Blood on the Horns

by Roland Lazenby

  Among the players who failed to report for training camp was Rodman, who remained unsigned, although Krause said he had hopes of signing him within days. “If we sign Dennis,” he said, “it will be another large donation to Dennis. There’s gonna be a lot of money spent, so that’s the thought in mind, that we’ll go out and win this year and then plan for the future. Those things will take care of themselves as they happen.”

  Another reporter pointed out that the “finality of Phil rubs people the wrong way. Around town Phil leaves the door open at times in comments.

  “What is the real story?” the reporter asked.

  “It’s both of our decisions,” Krause replied. “I think you ought to ask Phil about it. But it’s both of our decisions, you know. I don’t see why…”

  Seemingly exasperated, the GM paused then and started over by referring to the public reaction to his July press conference announcing Jackson’s new contract. “I think when people thought that I made the statement at the press conference, it was in the press release,” he said. “It was right there for everybody to see. And I think when I made a statement … the last time I talked to you guys, some people … or one of the last times I talked to you as a group, some people thought I was saying something that wasn’t in the press release. It was there.”

  His comments left the reporters around him with increasingly confused looks. “We had agreed to it,” Krause said finally, “and that’s the way it is. I don’t know why it would rub somebody wrong. There’s a time in life when people separate.”

  “People think you are saying it in such a way that you take joy in it,” a reporter said.

  “No, there’s no truth to that at all,” Krause said. “I don’t take … I think people think … I’ve heard some people say that I’ll take joy in the day when Michael leaves. I have no such thoughts in my mind. Hell, I’ll probably cry when he leaves. But the point being that you have to go on. You know, this is an organization. We’ve been very successful. I’m really proud of what the organization has done.

  “I look back on my early days in the league when Red Auerbach was in Boston,” Krause added. “When Red lost Bill Russell he just didn’t just roll up the tent and say, ‘I’m done. My career’s over. Russell’s gone.’ He went and rebuilt the team and found at that time Dave Cowens, made trades and got Paul Silas and whatever. Then that run ended after eight or nine years later after four or five championships (actually two), and then he turned around. Sure enough he didn’t give up and say, ‘I quit. Cowens is gone.’ He went and he found Bird, Parish and all those guys. Well, we’re very much in the same situation.

  “I’m sure Jerry West, when he lost Kareem and Magic, didn’t just roll up the tent,” Krause said of the Lakers executive. “You’ve seen what he’s done. He’s done a tremendous job. He’s rebuilt that franchise. Well, that’s what my job is. People say I look forward to it. Well, nobody looks forward to a great player leaving. But what you do is, you say there’s a challenge in front of me. And any red-blooded general manager is looking forward to a challenge. I mean, hell, that’s what you live for in this business. There ain’t no poor people in this business, so it isn’t a matter of us being destitute or anything. We’re always looking for challenges. As a result, what’s the next challenge? With me, it isn’t monetary or anything like that. It’s building a ball club. And when you lose great players, you lose great people in your organization, you go out and you rebuild. And that’s a great challenge. And that’s the challenge I live for. Well, not live for, but certainly like to be a part of.”

  A reporter pointed out that if a lot of players left at once, a team suddenly could find itself scrambling to find the right players to replace those who left.

  “A lot of them have left before,” Krause replied. “We have a team that won three championships, and two years later we won a championship with 10 new players. So this isn’t something we haven’t done before. We’ve done this before.”

  He used that example to explain that players and coaches alone don’t win championships, that sound organizations do. But as he made the remark, Jackson stepped onto the floor to begin his interview session. And as they often do, reporters hurriedly departed their current interview so as not to miss anything newsworthy Jackson might say.

  Within an hour after the media session had ended, a befuddled Krause found his way down to the press room looking for reporters who might have a recording of his comments. He was sure he had been misquoted, that he had said coaches and players “alone” don’t win championships. Unfortunately, few media representatives remained in the press room. Eventually, Krause would get in touch with John Jackson of the Sun Times who would confirm that Krause had said that “coaches and players alone don’t win championships, organizations do.”

  “I was right there when it happened,” Terry Armour of the Tribune agreed. “He was heavily misquoted. I saw everybody run from him midway through the quote and run over to Phil. They didn’t even get the end of the quote.”

  The group of reporters went to Phil Jackson and told him that Krause had said that coaches and players don’t win titles: “It’s organizations that win championships.”

  “He would say that,” the coach said. “The organization is based on loyalty. Scottie sees that and has to wonder what loyalty really does mean.”

  The comment would come to be a theme for the players throughout the season, galvanizing their disdain for Krause and Reinsdorf. Even team employees loyal to Krause would express dismay at the GM’s choice of words, at his decision to attempt to discuss the situation with the media, because Krause’s comments would set in motion a nasty public relations karma that would come back to haunt the two Jerrys again and again.

  “Everything I’ve ever heard or seen from Jerry Reinsdorf, that’s just the opposite of what he wants to do,” Chip Schaefer said. “His philosophy, and Jerry Krause has spoken many times of Reinsdorf’s philosophy, is, ‘Don’t do anything until you have to; a lot of times things will take care of themselves.’ But Krause blew that. He committed to putting the cart before the horse ten months before it even needed to be done.”

  Even Jackson privately expressed sympathy for Krause and how the situation had blown up in the GM’s face.

  Later, Krause’s associates would complain privately that Jackson could have spoken up and taken the pressure off of Krause’s comments. The worst part about Krause’s ill-timed statements was that it left both Krause and Reinsdorf in limbo. If they defended themselves against the public anger, then it seemed they were attacking Jordan and Jackson, both very popular figures, which only made the situation worse.

  As for Jackson, the coach merely followed Krause’s instructions on what to tell reporters. “It would take wild horses to drag me back this time,” Jackson said on media day. “This is the final year. It’s time to start something different. In the conversation I had with Jerry Reinsdorf in negotiations, this would be the last year. We’re not having any illusions, like last year. We don’t want the same situation … if something should happen like we accidentally win a championship. I assured (Jerry Krause) I’d walk out at the end of the season, and he assisted me in that belief.”

  Jordan had not made himself available to the press on media day, but the next day, after the team’s first day of practice, Jordan was ready to address Krause’s opening day comments. “I’m very consistent with what I’ve always said,” Jordan told reporters. “That’s what I mean. If Phil’s not going to be here, I’m certainly not going to be here.”

  What if Jackson goes to another team next season? a reporter asked. Would Jordan follow?

  “No,” he said. “Totally. I would quit. I wouldn’t say quit, I’d retire.”

  The assembled reporters went on to ask Jordan a host of questions, including the following:

  Would Krause’s comments affect the team on the court?

 
“Not unless Jerry plays. And he doesn’t play. So once we step on the basketball court we gotta do our job with whoever is out there. There are a lot of things being talked about, I’m pretty sure. But once we step on the basketball court that’s where we have to live up to the expectations that we accept for ourselves. That’s two championships back to back and five championships in seven years. So that’s what we have to live up to.”

  Would the comments hurt Jordan’s relationship with Krause?

  “I don’t deal that much with Jerry at all. In my negotiations, I deal with Jerry Reinsdorf basically. On a day-to-day basis, it’s come here and do my job, doing what I have to do with the coaches and the players. I don’t have to see the general manager at all. I don’t have to deal with him.”

  What do you think of Krause’s comment that players and coaches alone don’t win championships; organizations do?

  “I don’t agree with him in that sense, because as a player I feel we go out and do our job. We do what we have to do each and every day when we step on the basketball court. Sure, they (the team’s management) have responsibilities to do whatever, to make our jobs easier, to do what they have to do for the organization, but I mean, I didn’t see any of the organization playing sick last year. In Game 5, I would have liked to see some of those organization guys step out there and play. And I didn’t see that. I saw the team step out there and play. They may have paid for the plane to get us out there. But when we step out on the basketball court, the players and coaches certainly have to go out there and do the job they’ve practiced for for eight months. And the organization is certainly gonna provide us what we need to get to the basketball court, but once we’re out there we have to do our jobs. And that’s what wins championships.”

  Did he think Krause’s comments would have an effect on the team?

  “None. None at all. Because he doesn’t play the game. He does his job, whatever that job may be, but we as players, we bond together and we do what we have to do on the basketball court. We don’t let that bother us at all.”

  Was he offended that management seemed to be pushing Phil Jackson out the door?

  “I think that’s very obvious, because management has already said that this is Phil’s last year. So, I don’t know if that’s Phil’s step. I know Phil’s not gonna go against a situation where he’s not wanted. He’s looked at it as if this is probably his last year. We just gotta go out and play the game of basketball this year and deal with what we have to deal with. Certainly we don’t know what the future is going to hold. That’s the organization’s decision. That’s not our decision. If Phil’s not going to be here, then I’m not going to be here.”

  Could he use his influence with Reinsdorf to bring Phil Jackson back?

  “I don’t know. I’ve never really looked at it in that sense. I don’t know what my influence is. You see how Jerry Reinsdorf operates. My influence doesn’t have anything to do with his decision making. I’m not gonna sit here and knock heads with Jerry. If he has his own vision for this team and what its future holds, then we take that and we deal with it. If that means Phil’s not here, that means Phil’s not here.”

  Was there a personality conflict between Phil Jackson and Jerry Krause?

  “I don’t really know. It could be. I always felt Phil was for the players, no matter how you looked at it, because Phil was once a player. Now does that not calculate into what Jerry is saying, or maybe how he wants the coach to be for the organization? I can’t answer that. But I’ve always felt that Phil was for the player. Players first. Those 15 players step on the basketball court, that’s his first and foremost desire and concern. I’m pretty sure he’s got to have an organizational concern, too. We all do. Because we want to live up to the high standards that this organization has been built upon.”

  Did the disagreement between Jackson and Krause make for a bad way to end the Bulls’ great run?

  “It’s a bad way to end an unbelievable run. You would want it to be better down the stretch, or when the curtain is finally closing. I think that we as players can’t worry about that. We have to go out there and have our own individual, our own team, goals to live up to. The management stuff is something you’ll have to worry about in the future.”

  Was he upset that Bulls management seemed eager to end this magnificent run before the fact?

  “That’s their prerogative. I can’t say that they’re doing something wrong. Certainly, maybe not what I prefer. But I’m a player, and they’re the organization. They make all of the decisions. Once this thing changes, once they try to make the transition from this team to possibly another team, I wish them success. But I’ve always believed that what we’re trying to do is sustain and maintain the success.”

  Was he nostalgic about this probably being his last season?

  “Every year that I play, I always view it as my final season, because you never really know. But I don’t think that’s gonna alter the way I play basketball. If it alters it this year, then I certainly won’t be the type of player I’ve been in the past. I won’t have had the same focus. When I step on the basketball court, each and every year, each and every day could be my last. So I always take that approach. That shouldn’t change if this is my last year.”

  Although they were measured, Jordan’s comments only helped cement the impression that Krause and Reinsdorf were forcing Jackson and him from the team.

  Jackson then made a point of discussing Krause’s comments in a meeting with his players. “We talked about it as a team actually and said, ‘We have to have good mental health as well as good physical health.’” the coach said. “This is part of the mental health.”

  With Scottie Pippen facing foot surgery and Rodman disgruntled, Jackson was worried that the team would open the season struggling and that the discord with management would become a major distraction.

  “The challenge is if the paranoia or insecurity linger with failure,” Jackson said privately. “Those things can breed the kind of dark thoughts that can sway the mental health of a coach or a team. Those are the things that we have to watch for. I feel real confident about my team, about our relationships, the team’s relationships, about my staff, about our dedication towards winning this year. All those things are real strong, so I can’t see anything upsetting the apple cart as far as the mental or spiritual aspect of it. We’re pretty unified as a team as to what we’re gonna do regardless of what happens, the innuendos that are gonna go on or the slights that are gonna happen, the backhanded comments that might be made.”

  Krause’s comments and the responses from Jackson and Jordan brought a round of media commentary nationwide lambasting the Bulls’ front office. Typical of the response was a column by Gwen Knapp of the San Francisco Examiner who wrote, “Krause could have let the players age gracefully into the sunset, let Jackson’s natural curiosity lead him elsewhere. Instead, the general manager has sullied the whole outfit. And he hasn’t even done it artfully … Krause’s gig is charisma free, all unembroidered pettiness.

  “In Krause’s fantasy basketball league,” she said, “Michael Jordan is just a tool, easily replaced. And the photocopier is more valuable than Phil Jackson. Last week, Krause pointed out that the team trainer has five rings.”

  Later, Krause and Reinsdorf would fume privately that Jackson didn’t speak up more to ease the public relations nightmare that grew out of media day. But the coach wasn’t about to extract the GM and team chairman from the circumstances. “They created this animal,” Jackson said later, “and I’m not bailing them out. I made a decision. I’m just a person they plugged into this thing, this situation. It was the right thing they plugged in, and everything’s worked graciously for us behind all that. That’s great, but this isn’t a real estate holding, or the stock market, where you just happened to buy a lucky piece of stock. These are people you’re dealing with.

  A
nd that’s the thing that I think they’re missing.”

  In reality, the Bulls’ biggest concern in October had little to do with “future considerations.” Rather, it was the soft tissue in Pippen’s foot, injured against Miami in May in the playoffs and slow to heal. That, too, entered into the controversy when Krause faxed Pippen a letter in September threatening to take action against the star if he played in his own charity game.

  It wasn’t so much the content of the letter that infuriated Pippen but the harshness of its tone and the manner in which it was delivered.

  The real issue, though, was corrective surgery and the timing of the operation. Decisions were difficult in the charged atmosphere of training camp. But four days after camp opened, the surgery was performed, and the Bulls announced the star forward, so critical to the team’s success, would miss a minimum of two months.

  “Each year we start off with some sort of challenge, and this makes it even more so,” Jordan told reporters. “We know that it goes without question that if he was here we’d be that much better of a team. That’s the situation and you deal with it and move on. … First and foremost, Scottie’s got to take care of himself.”

  The week brought more news in that Rodman agreed to a one-year contract with a $4.5 million base and performance incentives that could boost it to $10 million. But then he refused to sign it, supposedly because he feared some of the incentives would be impossible to reach.

  Reinsdorf had said Rodman would be welcomed back only if he gave up the bad behavior that had stained his 1996-97 performances. At first, Rodman had offered to play for free, but later changed that to a demand for $10 million with “a money-back guarantee.”

  “I’ve learned one thing: Don’t predict anything from Dennis,” Jackson told reporters. “If you do, you just set yourself up.”

  Jordan pointed out that with Pippen’s injury, the team needed Rodman to be on his best behavior. But a stalemate developed and dragged on through training camp and the start of the ambitious exhibition schedule.