Blood on the Horns

by Roland Lazenby

  Isn’t there a time when personal loyalty comes into play?

  “I believe in that. But everybody doesn’t have the same beliefs about that.”

  If Phil were back, and the core of the Bulls were back, how badly would you want to play another season? Would it be something you’d really cherish?

  “If they’d keep everybody intact? I’d love to do that. I would love to come back again.”

  Is this a challenge they’re throwing at you, to see if you mean it?

  “No, I think they’ve pretty much made up their minds. I’d like to think that they’ve left the door open, so that there can be change down the road. But it doesn’t appear to be that way.”

  How many more years can you play at this level?

  “That’s the beauty of it all, I don’t know. And neither do you. I don’t think anyone can know.”

  You walked away once before and came back loving it. Why would somebody great still walk away, knowing that at 45 you can’t come back?

  “Why would a guy at this age walk into an unknown situation, when everything right now is pleasant for him with the coach. Next year whoever they bring in may not have the same philosophy, may not have the same system, may not have the same rapport with the players. It’s like starting over, it’s like getting divorced and then getting married too quickly. If I have a choice not to…”

  But no coach is going to come in and say, “Number 23, you’re the eighth man.”

  “But see I’ve never had a guy come in and pacify me. I like Phil. I think Phil comes in with a certain motion, a certain thought process, a team concept, that everybody fits within that. We grew to where we respected each other, and he knew certain things to apply to me and to apply to other players. I don’t want a coach to come in and say, ‘Well, what do you want to do? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that?’ That doesn’t motivate me. That doesn’t challenge me. And now you’re asking me to go into that situation unknowingly? At this stage of my career? If the system doesn’t suit me, and I don’t feel comfortable, or my game starts to suffer, or certain things start to change, then you leave yourself open for all kinds of speculation, which I’m not afraid of. But why would I take the risk of changing it?”

  It almost sounds like a superstition.

  “It’s a comfort. It’s a respect. It’s knowing what I’m getting instead of not knowing what I’m getting.”

  Do you think there’s any pressure on Jerry Reinsdorf from the secondary owners to cut costs and increase profitability?

  “It could be. These are things that he wouldn’t tell me. My best guess is that he’s making the calls, and he’s making whatever call he has to make.”

  What’s your role gonna be in the league when you retire?

  “I’m gonna be a fan, from afar. I’m pretty sure I’ll still have some contacts, because of my business, the shoe industry. It won’t be every game, but I’ll still come down to visit. I’m a basketball fan, so I’ll still be around the game.”

  After answering those questions, Jordan went out and scored 23 points to lead the East to victory in the All Star Game. The performance netted the third All-Star MVP award of his career. Better yet, it again emphasized Jordan’s dominance over the game, something he would demonstrate again and again over the spring. In the process he would hammer Krause’s statements about the need to rebuild the team into a thin argument.

  In the wake of Jordan’s comments, Reinsdorf issued a statement calling for an end to premature comments about the team’s future. Word spread around the Bulls’ offices that Reinsdorf was angry with Krause, that the GM had lost face because of his comments.

  “That’s one thing that Jerry Reinsdorf does very well,” Steve Kerr observed. “He stays away and doesn’t get involved in all of it. He lets Jerry Krause and Phil and everybody else go about their business. Obviously, he’s ended up sort of in the middle of this. But usually Krause is the front man.”

  Practice resumed at the Berto Center on Monday after the All-Star break, and afterward, Jackson spoke with reporters, emphasizing that he was leaving. “There is no other option,” the coach said. “We’ve made an agreement that that’s what is going on and that is the direction we are going as a basketball team. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye. It’s going to be really tough.”

  Then he quibbled, leaving the door ajar that indeed he might find a way to return, which left Krause furious but muzzled.

  “I’m not saying our beds are made,” Jackson said, “but they are laid out and ready to go. Early in training camp I sat down with Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf and we expressly went over this again and said this is our swan song as a team.”

  Then he said, “Michael has a tremendous sway in this game, as we all see from the effect he had in the All-Star game. Michael is the only one who could change it.”

  About Jordan’s threatened retirement, Jackson said, “It makes me feel like I am standing in the way of him continuing his career. Some of it does. The other thing is that the organization is a bit to fault in it, too.”

  Jackson then predicted that Krause wouldn’t change his mind. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “I think the amount of intensity we’ve had over the last two seasons, the directions we’ve changed and the divergent paths that both Jerry and I have gone on just spelled the fact that the relationship had reached its course. It’s time for him to do what he wants to do in his management of this organization, and it’s time for me to move on wherever I have to go. Michael can throw a monkey wrench into things, but that’s their decision and that’s the way we have to look at it.”

  In his New York Post column during the All-Star break, NBC analyst Peter Vecsey had suggested that the Bulls were paying Jackson $500,000 in hush money not to speak out about the situation.

  “I didn’t get back from the All-Star game until Monday afternoon,” Jackson later recalled. “We had practice and I didn’t see his column. I had questions from reporters about this, and I didn’t understand it. It was totally misrepresented. There is not anything like that in my contract. Last year at some point during contract negotiations, we said at some point that if we don’t come to an agreement and we have to step away what’s going to happen? There was some talk about a severance. Because we actually began thinking, ‘We may not reach a common ground on this and this may become difficult for the franchise.’ So we talked about it in that context. But I had no intention of taking hush money, or whatever to be quiet, or whatever it was meant as. But, you know, severance money is severance money.”

  In the wake of the All-Star Weekend, the atmosphere around the Bulls tightened as the trading deadline neared. Would Krause dare trade Pippen? It seemed unlikely. Not with the uproar that his comments earlier in the month had caused.

  But the team did send young forward Jason Caffey to Golden State for David Vaughn, an unproven player, and two second round draft picks. The move set off immediate speculation that Krause was intentionally weakening the team.

  “This is a horrible thing to say,” said one longtime team employee. “I wonder if Jerry and Jerry almost want us not to win this year, so they can have the excuse to rebuild. It’s an unbelievably dangerous thing to say, especially with a tape recorder on. I’m just wondering about their emotional state. You don’t want to think that, but you have to wonder.”

  Jordan, meanwhile, was angry, pointing out to reporters that losing Caffey, an athletic rebounder, was like losing family. One reporter asked Kerr if it seemed like management was putting another obstacle in front of the team to prevent the Bulls from winning the title.

  Kerr laughed. “That’s a good way to put it,” he said. “We were all a little dismayed. We feel like it hurt our depth. He’s big and strong and athletic, and I think that really hurt our depth. They’ve got their reasons for doing things. There’s not very good communication
between players and management, so there’s not a whole lot of that that goes on.”

  Asked if he meant that he thought management had put up an intentional obstacle, Kerr paused a moment, then replied, “No. If you look at it, both Jerrys … to win another championship, ultimately, is two more big feathers in their caps. I can’t imagine that they would want to sabotage anything. That would be counterproductive to their own desires. That doesn’t really make sense.”

  “You don’t think it makes it easier to break up the team to say ‘See, we told you?’” the reporter asked.

  “You know, maybe we should call Oliver Stone and he could make a movie out of it,” Kerr said. “He would have a field day with all of this.”

  Terry Armour of the Tribune figured Krause had scored one against Jackson and Jordan with the trade, a perception that also registered with many fans. “The Caffey move,” Armour said, “to me is strictly—and I could be wrong here. I’ve been wrong before—‘see if you can win with a David Vaughn.’ To me, it just looks like, ‘OK, let’s make some minor moves that will make it hard for us to get there.’ But you know, who would want to want to do that? Realistically, who would want to weaken their case? You can accuse somebody of that, but realistically, it doesn’t make sense that somebody would want to do that.”

  Behind the scenes, the Bulls’ assistant coaches had lobbied hard for Krause to keep Caffey, but Jackson quietly agreed with the deal. He knew that Krause had no plans to re-sign Caffey, who would be a free agent at the end of the season. Plus, Jackson was hoping that the Bulls would be able to find a player like Brian Williams, who was able to guard smaller, quick centers. Williams had been a godsend during the 1997 playoffs. Obviously, no player of Williams’ quality was available in 1998, so Jackson figured that a “Dickey Simpkins type” player, someone about 6-9 or 6-10 might be available to help out defensively.

  “I actually wanted to bid out Caffey (for a trade),” Jackson explained. “Jason wasn’t going to get a chance in this organization. He’d go through his free agency and he wouldn’t be re-signed by this organization. For a kid that I liked, it was a good opportunity for him to go. But I didn’t want to hurt the team. I wanted a bigger kind of a player like a Dickey Simpkins who could play centers that are small like Mourning. And Jason was a little too small to play the Shawn Kemps. He’s a 6-8 guy as opposed to a 6-10, 265 pound guy. So that’s the difference.

  “I told them that’s what I wanted,” Jackson admitted privately. “We wanted a Brian Williams type player. I’ve always had that type of center. Stacey King and Scott Williams.”

  As it turned out, Simpkins was soon put on waivers by Golden State, allowing the Bulls to waive Vaughn after a few days and sign Simpkins.

  “Dickey’s that kind of guy,” Jackson said. “The job is his to do. It’s not a heavy minute role. We don’t see that guy coming in there and playing 30 to 40 minutes. But he can play 16 minutes a game for us and help us out if possible.”

  Simpkins, whom the Bulls had traded in the fall of 1997 to Golden State for Scott Burrell, was truly elated to be back in Chicago. “It’s like going off to war, then coming back,” he said.

  Or maybe vice versa.

  Behind the scenes, Krause was furious with Jackson. The general manager alleged that the coach was supposed to explain the trade to the players but that Jackson had failed to do so, opening the door to speculation that Krause was sabotaging the team. “Phil was supposed to take care of the team, and he didn’t do it,” Krause said. “He was supposed to explain it to the players. But once again he left me looking like the bad guy.”

  With the tension, people in the organization increasingly complained to reporters that Jackson had grown arrogant. “I’ve heard from different circles,” Terry Armour said, “that one thing that Phil may have done to rub the organization the wrong way is that he came in on a winning situation and took it to the next level.

  “The belief is that, whatever reasons Doug Collins was let go for, Doug would have done it,” Armour said. “Doug would have been right there to do it. Phil got arrogant. You know winning changes people, and that Phil went from being a team player as far as the organization is concerned, to saying. ‘Hey, maybe I’m the guy who did this.’

  “He may come across as arrogant to some people because of the way he talks,” Armour added. “Some people take that as being a snob, or that he’s trying to show us how smart he is. But I don’t think it’s that way with him. I would not consider him arrogant in his dealings with the media. He knows how to play the game, too, as far as the PR thing. You can tell when people are arrogant with the media. They embarrass you when you question them. Phil is not like that. I think, if anything, Phil might be too honest with us. Maybe it’s a PR move, but Phil will answer our questions, good or bad, and he doesn’t really think about repercussions.”

  The sensation was unique in sports. With their “divided house” in full conflict, the Bulls entered the spring playing both for and against the organization. That seemed to work well enough. Jordan and company ran off eight straight wins, dumping Toronto, Charlotte, Atlanta, Detroit, Indiana, Toronto again, Washington and Cleveland before finally losing again on February 25th when the young Portland Trail Blazers gave the Bulls only their third defeat of the season in the United Center. As they had done in the past, the Bulls answered defeat with another torrid burn of winning and would roll through March at 13-1, emphasizing to opponents and fans alike at every stop that these Bulls were indeed back to their old dominant selves, or something close.

  The head of steam was aided by nearly a week’s rest in the schedule after wins over Sacramento and Denver. The Bulls sat at home, healed their injuries and stoked their fires. Jordan even had time to rummage through his closets to find a vintage pair of Air Jordans to wear for what was billed as his last visit to Madison Square Garden, the game against New York March 9th when the Bulls resumed play. Never mind that the shoes were gaudy and flimsy, they were the perfect touch to send a public message, creating further anxiety about Krause and Reinsdorf shutting down the Bulls early.

  It also sent a little private message to Reinsdorf, reminding the chairman of just how much they loved Jordan in New York. Boy, did they love him. The Sunday afternoon game was televised on NBC, and Jordan in his red shoes was like Dorothy standing at center court, clicking her heels three times and saying, ‘There’s no place like the Garden.”

  One by one the Bulls’ staff members and players noticed Jordan had unpacked the shoes and set them by his locker. Team photographer Bill Smith took it as a sure sign that this was indeed Jordan’s last season. The rest of the public soon got the message.

  “It was a big topic of conversation,” Steve Kerr said of the locker room buzz before the game. “I couldn’t believe it. My first reaction was, ‘What is he nuts?’ I was thinking this could be plantar fascitis big time. Did you see those things? They looked like cardboard put together. It’s amazing how far the shoe industry has come in the last 14 years. It was kind cool, kinda neat to see. He was obviously kind of projecting an image of coming full circle. I assume he kind of broke those shoes out in the Garden. I don’t know. He obviously had it on his mind that this might be his last shot here.

  “I was betting guys that at some point he’d take them off and go back to the new ones,” Kerr said. “But then when he hit his first four shots I changed my mind and said, ‘No, he’s gonna wear ‘em the whole game.’”

  “I overheard him telling some guys that he’s got a few at home,” Pippen said, “and he felt like this was probably his last game in the Garden.”

  “I went kind of retroactive today with the shoes,” Jordan admitted. “I was joking with my wife about it. I was actually doing some cleaning up at home and kind of ran into them.”

  His feet covered in red, Jordan treated the adoring Garden crowd and the television audience to an old-style performance, filled with whir
ling, impossible drives to the baskets and reverses and dunks and whatever else popped to the surface of his creativity, all of it good for 42 precious points.

  “I played up in the air a lot today,” he admitted afterward. “I’m not afraid to play that way. There was a need there, and if there’s a need there, I have to address it. I’m not really thinking about the moves and how excited the fans are. The oooohs and aaaahs tell you that. Some of the moves seemed to be coming from 1984.”

  Once he switched hands on the ball in trademark fashion for a layup. Another time he absorbed a blow from the Knicks’ Terry Cummings, turned in midair and still flipped the shot in over his shoulder.

  “That’s a heck of a shot,” Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy said, shaking his head.

  “It’s just so much fun to be a part of this team,” Steve Kerr said of Jordan’s acrobatics, “because you see that routinely, and yet you can’t ever take it for granted. You can take the total performance for granted. Forty two points, we see that all the time, but those moves that he does are just so amazing that I find myself cheering just like everybody else in the stands.

  “It’s one of my favorite atmospheres in the NBA,” Kerr said of the Garden. “It’s electric in here. The fans are very sophisticated. They understand the game. They love Michael, and yet they hate him. It’s a neat feeling to be a part of it.”

  With Jordan’s outburst and Pippen’s defense in full force, the Bulls drove to a 102-89 win. The game also marked Kerr’s return to duty after missing six weeks with the fractured left clavicle. Kerr entered the game with two minutes left in the first quarter and promptly threw up and hit his first shot. On the day, he would finish with eight points.