# Jason Goff on Michael Jordan’s Peak, The 1996 Chicago Bulls | 05.05

An episode of [The Right Time with Bomani Jones](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/982639043), 5 May 2026, 57 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/370fc844-36bd-4f61-8b8f-b4bb010de39a/38169485-2a03-495e-bab1-b4bb011354fa/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=919a7cbe-003c-4146-b592-b4bb010de3a5

Bomani Jones is joined by Jason Goff for Time Machine Tuesday to look back at the legendary 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan’s return to dominance, and the team that went 72-10 on the way to an NBA championship. Bomani and Jason break down how Dennis Rodman changed the Bulls, why Jordan’s 1996 season still feels mythical, Scottie Pippen’s place in the dynasty, and what it felt like to live through that era in Chicago. They also get into the cultural moment around the Bulls, Space Jam, and why that team became bigger than basketball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Wave.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original.
[0:13] Speaker 2: My name is Beaumontie Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
[0:15] Speaker 2: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
[0:20] Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
[0:22] Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
[0:25] Speaker 2: a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday. Got my man,
[0:29] Speaker 2: Jason Goff, here, live from Chicago. And I am terrified
[0:34] Speaker 2: about the obnoxious beast that I am about to unleash
[0:38] Speaker 2: as we discuss the 1996 Chicago Bulls. And I'm saying
[0:43] Speaker 2: that to you in the way that I did because
[0:46] Speaker 2: I'll never forget my good friend Wendell from college. Wendell
[0:50] Speaker 2: from Chicago. Wendell went to Whitney Young with Quentin Richardson.
[0:53] Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying?
[0:54] Speaker 3: Right?
[0:55] Speaker 2: And, um, I just remember we got to school in 97,
[0:59] Speaker 2: and he was just like, look, there's nothing you can
[1:00] Speaker 2: tell us about basketball. We got the best player. We
[1:03] Speaker 2: got the best defensive player. We got the best six-man.
[1:05] Speaker 2: We got the best rebounder. It was such a matter-of-fact
[1:08] Speaker 2: ticking off of the dopeness of the Bulls, and I
[1:11] Speaker 2: really did just sit there like, yeah, there's really nothing
[1:15] Speaker 2: I can.
[1:17] Speaker 3: I can do about this. There's nothing that I have
[1:19] Speaker 3: to say.
[1:20] Speaker 2: That was what it turned into, as if it wasn't
[1:23] Speaker 2: enough in the beginning just that you had fucking Jordan.
[1:28] Speaker 2: The climb to the 96, we normally try to do
[1:31] Speaker 2: a step-by-step that gets us into what the year is.
[1:33] Speaker 2: I don't even know how to do this fast. I
[1:35] Speaker 2: just know 1984, Michael Jordan showed up. And it's so
[1:40] Speaker 2: wild because I don't get the feeling everybody like there
[1:43] Speaker 2: are a few people like Bobby Knight, who's like the
[1:44] Speaker 2: best basketball player I've ever seen, you know, those sorts
[1:47] Speaker 2: of things. But the truth is, he still went number
[1:49] Speaker 2: three in the draft. Like, I don't think there's anybody
[1:52] Speaker 2: that can honestly say they thought that dude was going
[1:53] Speaker 2: to hit the league and average 28 points a game
[1:56] Speaker 2: and then break his foot and put up 63 in
[1:59] Speaker 2: the finals and then score 37 a game. and then
[2:02] Speaker 2: win the MVP and the defensive player of the year
[2:06] Speaker 2: at the same damn time, and then have two years
[2:09] Speaker 2: where he doesn't win the MVP, but probably was the
[2:12] Speaker 2: best player.
[2:13] Speaker 3: In the NBA, and then you rattle off.
[2:15] Speaker 2: The three championships, and then he takes a break, and
[2:19] Speaker 2: then he comes back in 95, and then 96 happens.
[2:22] Speaker 3: When do you want to jump in?
[2:23] Speaker 2: Like, I feel like I just, like, what I remember
[2:26] Speaker 2: from watching the last dance was just being like, yo,
[2:28] Speaker 2: it's kind of easy to forget that it was like
[2:30] Speaker 2: something going on every year.
[2:32] Speaker 1: Every single year. And the crazy part about it, I
[2:35] Speaker 1: went back and looked at some of the things when
[2:36] Speaker 1: Ryan hit me. There's a lot of... You go to basketballreference.com.
[2:40] Speaker 1: There's a lot of NBA-1s after 85, 86. It's like
[2:46] Speaker 1: there wasn't a moment where he didn't play a full season,
[2:49] Speaker 1: where he wasn't first team. Like, you're one of the
[2:51] Speaker 1: five best players for 9, 10, 11 years straight. And
[2:54] Speaker 1: we see it with LeBron. You know, we see it
[2:56] Speaker 1: with certain guys. And like, all right, cool. But not
[2:58] Speaker 1: only the best player, but like dominatingly the best player.
[3:01] Speaker 1: There wasn't no conversations about it. I... Leading up to it,
[3:06] Speaker 1: and you forgot to mention, best coach too, right? The
[3:09] Speaker 1: way that all that came together, the first three were ridiculous.
[3:14] Speaker 1: There's a lot of conversations that happen in this city,
[3:16] Speaker 1: and I'm not mad at it. That 92 team might
[3:19] Speaker 1: have been the best all-around team.
[3:22] Speaker 3: That was ill.
[3:23] Speaker 1: That 92 team, and because it was more Jordan Pittman too.
[3:28] Speaker 4: You look at, I think John Paxson was the third-leading
[3:30] Speaker 4: scorer in the playoffs.
[3:31] Speaker 1: Yeah. That year, 92, right? It's like 10 points a game.
[3:33] Speaker 1: It was all those two dudes.
[3:34] Speaker 3: That is an indictment. That is an indictment of Horace Grant.
[3:38] Speaker 2: What you just said is an indictment of Horace Grant.
[3:43] Speaker 1: And shout out to Horace. Horace had his ups and
[3:45] Speaker 1: some of his downs. And we saw in the last
[3:47] Speaker 1: dance when the Orlando thing. Boy, you talk about can't
[3:50] Speaker 1: come back. when Horace went up on them shoulders. And
[3:55] Speaker 1: it was in 94? No, 95, 95, the end.
[3:59] Speaker 4: Of the 95.
[4:00] Speaker 1: Oh my God. It was like, you can't, and now
[4:02] Speaker 1: he's been walking back in. I just, I don't take
[4:05] Speaker 1: for granted that from the moment I was 11 years
[4:09] Speaker 1: old to the day I graduated high school, every single year,
[4:14] Speaker 1: I was watching the best basketball team, not only in
[4:17] Speaker 1: the game, but arguably one of the best in the sport.
[4:20] Speaker 1: Just in terms of runs. And then you get to 96,
[4:24] Speaker 1: and that is, in terms of a cultural year, you
[4:29] Speaker 1: look at the albums that came out that year. You
[4:31] Speaker 1: look at everything that was happening around the sport. And
[4:34] Speaker 1: then him coming back and it being, okay, Mike's back.
[4:37] Speaker 1: This ain't you getting ripped from behind Nick Anderson. This
[4:40] Speaker 1: ain't Mike coming back from baseball. This is Michael is back.
[4:45] Speaker 1: And leading up to it, the two years, which are
[4:47] Speaker 1: two of my... We talked about this. Two of my
[4:49] Speaker 1: favorite years as a Bulls fan was Scottie Pippen was running...
[4:52] Speaker 1: They had two guys who got the top five voting, 96, right?
[4:57] Speaker 1: And MVP, if I'm not mistaken. I think maybe Scottie
[5:00] Speaker 1: might have been fifth or sixth, but Scottie had... No,
[5:02] Speaker 1: I mean, if.
[5:04] Speaker 2: If Scottie was 56 in the 95 MVP voting, that
[5:08] Speaker 2: was a preposterous travesty. That team was like, it was
[5:11] Speaker 2: about 50-50 when Mike came back. I do not, and
[5:15] Speaker 2: you know, he was number seven.
[5:16] Speaker 3: You're right. He was number seven.
[5:17] Speaker 1: Seven.
[5:19] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[5:19] Speaker 1: Two dudes on.
[5:20] Speaker 3: The same squad. He made first team all NBA in 95.
[5:25] Speaker 2: That, you know, we've talked about this. Two kinds of people.
[5:28] Speaker 2: People think Scottie Pippen overrated. People think Scottie Pippen underrated.
[5:31] Speaker 1: And you talking to the same two people on the
[5:33] Speaker 1: same platform right now, because I think Scottie Pippen is
[5:36] Speaker 1: one of the dumbest dudes to ever pick up a basketball.
[5:39] Speaker 1: And I hear you. And sometimes I got to, I
[5:41] Speaker 1: got to, I got to shoo myself. Like, like last
[5:43] Speaker 1: was a couple of episodes ago when you was talking
[5:45] Speaker 1: about who was I able to sue him?
[5:47] Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh yeah, Bo ain't from here.
[5:50] Speaker 1: So he don't know. Right. I'm expecting you to be
[5:53] Speaker 1: watching Illinois Big Ten moves like, you don't know what
[5:56] Speaker 1: he did in Illinois. That's the same way I get
[5:58] Speaker 1: about him. That's the same way I get about him.
[6:00] Speaker 2: Brother, I was about to treat Ayo like I treated
[6:04] Speaker 2: that boy Shad Pipple. I was about to have Ayo
[6:06] Speaker 2: coming straight from the motherland, dog. Maybe he took a stop.
[6:10] Speaker 3: In London or maybe he was from Houston. I ain't know.
[6:13] Speaker 3: Y'all had enough Nigerians to be sending him to the NBA.
[6:15] Speaker 1: Huge, huge population here and great family too. Great family,
[6:19] Speaker 1: but I know I don't want to derail you Hold.
[6:22] Speaker 2: On, are you saying the Dosunmus got a huge population,
[6:25] Speaker 2: or you mean the Nigerians in general?
[6:27] Speaker 1: Both. Both? In the city?
[6:29] Speaker 3: Okay.
[6:30] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Both. Oh, yeah.
[6:31] Speaker 3: I had to say, no, maybe it was a gang
[6:33] Speaker 3: of Dosunmus, you know what I'm saying?
[6:36] Speaker 1: There's a gang of them, and it's a lot of
[6:38] Speaker 1: Nigerians in the city as well. I know too many promoters.
[6:41] Speaker 1: I know too many party promoters to not have bumped
[6:43] Speaker 1: into the Nigerian community. I know too many real estate
[6:47] Speaker 1: homies who to have not have bumped into the Nigerian
[6:49] Speaker 1: community here in the city of Chicago.
[6:51] Speaker 4: But yeah, man, this, this, um, this, this 96 thing
[6:55] Speaker 4: was so ill.
[6:57] Speaker 1: In so many ways because it was, um, You get
[7:00] Speaker 1: two years where you let the Houston Rockets win their championships.
[7:04] Speaker 1: Keem do what he does. Drexler does. I know, I know. Yeah,
[7:09] Speaker 1: I'm here with it. Drexler does what he does in
[7:11] Speaker 1: that second year. And then the true rightful owners.
[7:15] Speaker 3: Of the throne.
[7:16] Speaker 2: Who was going to guard a Keem? Who was going
[7:19] Speaker 2: to guard Dream is all I'm saying. I'm not even
[7:21] Speaker 2: a Rockets fan. Who was going to guard Dream? Dream
[7:24] Speaker 2: would be wearing Horace Grant and Cartwright. Cartwright only had
[7:27] Speaker 2: one strategy for Keem. What was that strategy, Jason Goff?
[7:31] Speaker 2: What was that strategy that Cartwright had?
[7:32] Speaker 1: Elbow and hurdle.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, that elbow to break his face. That was all
[7:36] Speaker 3: he had.
[7:37] Speaker 2: Otherwise, he was out there firing y'all asses up. The
[7:40] Speaker 2: Rockets had an over 500 record against the Bulls. Nobody
[7:43] Speaker 2: else did. All I'm saying is the Bulls would not
[7:45] Speaker 2: have won all their reigns. The Rockets would have got
[7:48] Speaker 2: at least one of them. And y'all need to stop
[7:50] Speaker 2: acting like it was just like somebody did a favor
[7:52] Speaker 2: or something like that.
[7:53] Speaker 3: Mike was so damn burned out after 93. He had
[7:56] Speaker 3: to leave and go play baseball.
[7:57] Speaker 1: He was.
[7:58] Speaker 3: Y'all think he... Okay, anyway.
[7:59] Speaker 1: I understand. I understand where it comes from.
[8:02] Speaker 3: The Bulls were down for a couple of years.
[8:04] Speaker 1: The Bulls were down for a couple of years. Like
[8:07] Speaker 1: I said, the two years, you had the O.J. Chase
[8:10] Speaker 1: on TV, all that good stuff happening, Shaq versus the King.
[8:13] Speaker 1: That was fools. But then the return of the real
[8:16] Speaker 1: ones came, right? Mike came back. Scotty had gotten to
[8:20] Speaker 1: that elevated sense of self, right? And then the dentist thing, which,
[8:25] Speaker 1: you know, there are very few things that make a
[8:30] Speaker 1: sports community really show how phony it is when.
[8:34] Speaker 4: A rival joins your team, right? Hey, man, you.
[8:39] Speaker 2: Can't do nothing about it at that point.
[8:41] Speaker 1: They didn't even, like, there were conversations of like, does
[8:44] Speaker 1: Scottie want him on the team? Does Michael want him
[8:46] Speaker 1: on the team? Well, you know, yeah, they do. Because
[8:49] Speaker 1: they need that position to be filled. You weren't going
[8:51] Speaker 1: to go out there with, you know, Ed Neely or
[8:53] Speaker 1: Larry Kristowiak or anything else out there. You're going to
[8:56] Speaker 1: go with that dude. And what he did to the city. Like,
[9:00] Speaker 1: I've always, I've always tried to posit that Michael Jordan
[9:04] Speaker 1: was everyone's, right? In a way that Derrick Rose felt
[9:08] Speaker 1: like he was more, obviously, Chicago's. Dennis Rodman dropped into
[9:12] Speaker 1: Chicago and immediately set the city on fire and was
[9:16] Speaker 1: like places that people that wore Bulls uniforms were just
[9:21] Speaker 1: not at. Right. So there was that connectivity there. And
[9:24] Speaker 1: they were rock stars, man. I remember Jim Clemens.
[9:27] Speaker 4: Used to pull up to my barbershop in Evanston.
[9:30] Speaker 3: And he'd pull up and he had- Assistant coach Jim Clemons.
[9:32] Speaker 1: Assistant Jim Clemons went on to be the Dallas Mavericks
[9:35] Speaker 1: head coach for a little bit as well. And he pulled-
[9:37] Speaker 1: That was a terrible idea. On multiple levels, by the way.
[9:42] Speaker 1: On multiple levels. But he'd pull up and it'd be
[9:46] Speaker 1: like the Beatles pulling up, dog. Like it was- You
[9:50] Speaker 1: had Oprah, who was still popping at that time. There
[9:54] Speaker 1: was a lot of Chicago-centric shit happening, not only in
[9:57] Speaker 1: the sports world, but in pop culture. And to watch
[10:00] Speaker 1: that team, I remember it might have been first week
[10:03] Speaker 1: in February. Damn. Yeah. It was back-to-back losses to the
[10:07] Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets and the Phoenix Suns on the circus trip.
[10:11] Speaker 1: Every year, Barnum & Bailey Circus would come to the
[10:14] Speaker 1: United Center slash Chicago Stadium before that, and there'd be
[10:16] Speaker 1: a seven-game trip. It's like the Grammy trip for the Lakers. Yeah.
[10:19] Speaker 1: And they go out west. And every year, I knew
[10:21] Speaker 1: as a kid, late basketball. I could stay up late,
[10:24] Speaker 1: watch it, hang out with my best friends on the
[10:27] Speaker 1: Bulls telecast. Man, do you know when they lost those
[10:30] Speaker 1: two games to a young Antonio McDyess and a rookie
[10:33] Speaker 1: Michael Finley, the calls that were happening, it was because
[10:36] Speaker 1: the Bulls were on the verge of losing three games
[10:38] Speaker 1: in a month for the first time. That's how real
[10:42] Speaker 1: it was. Two losses, we let you slide. Three back-to-back
[10:47] Speaker 1: losses on the circus trip that Dennis Rodman is on
[10:50] Speaker 1: the team now? Oh, yeah.
[10:52] Speaker 4: There was a lot of consternation there.
[10:55] Speaker 3: Well, hold on.
[10:56] Speaker 2: I want to back up to Dennis Rodman getting to
[10:59] Speaker 2: the Bulls because I think the circumstances that surround that
[11:03] Speaker 2: are noteworthy, right? So those who weren't around, even those
[11:08] Speaker 2: who don't remember that much, Dennis Rodman played two years
[11:12] Speaker 2: in San Antonio. San Antonio straight is Sean Elliott for
[11:16] Speaker 2: Dennis Rodman, okay? I don't think you could sub out
[11:21] Speaker 2: one personality and replace him with another and shift the
[11:25] Speaker 2: tenor of the room more significantly than that.
[11:31] Speaker 1: Right?
[11:32] Speaker 2: Like, they are completely different humans. And you bring Dennis
[11:36] Speaker 2: Rodman there. Bob Hill was the coach. Greg Popovich was
[11:40] Speaker 2: the general manager. Your best player is David Robinson, who
[11:44] Speaker 2: is an awesome player at this point.
[11:46] Speaker 3: He is one of the two best players in the NBA.
[11:48] Speaker 2: At this point, that's the dude that if you drop
[11:51] Speaker 2: him off now, it's just like, okay, this is completely unfair.
[11:55] Speaker 2: But just an unreal player and a really, really good
[11:58] Speaker 2: man who had nothing in common with Dennis Rodman whatsoever.
[12:03] Speaker 2: And I don't think Dennis Rodman had a modicum of
[12:05] Speaker 2: respect for him and his old military shit.
[12:08] Speaker 3: And all this stuff. None of that. He wasn't going
[12:10] Speaker 3: for it. But Rodman was really good. They were really good.
[12:15] Speaker 2: Rodman becomes this giant star while in San Antonio and
[12:20] Speaker 2: in 1995 during the Western Conference Finals. And there'd been
[12:25] Speaker 2: all of Dennis Rodman's stuff going on throughout the year anyway.
[12:28] Speaker 2: there was a Sports Illustrated cover story written by Michael
[12:31] Speaker 2: Silver called Rare Bird and Rodman. It looked like he
[12:34] Speaker 2: owned the cover of a Prince album, right? Like he
[12:36] Speaker 2: got on like a leather, he got like a parrot.
[12:38] Speaker 2: I feel like there was some lingerie element that was
[12:41] Speaker 2: involved in.
[12:42] Speaker 3: It, right? I remember the day after that.
[12:45] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[12:46] Speaker 2: And I remember the day after that issue came out,
[12:48] Speaker 2: I want to say it was game two in the
[12:49] Speaker 2: finals and he was out there putting up shots.
[12:51] Speaker 3: Like it was about him. Like it was the wildest shit.
[12:54] Speaker 2: They got so sick of having him That the Spurs
[13:00] Speaker 2: traded Dennis Rodman straight up for who, Jason Goff?
[13:05] Speaker 1: My former co-host and partner, Will Perdue, ladies and gentlemen.
[13:10] Speaker 1: My guy.
[13:10] Speaker 3: Straight up. Dennis Rodman for Will Purdue.
[13:15] Speaker 2: The Spurs were telling the world we're willing to get worse.
[13:20] Speaker 2: Just get this dude out of here, right? It's like
[13:26] Speaker 2: we have a friend of the program who once a
[13:29] Speaker 2: landlord pulled up at his crib when he was in
[13:31] Speaker 2: college and it was so tore up.
[13:33] Speaker 3: And they owe money and he was like, I don't
[13:34] Speaker 3: care about the money, just leave.
[13:37] Speaker 2: Get out of here tomorrow. Nothing else matters. You just
[13:39] Speaker 2: have to go. That's what they did with Dennis Rodman.
[13:42] Speaker 2: And what they did with the Bulls, look, all Dennis
[13:46] Speaker 2: Rodman did was play monster defense and get rebounds, right?
[13:50] Speaker 3: He passed well. He'd make all the right plays.
[13:52] Speaker 2: You know, it's the last dance shit where you're doing
[13:56] Speaker 2: all that or whatever. But what they really did when
[13:58] Speaker 2: they got Dennis Rodman was it allowed them to periodically,
[14:03] Speaker 2: if you thought you were going to beat them and
[14:05] Speaker 2: get ahead, they would go into this 2-2-1, three-quarter, a
[14:11] Speaker 2: half-court trap. I can't remember what it was. It was
[14:15] Speaker 2: the defensive equivalent of the Warriors' death lineup. This lineup
[14:19] Speaker 2: comes in, and now NBA teams look like it's the
[14:25] Speaker 2: seventh grade versus the faculty game, and y'all can't get
[14:29] Speaker 2: the ball past half-court.
[14:32] Speaker 1: The energy. The energy, right? And that's the thing, too. Like, after, like,
[14:36] Speaker 1: Dennis had some hard miles on him, too, from Detroit
[14:38] Speaker 1: to San Antonio. When he got to Chicago. Yeah, exactly.
[14:43] Speaker 1: A lot of things. When he got to Chicago, it was,
[14:46] Speaker 1: is he going to not only be able to hold up,
[14:49] Speaker 1: but can you sustain this type of intensity and energy
[14:52] Speaker 1: throughout the rest of the season at the age that
[14:55] Speaker 1: he was getting?
[14:55] Speaker 4: Like, we treat dudes now.
[14:57] Speaker 1: Who, being in the NBA at 17 years, 18 years, like, oh, look,
[15:00] Speaker 1: he's still in great shape. I mean, James Buda Edwards
[15:03] Speaker 1: was on that 96 team in his 18th year, and
[15:06] Speaker 1: I'm like, that and KD don't look the same, right?
[15:08] Speaker 1: So guys age differently, and basketball was different back then.
[15:11] Speaker 1: Dennis would not only steal you possessions, but his energy
[15:15] Speaker 1: through three- or four-minute spurts would just berate teams and
[15:20] Speaker 1: turn teams into... Like, for instance, I remember watching some
[15:24] Speaker 1: of those 96... What was it? The Miami series. where, yeah,
[15:32] Speaker 1: 96 Miami series, where you got, you know, a lot
[15:34] Speaker 1: of the morning, you got Tim Harden, you got some
[15:37] Speaker 1: cats over there. And Dennis ran up and down and
[15:40] Speaker 1: he annoyed people. He got the ball, extra possessions, deflections.
[15:45] Speaker 1: Dennis was a terrific passer when he was locked in.
[15:48] Speaker 1: Like there were moments where he was just wanting to
[15:51] Speaker 1: be himself and feel allowed for it because he knew
[15:54] Speaker 1: he was going to get all the extra shit from
[15:56] Speaker 1: him too. And he did that three straight years. But
[15:59] Speaker 1: that was the first year where, It was the proof
[16:01] Speaker 1: of concept. Because like you mentioned, when he was in
[16:03] Speaker 1: San Antonio, that's when the demolition man hairdo thing, the
[16:06] Speaker 1: blonde hair happened. And people were like, all right, this
[16:08] Speaker 1: is now sideshow. And now we're getting away from basketball.
[16:12] Speaker 1: But he was still amazing at basketball. He was still
[16:15] Speaker 1: an amazing defender. Like Dennis in that Seattle series in 96,
[16:19] Speaker 1: he guarded everyone. He guarded Peyton. He guarded Detlef. He
[16:22] Speaker 1: guarded Sean Kemp. He guarded everybody on that team because
[16:25] Speaker 1: he was that cold. Whoa.
[16:27] Speaker 3: Hold on.
[16:28] Speaker 2: What is interesting is that Dennis Rodman has spent years
[16:31] Speaker 2: getting all kind of funny shit cut in his hair.
[16:34] Speaker 3: All kinds of sayings and all of this stuff.
[16:37] Speaker 2: But when he did The Demolition Man, Dennis Rodman endured
[16:41] Speaker 2: as a pop culture figure much longer than that expected
[16:44] Speaker 2: blockbuster movie did.
[16:45] Speaker 3: It's called Demolition Man.
[16:46] Speaker 2: It was Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. And Wesley Snipes'
[16:49] Speaker 2: character had a blonde dyed box. Because it started with
[16:54] Speaker 2: Dennis having the actual, the exact haircut. And then it
[16:58] Speaker 2: just turned into like the evolution of all the colors.
[17:01] Speaker 2: But the thing that happened that I don't think anybody
[17:04] Speaker 2: really bet on is he became so famous. He's out
[17:08] Speaker 2: here dating Madonna and all of this stuff. But they
[17:11] Speaker 2: were saying that in 96, by the time that came around,
[17:15] Speaker 2: Dennis was getting a louder ovation in the building than
[17:20] Speaker 2: Jordan was during intros. It was almost like Dennis Rodman
[17:24] Speaker 2: got to be treated like a white man. And this
[17:25] Speaker 2: is what I mean by that. If you have ever
[17:29] Speaker 2: covered or been around a team that had that particular
[17:32] Speaker 2: white man on the team, nobody could bring them out.
[17:36] Speaker 2: They seats quite like a shot blocking white man. And
[17:39] Speaker 2: I know this because I was in Miami when they
[17:42] Speaker 2: had the bird man. I am not convinced that when
[17:47] Speaker 2: Ray Allen hit that shot in game six in 2013,
[17:50] Speaker 2: I'm not convinced in that guy louder than when Birdman
[17:53] Speaker 2: would get a block.
[17:54] Speaker 3: When Birdman would get a block, it would just all
[17:57] Speaker 3: turn up.
[17:57] Speaker 2: And Dennis Rodman like managed to occupy somehow being that guy.
[18:02] Speaker 2: He became like white man fan favorite. It'd be like
[18:06] Speaker 2: a Bobby Hanson kahoot.
[18:08] Speaker 1: So, Shout out to Bobby. That's a stray that he
[18:11] Speaker 1: didn't need to catch just now, and I noticed it.
[18:16] Speaker 2: You covering your relationship with Bobby Hanson rather than just
[18:21] Speaker 2: letting that ride. You have the option of letting that
[18:24] Speaker 2: shit ride. But you're like, hold on, let me put
[18:27] Speaker 2: on my cape. White man in distress.
[18:29] Speaker 1: No, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
[18:32] Speaker 1: Speak it. Don't do that.
[18:34] Speaker 4: But Dennis, you know, it's funny that you mention, Dennis
[18:37] Speaker 4: was white.
[18:38] Speaker 1: Adjacent in a way that he did all the white
[18:41] Speaker 1: dude shit, right? Like, he dated the Carmen Electras of
[18:45] Speaker 1: the world.
[18:45] Speaker 4: He rode the Harleys.
[18:47] Speaker 1: He would go to Excalibur where you wouldn't catch many,
[18:50] Speaker 1: if any, brothers here in the city. Like, he would
[18:52] Speaker 1: do those things. And he listened to rock and roll music.
[18:55] Speaker 1: He hung out with Tommy Lee. Like, he was, you
[18:57] Speaker 1: know what he is? He was, like, every white man's
[19:01] Speaker 1: favorite dude that they kind of like to work with
[19:04] Speaker 1: but never want to live next to.
[19:05] Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying? They can't wait to run
[19:08] Speaker 4: into Earl at the gig.
[19:09] Speaker 1: So they can just laugh about silly shit and live
[19:11] Speaker 1: vicariously through his escapades, but they don't really want you
[19:16] Speaker 1: to live right next door to them. Dennis had that
[19:18] Speaker 1: vibe to him. And the shit that he would do...
[19:22] Speaker 1: As a kid, I liked wrestling. So... I kind of
[19:27] Speaker 1: understood a lot of what he was giving off. Like
[19:31] Speaker 1: the full layouts to get loose balls, where it'd be like,
[19:34] Speaker 1: if you dove and kind of corralled it and threw
[19:37] Speaker 1: it back with your athleticism, it would actually be a
[19:40] Speaker 1: possession that you stole.
[19:41] Speaker 4: And also, you know, you can keep it going.
[19:43] Speaker 1: But the guys who say a dunk is worth more
[19:47] Speaker 1: than two points, all of Dennis' shit was worth more
[19:50] Speaker 1: than it looked like on the court and I hate
[19:52] Speaker 1: to do that whole feeling and emotion thing and vibes
[19:55] Speaker 1: and all that because it's so nebulous but He, he
[19:58] Speaker 1: did things where you knew he wasn't involved and engaged
[20:01] Speaker 1: in the game and he would just turn up and
[20:03] Speaker 1: it'd be like, I'm here now. And everybody else will
[20:06] Speaker 1: rise with him. And that would happen once or twice
[20:08] Speaker 1: a game. And then you'd see him sit over there
[20:10] Speaker 1: with the towel over his head and taking it. Like
[20:12] Speaker 1: he took his shoes off when he subbed out. Like
[20:14] Speaker 1: he did a lot of weird shit.
[20:15] Speaker 4: So he was always, he was always, it seemed, and
[20:18] Speaker 4: I hate to, to put it this way, but he was, he.
[20:20] Speaker 1: Seemed like a lot of basketball fans' favorite pet. Yeah.
[20:23] Speaker 1: where it was like, oh, look what Dennis is doing.
[20:25] Speaker 1: Did you see Dennis last night? And meanwhile, he's shutting
[20:28] Speaker 1: down huge, huge centers in power forwards who are three
[20:32] Speaker 1: or four inches taller than him. and getting 17, 16 rebounds.
[20:37] Speaker 1: And at the end there, his rebounds became kind of
[20:39] Speaker 1: like the Ray Lewis tackles at the end of his run,
[20:41] Speaker 1: where it was like, if he was anywhere around it,
[20:44] Speaker 1: Ray touch a pile, Ray got 27 tackles that day.
[20:47] Speaker 1: It started to get to that level, but he was
[20:50] Speaker 1: that kick in the ass that I think Phil Jackson
[20:54] Speaker 1: wanted the Bulls to have. There was that understanding of
[20:58] Speaker 1: how to play basketball, but the energy just... The energy
[21:01] Speaker 1: just wasn't going to be right. And if you put
[21:03] Speaker 1: anybody else in that position.
[21:05] Speaker 2: I feel like they needed the opposite of the kick
[21:07] Speaker 2: in the ass because the kick in the ass.
[21:09] Speaker 3: Was Mike all the time, right?
[21:12] Speaker 2: Like somebody had to make this seem like it was
[21:15] Speaker 2: a little bit more entertaining because like this dude is,
[21:19] Speaker 2: it never turns off with him.
[21:20] Speaker 3: Like he's always there.
[21:22] Speaker 2: But I always felt like with Rodman too, that once
[21:26] Speaker 2: Mike came back to that team, It's like, so how
[21:29] Speaker 2: exactly do you go about making this team better? Cause
[21:32] Speaker 2: that's not a team that truly needs a secondary scoring option.
[21:35] Speaker 2: Like normally somebody in Mike's position, you're like, yo, we
[21:38] Speaker 2: got to get somebody else out here to give Mike
[21:40] Speaker 2: some help getting these buckets. Cause Scotty ain't going to
[21:43] Speaker 2: do it, but it never really was at the point
[21:45] Speaker 2: where you needed somebody else to go get them buckets.
[21:48] Speaker 2: It was just like, nah, let's, we can make a
[21:51] Speaker 2: very easy adjustment by getting will Purdue out of here
[21:55] Speaker 2: and And we're going to bring in Dennis Rodman. And, yeah,
[21:58] Speaker 2: now also this team that was going to be the
[22:01] Speaker 2: biggest deal anyway, they add the guy that's become as
[22:05] Speaker 2: big a star as anybody in the NBA, the dude
[22:07] Speaker 2: that's the one that they all flock into when they
[22:10] Speaker 2: go to the club, even though he ain't taking no
[22:12] Speaker 2: shower after the game.
[22:14] Speaker 3: Yeah. You seen KG talk about that?
[22:16] Speaker 2: KG be like, yo, after the game, Dennis Rodman on
[22:18] Speaker 2: the Stairmaster in combat boots and then going funky, going
[22:22] Speaker 2: straight to the club because he going for the ones
[22:25] Speaker 2: that like that.
[22:26] Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
[22:28] Speaker 4: And had the baddest ones there.
[22:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, but I feel like it's like even all the
[22:34] Speaker 2: way clean, Dennis look like he just got through hooping.
[22:36] Speaker 3: So why not just go after you got done hooping?
[22:40] Speaker 1: Craziest thing, the craziest dinner story in a club that
[22:44] Speaker 1: I've ever experienced was the first year that the Bulls
[22:49] Speaker 1: bowed out under Derrick Rose and that Carlos Boozer, you know,
[22:54] Speaker 1: the wall dang team. And everybody was in town for
[22:58] Speaker 1: that game. I mean, everybody, like you walk into the
[23:00] Speaker 1: locker room afterwards and Latrell Sprewell is in there. Like,
[23:03] Speaker 1: why are all these people here? This is the center
[23:05] Speaker 1: of the basketball universe for some reason that night. And
[23:09] Speaker 1: we go out and a lady walks into the club
[23:14] Speaker 1: with a ferret on her shoulder. And I was like,
[23:17] Speaker 1: what's happening here? And I asked some questions and nobody knew.
[23:23] Speaker 1: And then it made sense because Dennis came in shortly
[23:25] Speaker 1: after that lady and other ladies came with him. It
[23:28] Speaker 1: was just, that's the kind of, you know, shout or not,
[23:32] Speaker 1: ferret or not, your game, your moment or not. Dennis
[23:37] Speaker 1: Rodman has always had that, that kind of, you know,
[23:40] Speaker 1: the je ne sais quoi.
[23:43] Speaker 3: Well, let me tell you what's so crazy about this.
[23:44] Speaker 2: We talk about the 96 Bulls and we let Dennis
[23:46] Speaker 2: Rodman detour us. We have not actually talked about that
[23:49] Speaker 2: Mike came back thing, right? Like Mike came back. So
[23:53] Speaker 2: coming up next, we're going to talk about this. 96,
[23:55] Speaker 2: Mike came back and Mike came back with the worst
[23:58] Speaker 2: thing for the world that he ever could have come
[24:00] Speaker 2: back with. And I'll tell you what that is when
[24:01] Speaker 2: we come back. You can predict the playoff action all
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[25:01] Speaker 2: hyphen offer hyphen terms. All right, back here with Jason Goff,
[25:06] Speaker 2: talking about the 96 Bulls. And yeah, so Jordan comes back,
[25:10] Speaker 2: and the man who invented slights in his own mind
[25:13] Speaker 2: to motivate himself had one.
[25:17] Speaker 1: Two of them.
[25:19] Speaker 3: Nick Anderson took the rock from him. We talked about that.
[25:23] Speaker 2: And it's funny because Nick Addison's career ended two series
[25:26] Speaker 2: later when he missed those free throws. But Nick Addison
[25:29] Speaker 2: took the rock from him. And then they carried Horace
[25:31] Speaker 2: Grant off on shoulders. And that meant that Michael Jordan
[25:35] Speaker 2: was coming back with a vengeance. And I mean, look,
[25:38] Speaker 2: at this point, Michael Jordan is 32, 33 years old.
[25:42] Speaker 3: Like he is not a young man.
[25:44] Speaker 2: The idea that he could come back and just house
[25:48] Speaker 2: the league again is insane.
[25:51] Speaker 3: Considering he took two seasons off.
[25:53] Speaker 1: And he came back, you know, that fadeaway jump shot was,
[25:57] Speaker 1: was in the works.
[25:58] Speaker 3: He didn't have it.
[25:59] Speaker 1: He was in the works, right? Like he did it,
[26:01] Speaker 1: you know, he take it with it, but it was
[26:03] Speaker 1: a lot of jumping over people, a lot of angles,
[26:05] Speaker 1: you know, his in and out dribble is arguably like
[26:08] Speaker 1: people I talk about crossovers. You go back and see
[26:10] Speaker 1: how much work he did with that in and out
[26:11] Speaker 1: dribble from 91, 93 is crazy. Very fundamental dude. But
[26:16] Speaker 1: then the fadeaway comes back. The postgame comes with him, right?
[26:18] Speaker 1: He looks bigger, obviously. He's getting older. And then he plays, right?
[26:24] Speaker 1: And this is where people have the conversations and get
[26:28] Speaker 1: into it. And the LeBron-Jordan conversation is so tiresome. But
[26:32] Speaker 1: when people do bring it up, they talk about how
[26:34] Speaker 1: much he played. He played. And not only did he play,
[26:38] Speaker 1: he comes back at that age after having that much rust.
[26:41] Speaker 1: and leads the league in field goal attempts, right? And
[26:44] Speaker 1: this is looking Scotty in the eyes after two years
[26:47] Speaker 1: of you being the man. You know, you ride around
[26:50] Speaker 1: with Hugh Hollins on your shoulder everywhere you go. Like, Hugh,
[26:53] Speaker 1: I would have, you know, things would have been different. Hugh,
[26:56] Speaker 1: you come back and not only come back and go,
[26:58] Speaker 1: I'm not only still Mike, I'm going to take the
[27:01] Speaker 1: most shots. I'm going to be the most efficient. Like,
[27:04] Speaker 1: the shit that we see SGA doing now, Mike was
[27:07] Speaker 1: doing that for 9, 10, 11 years straight. where it's like, nah, dog, he, damn,
[27:14] Speaker 1: he did. And how many did he shoot? Now, what'd
[27:16] Speaker 1: he do there? And this is without the three, right?
[27:19] Speaker 1: This is without the three. This is without a lot of, like,
[27:22] Speaker 1: the game, the way the game was, where you played
[27:25] Speaker 1: pretty much elbow to paint, and every once in a while,
[27:27] Speaker 1: you had a specialist who was out there. He was
[27:29] Speaker 1: doing a lot of this shit in traffic. He was
[27:31] Speaker 1: doing a lot of this stuff where, you know, the
[27:33] Speaker 1: zone rules were different. It was crazy, man. It was
[27:36] Speaker 1: absolutely crazy.
[27:37] Speaker 2: But let us not forget something somewhat important about the
[27:40] Speaker 2: 96th season. However, that's the year that Jordan shot 43%
[27:43] Speaker 2: from three, because that was when they had moved a
[27:46] Speaker 2: three point line in just a little bit.
[27:49] Speaker 3: Right.
[27:49] Speaker 2: Now granted, everybody got to benefit from that, but Mike
[27:52] Speaker 2: came up in an era where having a three point
[27:54] Speaker 2: shot was not a requirement and his range did not
[27:57] Speaker 2: really go out that far, but it didn't really matter
[27:59] Speaker 2: because nobody could stop him from going to the rack.
[28:02] Speaker 2: But in that year, Mike hit 43% of his threes.
[28:07] Speaker 2: Cause you talked about the basketball reference that a lot
[28:09] Speaker 2: of NBA one. The other thing about him is his, um,
[28:13] Speaker 2: advanced numbers.
[28:15] Speaker 3: Page has all the bold face, right?
[28:18] Speaker 2: Like the numbers bear out everything we tell you about
[28:22] Speaker 2: Michael Jordan. Like this is not just simply about fandom
[28:25] Speaker 2: by every metric basically that exists.
[28:29] Speaker 3: He was that dude.
[28:30] Speaker 2: He came back off whatever you want to call it.
[28:34] Speaker 3: And in 96, he was literally as good as he
[28:38] Speaker 3: had ever been relative to his peers.
[28:39] Speaker 1: 96 was a... There was a control to his game
[28:43] Speaker 1: where you thought the ultimate level of control had been
[28:46] Speaker 1: reached already. There was control to... Because let's face it,
[28:49] Speaker 1: when he goes to Barcelona and that is really the...
[28:53] Speaker 1: All right, this is never going to be anybody else's.
[28:56] Speaker 1: And Magic and Larry mentioned that, right? We're three or
[29:00] Speaker 1: four years removed from that where... The game has, you know,
[29:03] Speaker 1: moved on a little bit, obviously, and then you're introducing
[29:06] Speaker 1: new players, right? The Grant Hills of the world, the
[29:08] Speaker 1: Jason Kidds of the world. Like, the league is in
[29:10] Speaker 1: the moment looking for whatever the next face is going
[29:14] Speaker 1: to be, right? Shaq just came in here in 92,
[29:16] Speaker 1: and we're like, we've never seen anything like this. This
[29:19] Speaker 1: is Wilt with an extra 50, 70 pounds or something like,
[29:22] Speaker 1: all those things are happening. He comes back with a
[29:25] Speaker 1: controlled dominance that, from 96 to 98, people talk about
[29:32] Speaker 1: which run was more fun. The opponents were probably more
[29:36] Speaker 1: fun 91 to 93, but I'm just talking about going
[29:40] Speaker 1: out there every night and understanding there was going to
[29:42] Speaker 1: be a moment in the game where i've been baker
[29:45] Speaker 1: i glenn robertson all right ray appreciate you all y'all
[29:47] Speaker 1: been cool this is a tuesday night in january i'm
[29:50] Speaker 1: gonna get you up out of here with this 16
[29:52] Speaker 1: to 2 run in the third quarter like there were
[29:53] Speaker 1: more you i Johnny Red Kerr and Tom Doerr would
[29:59] Speaker 1: talk about the moment that they were waiting for when
[30:01] Speaker 1: Mike and them would just turn it on. And they knew,
[30:04] Speaker 1: kind of like when Tiger used to get ready for
[30:08] Speaker 1: the Masters when he was, you know, big dog back
[30:10] Speaker 1: in the day. where you go to these little tournaments
[30:13] Speaker 1: and work on shit, and you're like, why is Tiger
[30:14] Speaker 1: taking that shot from the fringe? He meant to go
[30:16] Speaker 1: there because he knows that at some point he's going
[30:19] Speaker 1: to have to use this wicked flop shot that he
[30:21] Speaker 1: doesn't have in his bag two, three, four, five, six
[30:24] Speaker 1: tournaments ago. That's all the regular season seemed like that year. Like,
[30:27] Speaker 1: 72 wins. I know the Golden State Warriors case of
[30:32] Speaker 1: the 73-9 and them not winning the championship, that looked
[30:35] Speaker 1: different because of the proliferation of the three-point shot and
[30:38] Speaker 1: how it made just teams like just crumble. And now
[30:42] Speaker 1: we think, hey, you're down 20 with seven minutes left.
[30:45] Speaker 1: You still got a chance. This was a time where
[30:47] Speaker 1: if you were down 10, down eight to those boys,
[30:51] Speaker 1: the way they played defense and how controlled his game
[30:54] Speaker 1: was and how controlled Scottie's game became as well. It
[30:58] Speaker 1: was a sweet spot for basketball that, seemingly the first
[31:02] Speaker 1: three years of championships didn't suffice. Like going up against
[31:06] Speaker 1: Magic in 91, 92 with the team that beat the
[31:10] Speaker 1: Blazers and how ridiculous that was. And then you realize
[31:12] Speaker 1: that the three-peat happens against that Barkley squad. But 96
[31:17] Speaker 1: just felt like, all right, this is a dude who
[31:20] Speaker 1: is at the top of his game. He has had
[31:23] Speaker 1: two years off. it seems like he's functioning at a
[31:27] Speaker 1: different level. And on top of it, they know exactly
[31:30] Speaker 1: what they needed around him, right? They knew that, all right,
[31:33] Speaker 1: you got to switch Jon Paxson out for B.J. Armstrong.
[31:36] Speaker 4: Now you got to add a Tony Kukoc.
[31:37] Speaker 1: Like, it was a perfect organizational dominant player meets greatest
[31:43] Speaker 1: of all time kind of vibe. Like, it was... It
[31:46] Speaker 1: was a great, great, great moment in time, man. Great
[31:49] Speaker 1: moment in basketball.
[31:49] Speaker 2: Well, they were afforded the rare opportunity where we got
[31:53] Speaker 2: to see them get back on top, but we never
[31:55] Speaker 2: had to watch them fall because of the way that
[31:58] Speaker 2: Jordan left and the timing of.
[31:59] Speaker 3: It all, right?
[32:00] Speaker 2: It was what people expected when Muhammad Ali came back
[32:07] Speaker 2: from having his license taken back.
[32:09] Speaker 3: That, okay, good, he's just going to come back and
[32:11] Speaker 3: be the champ again, right?
[32:12] Speaker 2: And I guess maybe you could make the argument that
[32:14] Speaker 2: losing to the Magic in 95 was like when Ali
[32:17] Speaker 2: lost to Joe Frazier. But no, I think that's still a, like,
[32:19] Speaker 2: Ali didn't come straight into fighting Joe Frazier, right?
[32:22] Speaker 3: Like, they had some, you know, they had some other
[32:24] Speaker 3: fights before we wound up getting there.
[32:27] Speaker 2: But I think when you start talking about those runs,
[32:30] Speaker 2: that clip of that all the smoke live of Kevin
[32:33] Speaker 2: Garnett talking about What it was like when the Timberwolves
[32:37] Speaker 2: had this lead over the Bulls and J.R.
[32:40] Speaker 3: Ryder was giving Mike the work. And KG is like.
[32:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
[32:46] Speaker 3: And Mike is over there watching. And J.R.
[32:48] Speaker 2: Ryder, the best part about this story to me about J.R.
[32:51] Speaker 2: Ryder is J.R. Ryder's rookie year was 1994.
[32:55] Speaker 3: OK, so I look this up.
[32:59] Speaker 2: Prior to 96, the 95-96 season, J.R. Ryder had never
[33:03] Speaker 2: played in a game with Michael Jordan.
[33:06] Speaker 1: He hadn't.
[33:07] Speaker 3: When would he?
[33:08] Speaker 1: Right?
[33:08] Speaker 2: Jordan came back with 15 games left in the 95 season.
[33:12] Speaker 2: So he had never played against Jordan, but he knew
[33:15] Speaker 2: enough to know that KG needed to shut the fuck
[33:18] Speaker 2: up because Mike is not going to appreciate this. And
[33:21] Speaker 2: he said, that's when the run came, where KG is like,
[33:25] Speaker 2: I can't begin to explain to you what happened in
[33:27] Speaker 2: the next four or five minutes of play, where he
[33:29] Speaker 2: said it just felt like they were on defense all
[33:31] Speaker 2: the time. that that might just came back the other
[33:34] Speaker 2: way like the run was going to be there the
[33:37] Speaker 2: one home game they lost that year because remember they
[33:39] Speaker 2: lost one home game and i believe it was to
[33:41] Speaker 2: the hornets that they lost that home game i think
[33:44] Speaker 2: the hornets were out there wearing the purple shirts and
[33:47] Speaker 2: but i remember in that game the bulls got in
[33:50] Speaker 2: that trap and it looked like them boys wasn't gonna
[33:53] Speaker 2: have no chance and somehow somehow the hornets.
[33:57] Speaker 3: Withstood but it was just like hey man um What
[34:01] Speaker 3: are we... What are we supposed to do with this?
[34:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, they lost two home games that year, but the
[34:07] Speaker 2: Hornets were the first one, I want to say.
[34:10] Speaker 1: And by the way, that J.R. Ryder.
[34:11] Speaker 3: My bad, I'm trying to do this in real time.
[34:13] Speaker 1: The J.R. Ryder reference, too, by the way, for the
[34:16] Speaker 1: people who don't know, if you're making an ain't-no-bitch list,
[34:21] Speaker 1: he is very high up on that list in NBA
[34:24] Speaker 1: recent memory. J.R. Ryder ain't no punk, so to imagine
[34:28] Speaker 1: him saying, hey, man, let's try not to Let's try
[34:30] Speaker 1: not to piss this dude off. You know what I'm saying?
[34:33] Speaker 3: Let's try. No, JR, hey, Mike. Stop talking crazy, too.
[34:35] Speaker 3: You don't know yet, Mike.
[34:37] Speaker 2: Like, he is asking Mike for, like, for mercy, basically.
[34:44] Speaker 4: So tell me how that makes you feel.
[34:46] Speaker 1: Because I've had so many conversations with dudes who played
[34:49] Speaker 1: during that era. And for all this league and this
[34:52] Speaker 1: era and this generation ain't tough stuff, I hear all
[34:56] Speaker 1: these conversations. And, you know, people have their reasons. But, like,
[35:00] Speaker 1: with complete deference to a man.
[35:03] Speaker 3: But only to one man. But only to one man.
[35:08] Speaker 3: I'm talking about.
[35:08] Speaker 1: Dudes who would knock anybody out. Yes. It's like....
[35:15] Speaker 2: It's like listening to cats like Bob Lilly talk about
[35:18] Speaker 2: Jim Brown or like talk about Dick Buckus, right? Like
[35:21] Speaker 2: I think one thing we could fully acknowledge football was
[35:25] Speaker 2: a tougher game back then than it turned into, right?
[35:28] Speaker 3: Like I think there's, nobody has any questions about that.
[35:30] Speaker 2: And them old heads, hey man, you have to humble
[35:33] Speaker 2: yourself before a particular sort of greatness.
[35:35] Speaker 3: And with Mike, he was just terrifying. Like when Stephen A.
[35:39] Speaker 3: Smith and J.J.
[35:40] Speaker 2: Redding got in that argument about whether or not people
[35:43] Speaker 2: were afraid of LeBron, people might be afraid of LeBron, right?
[35:47] Speaker 3: J.J. may be correct about it, but.
[35:50] Speaker 2: It ain't like when these cats talk about Mike, were
[35:52] Speaker 2: they afraid to talk?
[35:54] Speaker 3: Nobody wants to say a word around him.
[35:56] Speaker 1: It's different. He carried that.
[35:58] Speaker 2: Because LeBron's not crazy.
[36:00] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the definite psychotic nature of, and
[36:07] Speaker 1: let's face it, the archetype too. Like, you know, Mike
[36:11] Speaker 1: leading up to that 96 season, there was an NBA
[36:15] Speaker 1: where you had to have a big, right? You had
[36:17] Speaker 1: Brad Doherty in Cleveland. You had this one here. You
[36:19] Speaker 1: had that one there. Yeah. Mike and the wing dominance
[36:24] Speaker 1: came throughout the late 80s, early 90s, that whole run.
[36:28] Speaker 1: And then in 96, when you land there and you
[36:31] Speaker 1: see not only the elbow stuff, the terrifying nature, the
[36:34] Speaker 1: psychotic making up of of things to fuel him. We
[36:41] Speaker 1: were aware of how he was treating teammates, too, by
[36:45] Speaker 1: the way.
[36:45] Speaker 4: This is the other thing, too. This is before social media.
[36:48] Speaker 1: This is before... Cable news was our access to the
[36:52] Speaker 1: world and also the writers.
[36:54] Speaker 4: And the writers were like, hey, dudes are walking around.
[36:57] Speaker 1: This motherfucker's scared. this does not feel like a great
[37:02] Speaker 1: workplace but they winning championships so you can't do shit
[37:06] Speaker 1: about it Terry Boers God rest his soul he's right
[37:10] Speaker 1: for the Chicago I believe Terry was Terry was a
[37:13] Speaker 1: sometimes guy yeah yeah and Terry said after his third
[37:17] Speaker 1: practice of seeing Mike, he was like, he went to
[37:19] Speaker 1: the phone, he was like, the Bulls have the best player,
[37:22] Speaker 1: one of the best players in the league. I don't
[37:23] Speaker 1: need to see no more. So from that moment on,
[37:26] Speaker 1: Mike built up to being the crazy that you saw, right?
[37:30] Speaker 1: Mike came to Chicago and drank Lipton iced teas and
[37:35] Speaker 1: ended up being the dude who had 23 on every
[37:38] Speaker 1: Ferrari and every Benz ever made. He turned into this
[37:42] Speaker 1: maniacal dude. And in 96, coming back, the disrespect that
[37:47] Speaker 1: I think he took from the Orlando Magic even winning.
[37:50] Speaker 4: That series, right?
[37:52] Speaker 1: Like, he had been to Market Square Arena, face down
[37:56] Speaker 1: to Knicks, seeing the bad boy Pistons walk past me
[37:59] Speaker 1: in the Auburn Hills, passing of the torch that way.
[38:02] Speaker 1: You mean to tell me the Mickey Mouse team gonna
[38:06] Speaker 1: come out here and do this? Bet. Bet. Scotty, clear
[38:11] Speaker 1: it up, get your migraine medication, do whatever you gotta do.
[38:14] Speaker 1: We ain't filming no movies, we good money. We out here.
[38:17] Speaker 1: And 96 was that. And And not to mention, the
[38:23] Speaker 1: way that Michael Jordan controlled....
[38:28] Speaker 3: Well, hold on, hold on.
[38:29] Speaker 2: Let me hit you on something you just said about
[38:30] Speaker 2: filming the movie that this is very important to note,
[38:33] Speaker 2: which is the summer of 95 is when they shot
[38:36] Speaker 2: that movie, right? Mike, in terms of the deference and
[38:41] Speaker 2: everything else that we were just talking about, These cats.
[38:44] Speaker 3: Wouldn't do this for LeBron.
[38:46] Speaker 1: Ever.
[38:46] Speaker 3: These cats volunteered.
[38:48] Speaker 2: To be in a movie to be vanquished by Michael Jordan. Now,
[38:53] Speaker 2: maybe they agreed to it when Mike was retired. And
[38:56] Speaker 2: so they didn't think that they were setting themselves up
[38:58] Speaker 2: for this against an active player. But a big part
[39:01] Speaker 2: of his summer to get ready for the season was
[39:04] Speaker 2: Space Jam and then playing pickup games.
[39:07] Speaker 1: See, and that's the crazy part is because that's the bullshit.
[39:11] Speaker 1: People around the league knew that he was running up
[39:14] Speaker 1: to the Birdo Center and practicing with them dudes throughout.
[39:18] Speaker 1: You know, Chris Mullen and Tim Hardaway sat down and
[39:21] Speaker 1: interviewed those dudes for NBC Sports Chicago a couple years,
[39:25] Speaker 1: a few years back. And those cats was like, oh, yeah,
[39:28] Speaker 1: he pulled up in the Bay in 1990. 95 and
[39:30] Speaker 1: was like, I just want to get a run in
[39:32] Speaker 1: real quick. To their practice. To their practice. Can you
[39:36] Speaker 1: imagine pulling up to the Oklahoma City Thunder facility as,
[39:41] Speaker 1: I don't know, Nick Collison or Russell.
[39:44] Speaker 3: Y'all got y'all five?
[39:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Like, hey, we doing something here.
[39:50] Speaker 3: And you're not on.
[39:51] Speaker 1: Our team, by the way. Like, this is the level
[39:55] Speaker 1: of deference that these cats had to this man. And
[39:58] Speaker 1: as he's filming this, you know, Grant, Jawan, everybody's out there.
[40:02] Speaker 1: This dude is doing recon. He made y'all think, hey, man,
[40:06] Speaker 1: come hoop with a real one. You might put you
[40:08] Speaker 1: in my movie. You know what I'm saying? We telling
[40:10] Speaker 1: a lot of lies in this movie. I'm telling a lot.
[40:13] Speaker 1: I live in a three-bedroom home in the suburbs.
[40:15] Speaker 3: But here's the thing, though.
[40:17] Speaker 2: But what's going to make you better than playing against
[40:19] Speaker 2: Michael Jordan?
[40:20] Speaker 3: Like, what path can you take toward.
[40:22] Speaker 2: Improvement that is more iron sharpens iron than we going
[40:25] Speaker 2: to go hoop with Mike?
[40:27] Speaker 1: I feel you. But when you get your ass out
[40:29] Speaker 1: on that playoff court and he know that your left
[40:32] Speaker 1: ain't what it need to be.
[40:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know what?
[40:35] Speaker 1: He know all the shit you been saying about your teammates.
[40:40] Speaker 3: But he was going, first of all, he was going
[40:42] Speaker 3: to know that anyway, right?
[40:44] Speaker 1: Not the shit that you want to say about your teammates, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[40:47] Speaker 1: Mike's put up a.
[40:48] Speaker 3: Lot of teams. Maybe not that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[40:51] Speaker 3: Maybe not that.
[40:52] Speaker 2: But, like, number one, Mike was going to know that
[40:53] Speaker 2: about you. And another all-smoke, very all-smoke, is your place
[40:57] Speaker 2: for Jordan content. But when Reggie Miller was out there
[40:59] Speaker 2: talking about, like, so I looked up, like, what is
[41:02] Speaker 2: it that you could do with Mike, right? Like, what
[41:03] Speaker 2: did you, he's like, I never found a tail. I
[41:05] Speaker 2: never found anything. What was that you could get Mike doing, right?
[41:09] Speaker 3: And he's like, so what's his percentage if you make
[41:11] Speaker 3: him go left?
[41:12] Speaker 1: Great.
[41:13] Speaker 3: What's his percentage if he goes right?
[41:15] Speaker 2: Great.
[41:16] Speaker 3: What about if he takes a jumper from the elbow?
[41:18] Speaker 1: Great.
[41:19] Speaker 3: What about if you make him go to the fadeaway?
[41:21] Speaker 1: Great.
[41:22] Speaker 3: It didn't matter, right?
[41:24] Speaker 2: And so the 96 version of Mike is not the,
[41:28] Speaker 2: he was still physically incredible, but he's not the physical
[41:30] Speaker 2: marvel that he used to be.
[41:31] Speaker 3: But now he has become a supercomputer.
[41:35] Speaker 1: Right. Right. And you couldn't do anything with him, nor
[41:40] Speaker 1: the way.
[41:42] Speaker 1: The triangle thing, there's moments where we talk about the triangle,
[41:47] Speaker 1: and then it gets over-exaggerated, the importance of it. But
[41:50] Speaker 1: I also think the importance of it can't go... Can't
[41:55] Speaker 1: be understated. You could switch out Luke Longley for Bill Cartwright.
[41:59] Speaker 1: You could switch out B.J. Armstrong for John Paxson. The
[42:03] Speaker 1: star of that entire thing, obviously, was Michael. But the
[42:07] Speaker 1: real star to me was Michael being like, this is
[42:09] Speaker 1: the way we do this because I fuck with Tex,
[42:12] Speaker 1: and I fuck with Johnny Bach, and I fuck with
[42:14] Speaker 1: Phil Jackson. The things that had to be in play
[42:17] Speaker 1: for that 96 season, it wasn't just people getting shot
[42:20] Speaker 1: out the gym. and us having the four, three or
[42:23] Speaker 1: four greatest talents on the face of the earth as
[42:26] Speaker 1: an organization.
[42:26] Speaker 3: We didn't even talk about Kukoc yet, by the way.
[42:28] Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Like, the waiter came here, and
[42:33] Speaker 1: everybody was dissing him.
[42:34] Speaker 4: It was like, this motherfucker actually cold. But we were
[42:37] Speaker 4: talking about Michael and Scotty, right?
[42:40] Speaker 1: Like, there was basketball hubris that this city has not had,
[42:43] Speaker 1: I think, in any other.
[42:44] Speaker 4: Like, 85 Bears, obviously, right? But to see it.
[42:48] Speaker 1: like you mentioned, be that machine-like, that efficient, and that dominant,
[42:54] Speaker 1: and to know that it was going to happen again.
[42:55] Speaker 1: Because during that season, like the first 20 games of
[42:59] Speaker 1: that season where I think they lost one, they're like,
[43:01] Speaker 1: oh shit, they about to do this at a different
[43:04] Speaker 1: level than we saw. And what we saw was kind
[43:06] Speaker 1: of fire. Like those three here, 91 and 93 was amazing.
[43:10] Speaker 1: Now it's like, all right, nobody should beat you. And
[43:13] Speaker 1: then to have that target on your back. I remember
[43:15] Speaker 1: when they went, didn't they go to Atlanta and play
[43:18] Speaker 1: in the Georgia Dome? Like they had to open up
[43:21] Speaker 1: bigger spots.
[43:21] Speaker 2: I think that, I think that was later, but it
[43:23] Speaker 2: was like 75,000 people or something crazy like that.
[43:26] Speaker 1: Like, I mean, it was, there'll never be another time
[43:29] Speaker 1: like it because of how small the basketball world seemed
[43:34] Speaker 1: at the time and how few voices they truly were.
[43:37] Speaker 1: Like we remember the rivalries with Peter Vesey and people
[43:40] Speaker 1: who were reporting things. Like there was a, there was
[43:42] Speaker 1: an ecosphere around that Bulls team in 96 when the
[43:47] Speaker 1: comeback happened and, And the championship run seemingly started that
[43:52] Speaker 1: season because that's the other thing, too. You weren't finding
[43:55] Speaker 1: too many people, and this is why social media has
[43:58] Speaker 1: changed things, you weren't finding too many people rooting against
[44:01] Speaker 1: the greatness, right? You were like, oh, are they going
[44:03] Speaker 1: to pull this shit off? Like, Detroit, people in Detroit,
[44:06] Speaker 1: people in New York, obviously, right? But the whole country
[44:08] Speaker 1: was like, hey, they're going to pull this shit off,
[44:10] Speaker 1: whereas I don't know what it would look like now
[44:12] Speaker 1: with all the bots and all the people, you know,
[44:14] Speaker 1: the think pieces. Like, it was just a different.
[44:17] Speaker 4: There's a different feeling and a different energy back there.
[44:19] Speaker 1: And 96 definitely was the start of that second three-peat
[44:24] Speaker 1: that kind of just felt different. If the first one
[44:27] Speaker 1: felt analog, this one felt digital. This one felt precise.
[44:31] Speaker 1: This one felt like you were in surgery every single night.
[44:36] Speaker 2: I think a couple of things are underrated about it. One,
[44:40] Speaker 2: they won 72 games when their previous record was 69.
[44:45] Speaker 3: You know what I mean? That's a big jump, right?
[44:49] Speaker 2: The Warriors could only get one win over them. Then
[44:53] Speaker 2: on top of that, the next year they won 69, right?
[44:56] Speaker 2: And it was like, oh man, they were one short
[44:58] Speaker 2: of getting 70 again. They won 72 and 69 in
[45:04] Speaker 2: back-to-back seasons.
[45:06] Speaker 3: That is a crazy number.
[45:08] Speaker 2: The rest of the team, while we talk about how
[45:10] Speaker 2: they're put together, When you got dudes like Ron Harper
[45:13] Speaker 2: out there, and he's out here part of the operation
[45:16] Speaker 2: when it's time to put on that trap. You got
[45:18] Speaker 2: that boy Randy Brown out here. Randy Brown, he also
[45:21] Speaker 2: got to live the life of the white man, right?
[45:23] Speaker 2: Just a little spunky off the bench out here guarding people.
[45:26] Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, right? Like, just go out
[45:29] Speaker 3: here and play hard. They clap for him like he
[45:31] Speaker 3: was a white man, too. Like, he got to be there.
[45:34] Speaker 3: He got to live that life. Cool coach.
[45:36] Speaker 2: As far as Chicago go, Chicago got a bunch of
[45:39] Speaker 2: his people's.
[45:40] Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
[45:40] Speaker 2: Like everybody got to have a little bit of something.
[45:44] Speaker 2: Luke Longley, that was the white, Luke Longley and Big Bill,
[45:47] Speaker 2: y'all had white dudes, yeah, had white dudes.
[45:51] Speaker 3: For the whites.
[45:52] Speaker 1: Had John Sally, you know, John Sally at the.
[45:55] Speaker 3: John Sally did pop up there.
[45:57] Speaker 1: You know what's so crazy? I thought John Sally was
[45:59] Speaker 1: like in his 15th year, like at that time. John
[46:02] Speaker 1: Sally was in like year nine.
[46:03] Speaker 3: It was only like eight.
[46:04] Speaker 2: No, it's like year 12. It's like year 12, right?
[46:07] Speaker 2: Hold on, I forgot about Joe Bushler. Yo, John, yo,
[46:11] Speaker 2: not a lot of people gave back to his own
[46:13] Speaker 2: people quite like Phil Jackson did. Phil Jackson really did
[46:16] Speaker 2: the best he could to come through for his particular
[46:18] Speaker 2: brand of whites too.
[46:20] Speaker 1: Yeah, the ones that'll take that walk with.
[46:23] Speaker 2: You, right? Used to call them BWS, right? Big White Stiffs.
[46:30] Speaker 2: He'd keep a couple of them around.
[46:32] Speaker 3: Mark Madsen, shout out to him.
[46:37] Speaker 4: That whole thing, too, if I think of.
[46:44] Speaker 1: When the Bulls were a worldwide global brand at that
[46:48] Speaker 1: point anyway, But it seemed as if the Bulls, because
[46:51] Speaker 1: obviously the Dennis Rodman part, and as you mentioned, the
[46:53] Speaker 1: Tony Kukoc part. Tony Kukoc and Dino Raja was a
[46:58] Speaker 1: big thing when they came over here. Because it was like, oh,
[47:01] Speaker 1: look at the European dudes. And the Celtics got one.
[47:03] Speaker 1: The Bulls got one. Dino Raja was cold, too. But
[47:07] Speaker 1: the Bulls got one who helped him. He was sixth
[47:09] Speaker 1: man of the year that year. The dude was a 6'10,
[47:11] Speaker 1: point guard at 190, 200 pounds. And knocking down big shots.
[47:16] Speaker 1: Everybody had forgotten about the Scotty Pippen, Tony Kukoc stuff
[47:20] Speaker 1: for that time period.
[47:21] Speaker 4: Scotty never forgot and still hasn't forgotten.
[47:24] Speaker 1: Right.
[47:24] Speaker 4: But like people have put that to bed. Like there
[47:26] Speaker 4: was a.
[47:26] Speaker 1: Whole bunch going on with that team. There's certain squads
[47:30] Speaker 1: and I think Chicago has two of them. If you
[47:32] Speaker 1: go back and you can just drop social media or
[47:35] Speaker 1: our current. conversations that we have in any time period,
[47:39] Speaker 1: the 85 Bears and that 96 team going on, that
[47:43] Speaker 1: would be, you know, that would be a different level
[47:45] Speaker 1: of engagement.
[47:45] Speaker 4: Because they had, like you mentioned, they had everything. They
[47:48] Speaker 4: had absolutely everything.
[47:49] Speaker 1: Ron Harper is one of those dudes who, you know,
[47:53] Speaker 1: Gale Sayers as well, another Chicago. Like, if technology was
[47:56] Speaker 1: different when people got hurt, how things would be different
[47:59] Speaker 1: for them, Ron Harper and Cleveland was killing folks. And
[48:02] Speaker 1: then he got hurt, went to L.A., and people didn't
[48:04] Speaker 1: see it, really, him and Pooh Richardson in the background. Like, oh,
[48:07] Speaker 1: look at these two guys. Ron Harper was out there like, hey,
[48:09] Speaker 1: this might be the next one. In the late 80s,
[48:12] Speaker 1: this might be the next one. Cleveland got themselves. Cleveland
[48:14] Speaker 1: had Mark Price, Brad Doherty, Ron Harper, like, Craig Elow,
[48:17] Speaker 1: Steve Kerr was on that squad. Like, that....
[48:21] Speaker 4: That whole thing, man.
[48:22] Speaker 1: Like, they had dudes who had roles as stars who
[48:26] Speaker 1: just had to be a part of something.
[48:29] Speaker 2: I wish I could do a whole Ron Price, I mean,
[48:33] Speaker 2: Mark Price episode.
[48:35] Speaker 1: You can.
[48:35] Speaker 2: Mark Price, like, we had forgotten. Mark Price was just
[48:37] Speaker 2: so smart. Mark Price's first team All-NBA.
[48:41] Speaker 1: Cold.
[48:42] Speaker 3: Like, Mark Price was cold.
[48:44] Speaker 1: First dude, too, and, you know, people can check me
[48:50] Speaker 1: on this. I've talked to a few people. First cat
[48:52] Speaker 1: that I remember routinely and actually made other teams implement it,
[48:57] Speaker 1: split the double team. First cat that threw the ball
[49:00] Speaker 1: ahead when the double team came and split it in
[49:04] Speaker 1: a way, because, you know, everybody's running pick and roll
[49:06] Speaker 1: and doing that kind of thing. Split the double team,
[49:08] Speaker 1: knock down the jump shot on you. KG, my man
[49:10] Speaker 1: Kendall Gill, talks about it all the time, like Mark Price,
[49:12] Speaker 1: one of the, one of the tougher covers, because that
[49:15] Speaker 1: stop on a dime stuff that you see now, teardrops,
[49:18] Speaker 1: all that stuff that you see now.
[49:19] Speaker 4: Mark Price, boy, like Mark Price is that, and Mark
[49:22] Speaker 4: Price is that dude.
[49:24] Speaker 1: Absolutely. That dude is bro. It was decent to rent price,
[49:26] Speaker 1: but yeah, like get Ron Harper. Uh, you mentioned Randy,
[49:31] Speaker 1: Randy Brown. I mean, they had, they had a perfect
[49:35] Speaker 1: team for a perfect time. And also, you know, I mean, you.
[49:41] Speaker 4: Can't, you can't really.
[49:43] Speaker 2: You had, uh, you had Papa Bear, uh, Jason Caffey.
[49:47] Speaker 1: So Jason Caffey, that's when I knew Jason Caffey was, uh,
[49:54] Speaker 1: I remember seeing Jason Caffey in my neighborhood as a
[49:57] Speaker 1: kid and.
[49:57] Speaker 4: Being like, hey, man, don't you play for the Bulls?
[50:00] Speaker 1: Look, it's Jason Caffey, y'all. And then I realized... What
[50:02] Speaker 1: are you doing here? And then I realized why Jason
[50:04] Speaker 1: Caffey was in the neighborhood. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah.
[50:06] Speaker 1: I'm a child, but I think she's cool, too. I
[50:09] Speaker 1: think she's outstanding over there at the end of the block. Dude,
[50:14] Speaker 1: they had the city. They had the town. They had
[50:16] Speaker 1: the area. Chicago area on lock. There was nothing like
[50:20] Speaker 1: being a Bulls fan at that time. It's kind of sad, too,
[50:23] Speaker 1: because When I went down to Georgia, one of the
[50:26] Speaker 1: first shows I did in Atlanta was like, hey, man,
[50:29] Speaker 1: it's been a long time since Herschel Walker wore a
[50:31] Speaker 1: Georgia Bulldogs helmet. You'd think at some point, a place
[50:35] Speaker 1: that ratchets itself in this kind of lore of football,
[50:38] Speaker 1: you'd be able to win a championship.
[50:40] Speaker 4: And obviously, 98, 97, 96 is a long time ago.
[50:45] Speaker 1: There's whole 25-year-olds that have no clue, 30-year-olds that have
[50:50] Speaker 1: no clue about what those moments were in time. And
[50:54] Speaker 1: that was the beginning of a terrific, terrific run. And also,
[50:59] Speaker 1: you kind of knew it was going to come to
[51:00] Speaker 1: an end because of not only how much basketball they played,
[51:04] Speaker 1: but how big everyone had gotten.
[51:06] Speaker 4: Jerry Kraus wanting his.
[51:07] Speaker 1: credit and knew knowing that we knew jay cross wanted
[51:10] Speaker 1: his credit after 94 95 you know phil jackson going
[51:14] Speaker 1: through those two years without michael and then michael coming
[51:17] Speaker 1: back to show people like hey phil jackson still a
[51:20] Speaker 1: dope coach can win championships it was um it was
[51:23] Speaker 1: like when you when your faves grow up and still
[51:26] Speaker 1: got to hang out together but still colder what they
[51:28] Speaker 1: do but knowing at some point the band gonna break
[51:30] Speaker 1: up luckily it didn't break up for another two two
[51:33] Speaker 1: years or so but Yeah, that was an amazing, that's
[51:36] Speaker 1: why I had to ask Ryan on the text, like,
[51:38] Speaker 1: are we talking 95-96 or 96-97? There's been so many.
[51:42] Speaker 4: Championships in that run, you know, it was kind of
[51:45] Speaker 4: tough for me.
[51:46] Speaker 1: I know you understand.
[51:46] Speaker 3: See, there you go.
[51:47] Speaker 1: There you go. There you go.
[51:48] Speaker 2: I'm going to hit you with this last thing, though,
[51:51] Speaker 2: because you said something that I really hadn't thought about
[51:53] Speaker 2: at the very beginning of this, which is, Chicago is
[51:57] Speaker 2: one of.
[51:57] Speaker 3: America's great cities, right? Like it is roundly.
[52:00] Speaker 2: I think there are, you don't meet people who are like,
[52:02] Speaker 2: I don't like Chicago. You meet people who say they
[52:04] Speaker 2: don't like New York, who don't like LA, don't like Miami.
[52:07] Speaker 2: You don't, you rarely, all people say is Chicago too
[52:09] Speaker 2: goddamn cold, but you will rarely hear people say they
[52:12] Speaker 2: don't like Chicago. But at the same time, Chicago is
[52:16] Speaker 2: not as, has never been as culturally influential. as these
[52:21] Speaker 2: other places. But I hadn't really thought about the idea
[52:24] Speaker 2: of how poppin' in some total Chicago was in 96. Like,
[52:29] Speaker 2: 96 is also the year that, like, between 95 and 96,
[52:32] Speaker 2: we got our first real national exposure to Chicago rap,
[52:35] Speaker 2: for example.
[52:36] Speaker 3: Like, Chicago was a thing.
[52:39] Speaker 2: So I, like, I was thinking about what it was
[52:41] Speaker 2: like to be in Chicago at that time just in
[52:42] Speaker 2: terms of the Bulls, but I hadn't really given enough
[52:45] Speaker 2: thought to the idea that it's being in Chicago and
[52:47] Speaker 2: a whole bunch of stuff had got it cracked.
[52:50] Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I mean, common, obviously, you know, Twister, Crucial
[52:53] Speaker 1: Conflict had they run, like, you know, do or die,
[52:56] Speaker 1: Pope Pippin came out. Like there was, there was that,
[52:59] Speaker 1: that mid nineties run was, yeah, not just an awakening,
[53:04] Speaker 1: but because, you know, at the time I'm 16 years old,
[53:06] Speaker 1: so I'm, I'm living the best years of my life,
[53:09] Speaker 1: watching great sports, listening to what might be considered the
[53:12] Speaker 1: golden age of my favorite music.
[53:14] Speaker 4: And all these things are happening.
[53:16] Speaker 1: But at the same time, we had the greatest rapper
[53:20] Speaker 1: playing basketball. We had the greatest baseball player playing basketball.
[53:24] Speaker 1: We had the greatest artist playing basketball. All these things.
[53:28] Speaker 1: Michael Jordan was hosting Saturday Night Live, dawg. like these
[53:33] Speaker 1: like michael jordan was all when he was a guest
[53:36] Speaker 1: on michael jordan never said anything that made me laugh
[53:39] Speaker 1: made my daddy laugh though you know why pride you
[53:42] Speaker 1: know that that's that's that's that's from here that that's
[53:45] Speaker 1: a person that does this 10 miles up the road
[53:48] Speaker 1: type of vibe yeah man that was that was an
[53:50] Speaker 1: amazing amazing period of time and it all It all
[53:54] Speaker 1: came together because cable TV and the Internet and all
[53:59] Speaker 1: those things. I remember going to the computer lab watching
[54:02] Speaker 1: highlights of plays that I had seen the night before
[54:05] Speaker 1: just because it was the Bulls. You know, guys leaving
[54:08] Speaker 1: for national. Jim Durham became a national star. uh, voice
[54:13] Speaker 1: of basketball. He was the Mavericks guy, but he was
[54:15] Speaker 1: a nationally, uh, national radio voice. And he was the
[54:18] Speaker 1: bulls guy. And when he left from like, man, what's
[54:20] Speaker 1: happening here? All of a sudden, Tom door and Johnny
[54:22] Speaker 1: red curve, like all those things, those moments made so
[54:25] Speaker 1: many stars, so many stars. Stacey King goes to Minnesota.
[54:29] Speaker 1: Scott Williams goes to Philadelphia, big money deals too, because
[54:33] Speaker 1: of those teams. And especially that 96 squad. I mean, I, uh, there's,
[54:38] Speaker 1: there's no way to explain, uh, to people outside of
[54:42] Speaker 1: this city, how it felt in the moment. And even
[54:46] Speaker 1: when you go back and watch it, you remember like, man,
[54:48] Speaker 1: that was a thing. On top of it, like, local basketball,
[54:54] Speaker 1: high school basketball was a thing. So these Bulls players
[54:56] Speaker 1: were showing up to public league games, and it was like, yo, Jesus,
[55:01] Speaker 1: just walked in to watch Kevin Gronkhead at Farragut, right?
[55:05] Speaker 1: To watch these dudes play Pat Beverly at Marshall. Like,
[55:10] Speaker 1: these cats were local superstars, even though they were the
[55:14] Speaker 1: worlds in a way that, you know, I don't think
[55:18] Speaker 1: any other sport could translate, to be honest with you, right?
[55:22] Speaker 1: Baseball was cool.
[55:23] Speaker 4: We had Andre Dawson and Frank Thomas.
[55:25] Speaker 1: Football, super cool. Obviously, the Bears, we all fall under
[55:28] Speaker 1: that umbrella. But Bulls fans had their own territory. And
[55:33] Speaker 1: for the world to get the chance to see it,
[55:35] Speaker 1: for all those championships, and especially off the comeback, man,
[55:38] Speaker 1: you couldn't tell Bulls fans shit. And rightfully so, because
[55:42] Speaker 1: the lead was put on notice the moment he came back.
[55:45] Speaker 1: And yeah, it was... Yeah, it was a great time.
[55:48] Speaker 1: It was a great time. Had a lot more hair,
[55:49] Speaker 1: a lot more vibes. You know what I mean? Skinnier.
[55:53] Speaker 1: A lot less money. A lot less bread, but boy,
[55:56] Speaker 1: you couldn't tell me shit.
[55:58] Speaker 3: Hey, babe, I'd say don't make it go dark at
[56:00] Speaker 3: the end, brother.
[56:01] Speaker 2: You was heading into the Al Bundy zone there off
[56:07] Speaker 2: somebody else's touchdowns. You know what I'm saying? Hey, man,
[56:13] Speaker 2: had to be careful, man. But look, Jason Goff That's
[56:16] Speaker 2: that boy. Check him out, man.
[56:17] Speaker 3: You know where to find him, my brother. I appreciate you.
[56:20] Speaker 1: Thank you, man. I appreciate you as always.
[56:23] Speaker 3: All right, man.
[56:23] Speaker 2: And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us
[56:25] Speaker 2: here on The Right Time. We do this four days
[56:27] Speaker 2: a week. Ryan Brumley handling everything behind the scenes.
[56:29] Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
[56:30] Speaker 2: Hit the voicemail line 323-596-7767. Remember, follow The Right Time. Subscribe, like,
[56:37] Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
[56:39] Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
[56:41] Speaker 2: a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple
[56:43] Speaker 2: of days.
[56:44] Speaker 1: Take it easy.

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