This Michael Jordan series is worth watching, even for non-basketball fans

The ESPN 10-part documentary series (now on Netflix) The Last Dance (2020, Jason Hehir, dir.) follow the entire career of the greatest basketball player ever, Michael Jackson, from his childhood sports through h.s. (where he did no excel) and 3 years of college, where he blossomed in a way almost supernatural, to his 1990s years with the Chicago Bulls, including two streaks of 3 NBA titles in a row (Repeat Threepeat). It’s important to say off the bat, to mix sports metaphors, that this isn’t a series only for basketball fans; all viewers can watch with amazement and wonder at MJ’s dominant skills in ever facet of the game, physical and mental. We also get to see in detail – Hehir uses archival footage from 7 seasons of Bulls basketball (6 titles, one setback) + MJ’s peculiar desire to play professional baseball – an episode that showed how hard it is to excel at baseball no matter what your strength and agility would suggest. Equally, we see what it’s like to play as, and with, a man entirely focused on winning at just about any cost; one of the funniest lines in the series: Coach to MJ: There is no I in team. MJ: There’s an I in win! And we see the pressure and demands of life as a world-famous athlete, with not a moment it seems of shelter or privacy, whose every word and gesture is recorded and studied as if it’s an utterance from the Torah. It’s amazing in some ways what a difficult and troubled guy MJ was, at least at times, and just as amazing that he seemed somehow able always to control his emotions – no blasts at the media, always patient, always aware of his role and responsibility as a leader. Hehir et al do a fine job moving along two plot lines: the 5 seasons leading up to 1998, and the final season, the Last Dance, because for some reason the mercurial GM determined that the Bulls would rebuilt in 99, w/ or w/out MJ. The series touches on a # of conflicts and spats along the way – notably Pippin’s refusal to play the final seconds of a key game, MJ punching the diminutive Kerr in the face during practice, the antics of Rodman; plus, some key, strange events in MJ’s life: the murder of his father, which devastated MJ, the raised eyebrows about his gambling, his apparent food poisoning the night before a playoff finals game. Though MJ and numerous others were extremely forthcoming w/ the present-day interviews, we see little to nothing about MJ’s family life today or ever – obviously part of the deal to gain his cooperation in this series. Worth watching!