

Fans often ask me which championship season was my favorite. There's never hesitation about it being 1991, and not only because it was the first. I also believed it was the Bulls best team among the six championships because of the youth, athletic abilities and tenacity of the Big Three of Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant. But also because of the depth of the reserves that was so crucial in the victory over the Lakers when even as Jordan, Pippen and Grant played so much, reserves like Cliff Levingston, Scott Williams and Craig Hodges repeatedly made big plays and outperformed the Lakers bench. Their bandwidth seemed so much greater than the Lakers, at least to me. And to many around that team. Were we just Homers? Or seeing that they were ready to cross home plate?

It would be the wellspring of athletic brilliance and legacy.

Everyone generally remembers their firsts. But as consequential as this was, it was equally unexpected. Especially to the Bulls.

It seems so unlikely now because the Bulls did win six championships in the 1990s, every year Jordan played a full season. People and especially sports fans and media tend to maintain this ordained belief, that if something occurred it also was destined, a basketball tautology. They won because they were the best and the best wins.

Even the Bulls didn't believe they were the best that season. They believed they were better than the Detroit Pistons, who'd knocked them out of the playoffs the last three years, and often embarrassingly so. But they still had to prove it. To everyone else. And really to themselves, as well.

The accepted formula for ultimate NBA success back then was experiencing defeat, learning from it, as the tired cliche went, and then winning. It was the league's ascendancy labyrinth. Like the Celtics performed in 1980 to the Lakers, the 76ers for six years until 1983, the Pistons to the Celtics in 1989. And now it was the Portland Trailblazers' turn. Portland lost to the Pistons in the 1990 Finals and then began the 1990-91 season with 11 straight wins and a 19-1 first six weeks.

The Bulls, as we saw reiterated in the Last Dance documentary last year, were obsessed with the Pistons. I remember when the team went into Detroit for the first time that 1990-91 season just before Christmas. They were much more feckless than fearless in a double digit loss. It did seem like they'd be broken up after that season. Jordan was growing more frustrated with Pippen and Grant and their apparently inability to match Detroit's tenacious tactics. They seemed not to be growing as much as melting in that competitive incubator. Jordan was discussing replacements. When the team just before the All-Star break returned to the Palace at Auburn Hills and won, they talked about it being a breakthrough with their first road win against those Pistons. I didn't see it that way since Isiah Thomas was out injured. But if it's your story, you can tell it your way.

It seemed more like an ember; it became a flash point.

Scottie Pippen being defended by Pistons forward Dennis Rodman, who would later be an integral piece of the Bulls dynasty.

But when the Bulls returned from that All-Star break still with just one All-Star while the Celtics had three and the Pistons, 76ers and Bucks two each, it was the Bulls who seemed like a different team. That win in Detroit somehow did appear profound. They played with a purpose and poise I hadn't really seen before.

Because of Pippen and Grant, they were the least experienced among the East's best. But they were the most athletic, and that threesome flying around the court, trapping, pressuring and running was exhausting the other teams.

The Bulls won nine straight and 17 of 18, and hiding in plain sight they had become the second half Trailblazers team that began the season 19-1. But images and ideas often are fixed on first glance. And so the NBA had made up its mind even as the Bulls were 29-7 after the All-Star break.

Then the Bulls opened the playoffs beating the Knicks by 41 points to start the three-game sweep, took Charles Barkley and the 76ers in five games and famously and infamously swept the Pistons into their elaborate and premature perambulation. That made it 41-8. To me, that was magic. Not Magic.

The ritualistic media exercise before any of these series, especially back then, was to analyze position by position and predict a winner. I knew even living so sheltered in Chicago, as the West Coast glitterati saw it, that the Lakers had a lot of championships and Magic Johnson and James Worthy and famous fans. But I really did believe the Bulls were better. Not just because of Jordan as most media focused on the Jordan/Johnson confluence.

Jordan and Johnson really weren't great friends yet as much as they would become because Johnson was so often featured favorably in comparison to the high scoring, frequent shooting Jordan as the model basketball player. Sure, the narrative went, you can score and beat him one-on-one. But Magic checked all the banal boxes, played the right way, made teammates better. It just made Jordan so mad! Plus, if that wasn't bad enough, Johnson was buddies with Isiah Thomas, though that relationship was fracturing with their Finals opposition. Still, Isiah! And they called Rodman the Worm?

The Lakers were broken down, though no one realized how much at the time. They weren't supposed to be there, actually, but pulled a surprise upset of the Trailblazers in the conference finals. The next three seasons they would not finish higher than eighth. Of course, that became without Johnson.

But I believed that Bulls secret weapon of defense—which wasn't secret to those of us around the team all season—would be too much for the slower, aged Lakers. Those Bulls might have been the best defensive team in the history of the NBA, though no one ever mentioned it. Jordan was a former Defensive Player of the Year and regarded as the league's best defensive guard. Pippen was soon to be recognized as the league's best defensive wing player and may be the best defensive perimeter player in league history. Without advance notice, you're always a year late for recognition. No one said it then. They did by the close of the 1992 Olympics. Grant was probably the most athletic defensive power forward in the game. Coach Phil Jackson had those three trapping and sprinting and pressuring. And for all the attention on Jordan's ubiquitous scoring, the Bulls were dominating teams with defense.

So I picked Pippen over Worthy and Grant over Sam Perkins to make a point and selected Bulls in 5.

This is not to say I know how these things, often so quixotic, will conclude. I get as many wrong as I do correct. Like everyone else. We're around the game all the time. But it doesn't mean we know what will happen. If we did, the betting sites would make me a billionaire. I always would say if I knew what was going to happen, I'd just live in Vegas. When that was where you had to go if you were a wiser guy.

I merely wanted to make a point about how good I thought those Bulls were.

Though in a series one or two plays can change everything.

I remember running into some Bulls staffers after Game 3 in the parking lot outside the Forum. They were giddy and celebrating. Great overtime win, I agreed. Sure, they said, but now this meant the series would return to Chicago. Yes, they were just hoping not to be swept in LA.

And suddenly my five-game Bulls win prediction was a story.

How dare I! After all, this was the mighty Lakers!

The Los Angeles media, often adopting a Hollywood tone, tends to be dismissive in a condescending way. Like life in LA. They often seemed to prefer to treat newspaper stories like motion picture treatments. You know, I could be writing Citizen Kane if I wanted to. They go to the beach while the rest of us are cowering in our offices, reluctant to face the biting elements to fight our way home. They wake late and party late, and invent everything. And then they tend to be especially disdainful of the Midwest. I recall reading Mayberry often instead of Chicago.

There also was an egotistical national sports media experiment at the time led by Frank Deford from Sports Illustrated fame. He was hired to lead an all sports daily superstar newspaper of supposed superior quality with only the best writers. Of course, the rest of us who weren't included were resentful, especially with the new paper's similar patronizing tone. And so as the Finals series began, both the LA Times and the National were writing stories about how ill-informed, dysfunctional and chauvinistic the Chicago media was by thinking the Bulls could win. And especially me. And in five games!

One National column was about how I needed to be fired if that was my knowledge of the NBA. You always hate to see colleagues lose their jobs, though I have to admit I wasn't that depressed when the National went out of business on the day the Bulls won Game 5. I know, but I couldn't ignore the coincidence.

Hey, I was just making a guess and a point. Who takes this so seriously?

So back to Game 1, Perkins in his attempt to make a shot to tie the score got confused and stepped behind the three-point line. He converted what became the winning points when Jordan's fatal final attempt bounced in and out.

The local Chicago media worked in the hockey press box in the old Chicago Stadium, which was an overhang at the East Side of the arena. Brian McIntyre, the NBA's chief pr executive and former lead Bulls media staffer, was walking out of the Stadium just below where I was working. "You're right on target for five," he said with a hearty laugh.

Earlier I had been down to the locker rooms, which were a floor below the basketball court in that old building. Later after the interviews, I found Jackson in one of the corner rabbit warrens in the basement maze of the old building. Jackson always would retreat to one of those spots after a game to drink a beer and smoke a cigarette. "Tough one," I said. Jackson smiled. "It was a great game," he said.

He didn't elaborate much, but it seemed like the loss gave him confidence. That's it? That's all they've got? The great Lakers?

His eyes seemed to say it. Or was it the haze and rat poison left in the wall cracks?

Michael Jordan looks up at head coach Phil Jackson during the 1991 NBA Finals.

Game 2 became a rout for the Bulls, completed with Jordan's famous switch hand layup after the Bulls had long broken open the game with 12 straight field goals in a game Jordan made 13 consecutive shots. You still can't watch an NBA commercial without hearing Marv Albert's famous call, a spectacular shot by Michael Jordan! It was that 13th straight field goal.

That also was the game that began Johnson's decline. His exhaustion seemed to grow game to game as we attributed it to Jackson's strategy after Game 1 to alternate Pippen defending Johnson with Jordan. Jordan defended Johnson in Game 1, but Jackson went to the taller and longer Pippen in Game 2, and then toggled between the two as the games progressed. Johnson attempted to rest on defense by playing against John Paxson. But Paxson had the series of his career, shooting 65 percent with all the open space as Johnson often attempted to help on Jordan. Paxson in the series attempted just four three pointers and the Bulls attempted just 21 in the five games combined.

Johnson had this hollow look of fatigue and defeat as the series continued. No one ever speculated just a few months later he'd be announcing his retirement because of HIV.

Jordan made another Shot in the Game 3 crucible which set the Bulls on course to the title.

The Lakers, back home for Game 3, hit the Bulls with an 18-2 run after halftime and a 13-point lead before the Bulls crawled back into the game. But Vlade Divac, stumbling with a loose ball, gathered it and scored for a three-point play and 92-90 lead with 10.9 seconds left. It seemed like a 2-1 Lakers lead to come and maybe the start of a sweep.

Jackson chose after a timeout to allow Jordan to dribble up full court. Jordan dashed to the right elbow before the Lakers could set and made a jumper with 3.4 seconds left to tie the game. Then the Lakers didn't get off a shot. Though Jordan played 52 minutes and scored 29 points, he was just 11 of 28 and scoreless most of the second half until that last shot. He made The Shot. Not many others. Cliff Levingston had a big game with Pippen in foul trouble and Grant scored the last two baskets of overtime and had 22 points and 11 rebounds.

The home court guard rail was becoming a third rail for the Lakers.

The story coming into Game 4 was Jordan's jammed toe from Game 3. But it was mostly the Bulls jamming up Johnson with the Pippen/Jordan tag team. Indicative was one possession when the Lakers tried to post Johnson and Jordan and Pippen squeezed him into a 24-second clock violation. It got to a point that the Lakers had to have Worthy in the backcourt to set screens so Johnson could dribble into the front court. Yes, that Magic Johnson. The Lakers bench was invisible and with a few minutes left in the game, once self-assured fans were heading for the beach; it was garbage time with bench players in the last three minutes of a Finals game. Jordan still played 44 minutes with continued acceleration.

Jordan and Pippen took turns being the primary defender against Magic Johnson in the 1991 Finals.

It was 3-1 Bulls and it now seemed there was no way the Lakers could recover with both Worthy and Byron Scott out injured for Game 5.

The Lakers never seemed to play with much energy or panache most of the series. But the suddenly patchwork Lakers gave it more of a try. The usually late arriving fans were involved from the start, chanting defense from the first possession. They seemed somewhat less contemptuous of Chicago. Lakers rookies Tony Smith and Elden Campbell played most of the game on a two-player bench. Terry Teagle started for the Lakers. Magic did get 20 assists, and the Lakers were tied with six minutes left. Could it be? Suspense? Nah.

Jackson told me later that summer about that famous timeout with about six minutes left when he asked a jittery Jordan who was open. Paxson then closed out the first championship in the Bulls 25th anniversary season with a shooting performance that should endear him to Chicago forever. Few in the history of the city's sports have done more at a more significant time.

With seconds left in the game and the result effectively determined, Johnson eased up court and attempted a last long shot. Jordan blocked it. Take that!

Pippen picked up the loose ball and bounced out the last few seconds with his right hand raised in triumph in the closing scene we often see. There were no post game congratulations in court among the opponents. It wasn't done much in that era, and fans spilled onto the court and circled the Bulls triumphant players like one of those scenes from the end of the British Open golf tournaments. Fans could be trusted a bit more back then. Jack Nicholson shook Jackson's hand as he left the court. Phil didn't seem impressed. Johnson did shake hands with some Bulls players and coaches in the narrow hallway the two teams shared in the Forum on the way to the locker rooms.

Albert and Mike Fratello as the game ended were discussing the national surprise of the Bulls win and Jordan finally answering those questions about whether a team ever could win with a player who scored so much. No one asked that question again.

Magic Johnson embraces Michael Jordan in the locker room following the 1991 Finals

Jordan immediately sunk to the floor upon entering the locker room, seemingly to hide some emotions. The burden of expectations and ambition had been weighing on Jordan for many years like the Bulls Atlas he was. He carried the cargo of a franchise. Now his celestial presence would be earned. The players quickly gathered in a circle for a prayer, one of their regular post game customs. Though there was some Champagne spraying around this time. Another was to cross off the number left to a title.

Starting in Game 1 back against New York, the Bulls had a row of numbers in a countdown on the locker room chalkboard. It was usually Craig Hodges crossing a line through a number after each win. "Hodgy," Jerry Krause was shouting. Hodges crossed off the last number 1. Krause gave Hodges a long embrace.

Johnson came to the locker room door, where he congratulated Jordan. There didn't appear to be a torch in his hand.

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Sam Smith reflects on 30-year anniversary of the Bulls' first NBA title

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(1996) Jordan pours in 45 points to sweep the Magic

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Bulls Complete with the Sweep of the Pistons in 1991

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chidmoriarty

As ESPN's 'The Last Dance' comes to an end on Sunday, Sam Smith relives the final minute of the 1998 NBA Finals - a microcosm of Jordan's legendary career.

The Michael Jordan 1990s Bulls hagiography, The Last Dance, concludes Sunday on ESPN with the greatest minute of basketball in NBA history. Yes, yet another greatest declaration for Jordan and this wonderful documentary.

There have been many famous, infamous and exciting last moments in NBA history. What's special about this one—spoiler alert coming here; the Bulls win the game—is that the amazing career of the basketball player most regard as the game's greatest showed why he is the most special one in that Game 6 one minute of play for victory.

Not just with the famous Jordan winning jump shot and statuesque pose for the Salt Lake City audience and Bulls diaspora. But those last 59.2 game seconds served as something of a microcosm of Jordan's basketball career.

Thirteen legendary years went by just like that. Felt like a minute.

It was Jordan as cynosure. But with everything on display at the most crucial and pressure laden time to demonstrate the brilliant scoring, the imperturbable calm, peripatetic defense and preternatural intelligence and instincts. In a bare minute of play you could imagine and understand the 10 scoring championships, nine-time all-defensive first team and Defensive Player of the Year, five Most Valuable player awards, six championships and selected as an All-Star every year of his career including when he was injured.

Phil Jackson called Jordan's Game 6 to close out the so called Last Dance season the best critical game performance he's witnessed.

Michael Jordan sets up what is now known as The Last Shot.

Jordan always has produced the most artful choreography for the basketball ballet that was his Bulls career, both poetic and prosaic. Amazing in its richness and beauty, though also expected and predictable.

And so it's hardly surprising that Jordan would provide this dramatic ending to the greatest story that's being told again and likely will be told again and again. It's time to say goodnight to this 10-part epic.

Cut the theater lights and aim the spotlight. Michael Jordan's going to embrace the basketball world one last time (Yes, yes, there was Washington, but that was in another millennium). Cue the music and watch those special dance steps.

The 1998 Finals was supposed to be the Jazz' time.

The lyrical Last Dance season had taken a lot out of the Bulls, the Jazz earning the home court advantage for the Finals despite identical 62-20 records with a regular season 2-0 sweep of the Bulls. This time it was the Jazz with the long rest, dominating the Western Conference after a tough opening round series with Houston. Utah had 10 days off after sweeping the Lakers in the conference finals—Nick Van Exel's famous "one, two, three, Cancun" practice chant before Game 4 easing Utah's road—while the Bulls struggled through a rugged seven-game series with the Indiana Pacers. With Utah players home since winning in Los Angeles May 24, the Bulls closed out the Pacers May 31 and then headed across country for Salt Lake City.

This was going to take all Jordan had left. And for anyone else it wouldn't have been much. Jordan was culminating three and a half seasons since his return from baseball in 1995 never missing a game. Plus with Scottie Pippen's intransigence that led him to miss the first half of the season and Dennis Rodman's capriciousness that led him to want to miss the last half of the season, Jordan played more minutes in 1997-98 than in any of the six championship seasons. And at 35 years old in his 13th NBA season.

In addition, Pippen's back was acting up by then. He'd need a second back surgery after the season, essentially changing him from a star to a role playing facilitator. Pippen would crash late in the Finals, shooting two of 16 in Game 5 and sitting out much of Game 6 with the aching back.

Utah won Game 1, but the Bulls evened the series and then returned to Chicago to post the all-time Finals defensive game, holding Utah to 54 points in Game 3 in a 44-point victory. Karl Malone seemed to have no legs left and not even much will as the Bulls won their third straight. But carried by Malone and driven by Jerry Sloan, the Jazz produced one more great effort to bring the series back to Salt Lake City for Game 6. The Bulls had a small chance to win with less than a second left in Game 5. But Jordan's three-point attempt in a crowded space on the inbounds pass hit only air. It was back to Utah and the greatest minute ever played.

Utah led throughout a close first half with an officials' calls that would reignite conspiracies about Bulls' favoritism. Referees rejected a Howard Eisley three pointer as too late. Which it wasn't, meaning three fewer points for Utah's 49-45 halftime lead. Later, Ron Harper would get credit for a basket which did come late. Still, in basketball games there's always time to make up for a mistaken decision. Unless it's the last one. The Jazz couldn't recover from theirs to let Jordan shoot.

The Jazz maintained the deliberate pace of the game, a slower, physical slog with Jordan on the way to 44 minutes, 35 shots and 45 points. Toni Kukoc would be the only other Bulls player to score in double figures with 15 points on 14 shots. No other Bulls player attempted more than seven shots. Phil Jackson was stretching Jordan to even his limit. It seemed unlikely Pippen could play in a Game 7. The Bulls had to get this one.

Jordan scored quickly to start the fourth quarter with a pair of free throws and a basket on the way to 16 fourth quarter points. Then it was hand to hand, man to man combat. The Jazz matched every thrust and with 59.2 seconds left in the game, Jordan was on the free throw line shooting two in an attempt to tie the game.

So that's where it begins, pressure free throws down the stretch, everything and everyone stopped, everyone staring. Many great players don't like that moment and even avoid those last shots for that reason. Both Wilt and Shaq have demurred.

This was a periodic table of Jordan's career, his tungsten mentality, the steely belief and will for the gold standard of success.

Jordan swished both to tie the game at 83.

John Stockton dribbled the ball up and threw into the left post, a common Jazz action. Sloan's offense was unusual in the way the guards were primarily screeners, often on the baseline. Though not unexpected considering that Sloan was one of the most damaging screeners when he played guard for the first baby Bulls.

Although Tex Winter and his triple post triangle offense gets most of the strategic attention, the Bulls' defense through assistant Johnny Bach always was their stealth weapon. A particular feature of the triangle offense was the lack of play calls so opponents could not anticipate. Similarly, the Bulls defensive schemes employed unusual double teaming options with different players coming to double team depending on who was getting the ball and where.

Though this time there was a breakdown. Pippen went to double team as Malone was exchanging post position, which left Ron Harper caught in space. Harper shaded toward Antoine Carr in the post, which left Stockton open on the right wing for a three pointer and 86-83 Jazz lead with 41.9 seconds left. Utah's fan base is one of the loudest and often most vile in the NBA, and the arena was rocking. Fans were anticipating that sweet Game 7 revenge for 1997.

Sometimes you set up a defense early in the game. And sometimes the year before.

The Bulls clinched that Game 6 win and championship in 1997 when Jordan anticipated Stockton coming off Steve Kerr to double team. Jordan is seen in familiar video during a timeout predicting the Jazz reaction and telling Kerr to be ready.

And so Jordan and Jackson knew Jordan would have space. Stockton wouldn't leave Kerr this time. Pippen inbounded to Jordan above the three-point circle on the right side. Kerr was stationed in the right corner on the same side. So Jordan circled, hesitated and then drove past Bryon Russell for the layup to get the Bulls within 86-85. Stockton was too late because he clearly feared leaving Kerr.

There was the athletic burst from Jordan, the desire to make the play. But also the savvy to understand what had happened a year ago and how the Jazz' best defender would react.

Utah didn't call timeout and Stockton dribbled up slowly as the Jazz went into their offensive pattern.

Jeff Hornacek guarded by Jordan went to the left block with Malone on the right baseline. Hornacek turned to set the baseline screen. Hornacek then headed through to right wing where Stockton had caught the three-point ball the possession before. But this time Jordan came under along the baseline for the double team instead of over the top as Pippen did before. Malone appeared to be looking for the over the top help. He didn't see Jordan, who came from behind before Malone had a chance to turn to see Hornacek. Jordan hammered the ball away and retrieved it with 20 seconds remaining.

Jordan dribbles up the floor after stealing the ball from Karl Malone in the game's final moments.

Jordan took the ball to the middle of the floor and never looked for the timeout, thus not giving the Jazz a chance to set up their top rated defense. Again, Jordan was thinking ahead double, both to anticipate the Jazz' play, respond and then disdain the timeout so the Jazz could not prepare.

This time Jordan dribbled down the left side with Jazz players mismatched, Hornacek stuck on Kukoc. Jordan lined up Russell again with his dribble. Rodman came cutting across diagonally right to left, which cleared the lane. Jordan drove into the lane, his left hand flailing toward the hip of Russell, who stumbled as Jordan pulled up in a 60 to zero screech.

Jordan made the famous 17 footer from the top of the key with 5.2 seconds left with a little extra hold and pose for effect. Anyone for another statue?

Jordan was grimacing, trying to catch his breath as he returned to the bench. Stockton got a pretty good look at a three screening off Ron Harper. It hit the front rim and Jordan exulted, both arms raised high, a sixth title and sixth Finals MVP in a minute of pressure play, offensive excellence, defensive brilliance, intimidation, extraordinary intelligence and yet another celebration. It's the Michael Jordan story.

the-last-shot-of-the-last-dance

The Last Shot of The Last Dance

Iconic moments, unforgettable memories, and untold stories: watch as some of
    your favorite Bulls and staff members during the 90s share stories behind the Chicago Bulls’ Championship years.

HAVING A BUD WITH STACEY KING AND HORACE GRANT

Which Bulls championship was your favorite? We sat down Stacey King and Horace Grant together to share some stories from
the 90s era, presented by Budweiser

Watch as Toni Kukoc and Bill Wennington share stories from what it was like playing during the 90s Chicago Bulls
dynasty, presented by Budweiser USA.

Bulls photographer Bill Smith shares some behind-the-scenes stories behind his
    photos from 1991 and 1992.

Bulls photographer Bill Smith shares some behind-the-scenes stories behind his
    photos from 1996.

Bulls photographer Bill Smith shares some behind-the-scenes stories behind his
    photos from 1998.

inside-stories-of-the-90s-bulls

Inside Stories of The 90's Bulls

Through The Lens With Bill Smith: 1998 Championship

through-the-lens-with-bill-smith-1998-championship

Through The Lens With Bill Smith: 1996 Championship

through-the-lens-with-bill-smith-1996-championship

Presented By

AT&T

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