- In 1998, the Bulls did it again.
Michael Jordan's team accomplished something legendary
when they won three straight championships
from 1991 to 1993.
Then Jordan retired, un-retired,
and incredibly led the Bulls to another
three year streak of glory.
72 wins and a Finals victory over the Sonics in 1996,
then two more rings from back to back defeats
of the mighty Utah Jazz.
Punctuated by MJ's iconic series winning shot.
Just like the first three-peat,
Jordan had an ideal squad around him in the late '90s.
He still had his second superstar,
the do everything, stop everyone,
eternally underappreciated small forward Scottie Pippen.
And he still had Phil Jackson,
the coach who became an icon himself
by speaking in riddles, orchestrating egos,
and administering the triangle offense
designed by his mentor and assistant Tex Winter.
But so many of these role players
were new for the second go around.
Ron Harper, the perfect tall defensive point guard
to complement Jordan in the triangle.
Dennis Rodman, moody, eccentric,
and brilliant at protecting the basket.
The pest haunting every opposing big man.
Toni Kukoc, the former EuroLeague superstar
who found new life as a fearsome
tertiary gunner on his first NBA team.
Luc Longley, the diligent reliable center from Australia.
And Steve Kerr, one of the most automatic shooters ever.
And you can thank Jerry Krause for that supporting cast.
It took dogged scouting and clever moves
by the Chicago GM to reconstruct
a three-peat capable supporting cast
for Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf.
But, while this Bulls team was a masterpiece,
it was volatile beyond belief.
And within days of achieving ultimate glory,
the Bulls would begin to explode, like really a lot.
The Bulls won championship number six on June 14th, 1998.
About a week later, the first domino fell.
That one was only a matter of time.
Phil Jackson and Jerry Krause were not on good terms.
They were on the kind of terms
where Krause invited every Bulls assistant
to his stepdaughter's wedding,
and invited Iowa State head coach Tim Floyd,
but didn't invite Phil.
They were on the kind of terms that led to Krause vowing
that Phil's one year extension with the Bulls in 1997
would be his last season in Chicago,
even if they went undefeated.
And if you didn't believe rumors of a rift,
then you had to believe it when Phil himself
did a running diary for ESPN Magazine,
in the middle of the playoffs no less,
and said for instance that he didn't buy Krause
a Christmas gift because he couldn't bring himself
to give his boss something of value.
No? Still not doing it for you?
How about quote, "It's not a secret that I will be gone
"from the Bulls at the end of the playoffs," end quote.
You didn't have to read tea leaves
when Phil was stuffing them down your throat.
Phil Jackson's a different kind of dude.
So, Phil resigned, and as soon as he made it official
Bulls fans turned back to some things
they'd heard from and about Michael Jordan.
Jordan had told the media he wouldn't play
for any coach but Jackson.
And MJ had no connection to the Bulls' planned replacement,
that notable wedding guest, Tim Floyd.
Jordan had told the fans in his own ESPN Magazine feature
that he didn't want to start a war with Krause,
but that the Bulls hadn't shown him loyalty,
and he thought Phil should be the GM.
And this preseason quote from Krause
had pissed Jordan off, though Krause insisted
for the rest of his life that he was misquoted on that one.
Either way, as soon as Phil bailed,
everyone readied for the other shoe to drop.
But, the '98 NBA lockout forced them to wait,
and wait, and then boom.
Days before the work stoppage was resolved,
Jordan announced his retirement.
And with Jordan gone, a whole lot of shoes began to drop.
On January 21st, the Bulls ditched Rodman
in a flurry of cuts.
He'd been a distraction throughout the championship run
and had recently been threatening to retire,
which he didn't.
The same day, Chicago sent Kerr to the San Antonio Spurs
in a sign and trade.
Pippen meanwhile had been part of trade rumors
and trade demands for years.
As recently as November of '97,
that is between championships five and six,
Pippen again told reporters he wanted to be traded
and that he wouldn't play for the Bulls again.
Obviously he did keep playing for the Bulls,
played hurt even, and got another ring out of it.
But, the day after Kerr got dealt,
now just over a week out from Jordan's retirement,
the Bulls finally did the deed.
Signing and trading Pippen to the Rockets for Roy Rogers.
The day after that, out went Longley.
So, in a matter of days after MJ retired,
the Bulls lost another four key members of a champion squad.
They were mostly older dudes on expiring contracts, yes,
but it's not like they were totally valueless.
Pippen stayed productive for a few more years.
Kerr helped the Spurs win a title,
and Longley remained a starting caliber center.
Now look at what the Bulls got back.
Only one of these draft picks
would amount to something for Chicago.
Only one of these people would actually play games
for the Bulls, and they weren't good ones.
NBA teams played just 50 games
in the post-lockout season, and thank God for that
because 82 games of this roster might have given Chicago
some sort of radiation poisoning.
The few incumbents on Floyd's Bulls
all shifted up in the rotation.
Role players like Kukoc and Harper became the stars.
Bench guys like Dickey Simpkins and Randy Brown
ended up starting a bunch of games.
And the only new signing that gave them any real help
was Brent Barry, who'd come over from the Miami Heat.
Reach for comment about that transaction,
Miami coach Pat Riley only had jokes.
And the rest of the Bulls roster, (blowing raspberry).
I've been a diehard NBA fan my whole life,
especially as a kid growing up in the '90s.
I studied every team and wanted
to know every single player,
and I recognize like three of those guys.
Shout out to Bill Wennington.
So yeah, Chicago got smoked by the Jazz
on opening night '99, and went on to lose
37 of their 50 games.
In one of those losses they scored just 49 points,
the lowest game total for any team in the shot clock era.
All that losing helped Chicago win the lottery,
and Krause had himself a fantastic '99 draft.
With the first pick, Duke star Elton Brand.
With the mid-first rounder they'd acquired
in return for Longley, a St. John's product
by the name of Ron Artest, or at least by that name
for the time being.
And over the next year,
Krause would put the finishing touches
on his dismantling of the '98 champions.
In September, '99 the Bulls released Harper
who immediately became a starter
for Phil Jackson and Tex Winter's
next triangle project in Los Angeles.
During the season, Chicago traded away Kukoc.
So, just a year and a half removed from this,
Jerry Krause had purged every single core member
of the Bulls' three-peat roster.
All of them but Jordan were people
Krause put there himself, yet a remarkable number of them
left him on bad terms.
But now Krause could start from scratch
doing what he cherished most,
the skill that had fleshed out the teams around Jordan.
Scouting, rebuilding the Bulls with young
and undiscovered talent.
That wasn't necessarily the plan to begin with.
The Bulls coveted Tracy McGrady and Eddie Jones
in 2000 free agency.
T-Mac came to visit Chicago that summer
and was greeted at the airport
by the Bulls' mascot and cheerleaders.
But, both he and Jones gravitated towards teams
in their home state of Florida,
so Chicago came up more or less empty.
Thus, the Bulls were left to continue building
with their selections in the famously terrible
2000 NBA draft.
Krause was busy that night.
He picked Floyd's former Iowa State recruit,
Marcus Fizer even though Fizer played
the same position as Elton brand.
Then Krause moved the pick he'd acquired for Kukoc
to grab Michigan's Jamal Crawford.
Crawford would go on to have a long entertaining career,
mostly not for the Bulls.
Fizer, not so much.
He played a few okay-ish seasons then tore his ACL,
then faded out of the league
and spent most of his career overseas.
Anyway, the young and regenerating Bulls continued to suck.
They won 17 games in Brand's first year
and just 15 the season following.
That gave Chicago the best lottery odds in 2001,
but they fell to the fourth pick.
The Wizards, now run by none other than Michael Jordan,
held the top spot, which yeah.
Krause went ahead and overrode his bad luck,
boldly trading his rising star Brand
to the Clippers for the second draft pick, Tyson Chandler.
And at four, Chicago snagged local prospect Eddy Curry.
Both big men, both straight out of high school.
A new, super young front court of the future
assembled in one night.
Chandler and Curry were picked on either side
of 2002 Rookie of the Year Pau Gasol,
but still, the new baby Bulls looked promising.
And this truly was a baby team.
Even Krause's free agent signings around this time
tended to be youngsters.
Guys like Brad Miller, Ron Mercer, and Eddie Robinson.
The Bulls stayed terrible, and their youthful makeup
got kind of muddled.
The rookies didn't really play enough
and in February of '02, Krause sent Artest,
Miller, and Mercer to the Pacers
for a package headlined by the older Jalen Rose.
Rose became the uninspiring go-to player
for a team that finished with just 21 wins.
Krause was getting criticized by this point
for detonating the post-Jordan Bulls
and for failing to make progress since.
He tuned it all out, since the Bulls had critics
even when they were winning championships.
Anyway, Chicago went back to the lottery
where they were dealt the second pick in the '02 draft,
just missing out on Yao Ming.
They still got Duke point guard Jay Williams
who had a solid rookie year and helped the Bulls
inch forward to 30 wins.
The other youngsters also started
to ramp up a bit under their new coach
who was a former Bull.
Not that former Bull.
Jordan's second retirement wasn't his last one it turned out
and he'd moved from managing the Wizards
to playing for them.
No, the Bulls replaced Floyd with Bill Cartwright,
the same person who Krause had once acquired
as a player in exchange for Charles Oakley.
That was back in 1988, one of Jordan's earliest points
of irritation with his GM.
And then Cartwright and MJ won three titles together,
oh and a much older Oakley was back on the team
when Cartwright took over as coach
in the middle of the '02 season.
The Bulls are so weird.
Anyway, the slight upward trend coming out
of the '03 season ran into sudden tragedy.
Injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash
ended Jay Williams' career after just one season.
Any by the time of Williams' accident, Krause was gone.
He resigned in April of '03
to tend to his health, ceding management duties
to another former Bull, John Paxson.
The team that Krause left behind was just starting
to come together.
But the core that eventually led Chicago
back into playoff contention in the ensuing years
was built entirely by Paxson.
He swapped out Krause's guys,
made some strong picks of his own,
swung one horrible draft day trade in '06,
then hit the lottery jackpot in '08,
and zoomed upward from there.
Looking back at the intervening period,
some of the young talent Krause collected
for the Chicago rebuild never got a chance to pan out.
Fizer and Williams were both deeply unfortunate.
But Krause's scouting eye did prove sharp.
Artest would become a Defensive Player of the Year,
All-Star and champion on other teams.
Elton Brand was a regular All-Star, on another team.
The guy he got traded for would also become
a champion, All-Star, and a Defensive Player of the Year,
on other teams.
Even Brad Miller went on to become an All-Star,
you guessed it, on other teams.
Listen, rebuilding a champion is tough.
Especially when you've just lost the game's best player
and best coach.
Chicago probably could have benefited more
from their destruction if they were patient.
Or if they hadn't alienated so many people
in the first place.
Instead, the Bulls dissolved their aging
and disgruntled championship team with haste,
shipped out future stars well before they peaked,
and slogged through deep doldrums
before new management built their next contending team.
Michael Jordan's final shot closed the curtains
on one of pro sport's most impressive dynasties.
The valley following that peak was nearly as impressive.
The Bulls sunk as deep and as fast as any champion ever has.
There's was a truly monumental collapse.