Dissecting the 1990s Chicago Bulls Part 1

Dissecting the 1990s Chicago Bulls

By Rick Olivares

By April 20, The Last Dance, the 10-episode documentary of the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-98 season will be on Netflix for all to watch.

During this lockdown, I took the time to watch all seven documentaries of the Chicago Bulls (the six championships and the 1988 video, Higher Ground) and all 35 games they played in the NBA Finals of the 1990s. That took me a little over three days to finish. After that, my brain was mush. 

It did, however, refresh my memory, validate some notions, and dispelled others.

Let me share a few of them.

Who needs rivals when the NBA was littered with stars and legends?

It was said that the Bulls had no true rival in the way the 1980s Boston Celtics were defined by their Los Angeles Lakers counterparts and vice versa. I beg to disagree. The Eastern Conference was the best in the NBA at that time. It wasn’t until the new millennium that we saw the balance of power shift to the West.

From 1947-1998, the East won 32 times while the West took home the Larry O’Brien trophy 21 times.

Since the new millennium, its reversed. The West has won 13 while the East bagged the trophy seven times.

The Bulls’ nemesis included the Cleveland Cavaliers (helped by Magic Johnson anointing them as the “team of the future” in the 1990s), the Detroit Pistons, the New York Knicks, and the Miami Heat. 

When the Lakers won five NBA titles in the 80s, they defeated Boston twice, Philadelphia twice, and Detroit once.

The Bulls went through some very good teams beating the Lakers in 1991, the Portland Trailblazers in 1992, and the Phoenix Suns in 1993. The took two years off before taking down the Seattle Supersonics in 1996 and the Utah Jazz twice from 1997-98. Five opponents. They defeated all challengers that had Hall of Famers and Dream Team members.

The Lakers had Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Vlade Divac. Portland had Clyde Drexler while the Suns had Charles Barkley. Seattle had Gary Payton while the Utah Jazz had the duo of John Stockton and Karl Malone.

Of the coaches they faced in the Finals, Utah’s Jerry Sloan made it to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach (not as a player for the Bulls). If you want to include the play-offs during Chicago’s 90s dominance, you can add Detroit’s Chuck Daly, Cleveland’s Lenny Wilkens, New York’s and Miami’s Pat Riley as Hall of Fame coaches.

The Bulls got huge contributions from draft day picks and trades.

In the 1980s, the acquisition of the Boston Celtics of former Los Angeles Clipper and Portland great Bill Walton propelled them to the 1986 title. The next year, the Lakers countered by grabbing Portland star Mychal Thompson who was an integral part of back to back titles from 1987-88. When Detroit won it in 1988-89, they tabbed the Dallas Mavericks’ Mark Aguirre. 

The Bulls built the first three-peat team with draft picks and draft day trades.

Their draft picks included Michael Jordan, Horace Grant, BJ Armstrong, Stacey King, Will Perdue, and Scott Williams. Scottie Pippen arrived on a draft day trade. 

The second three-peat wave saw draft picks Toni Kukoc, Jason Caffey, Dickie Simpkins, and Jack Haley join Jordan and Pippen as players acquired through the draft. Of course, the second wave saw key free agents like Dennis Rodman, Luc Longley, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr, Randy Brown, and Jud Buechler come in.

In contrast, the Lakers’ draftees included Johnson, Worthy, Norm Nixon, Michael Cooper, and AC Green. Byron Scott arrived on a draft day trade. Nixon was there for the first two titles before he was traded. 

Boston’s draftees included Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Cedric Maxwell, Danny Ainge, Greg Kite, and Sam Vincent.

The 2017-18 NBA champions Golden State Warriors had only two players come up via the draft in Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green.

This is of course not to put down trades or free agent acquisitions that are vital to any ball club’s success. But knowing whom to select through the draft pays off without initially having to pay big bucks. The Warriors’ trio of Curry, Thompson, and Green have been huge selections for G-State that has seen them massively successful in recent years.

Rodman should have been the 1996 NBA Finals MVP.

I thought Dennis Rodman should have been the 1996 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player.

Preposterous? Not really. The Finals MVP has no particular criteria. It depends on the votes of 11 designated members of the NBA media.

We all know Jordan was awarded the trophy. In my opinion, Rodman should have at the very least been given co-MVP awardee. The least, okay? He could have been named so.

Here’s why.

Player	Points	Rebounds	Assists	FG%	Steals
Jordan	27.3	5.3	4.2	.415#	1.7
Rodman	7.5	14.7	2.5	.486%	0.8

Of the Bulls’ four wins, here is how we break it down.

Player	Game 1	Game 2	Game 3	Game 6
Jordan	28 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block		36 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals
Rodman		10 points & 20 rebounds		9 points, 19 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 1 block

Rodman won two games for the Bulls and his contributions were significant especially during crunch time. The Supersonics themselves from head coach George Karl to Hersey Hawkins and David Wingate pointed out to media that Rodman was the MVP of the series. 

So that is why at the very least, Rodman should have been co-MVP.

Reflections during this Lockdown

Reflections during this Lockdown

By Rick Olivares

When this lockdown, this pandemic is all done, I know it will change the way we live. It will change our world forever. Now, hopefully, for the better.

We have seen how much of the world is not prepared to handle a pandemic like this. Even China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Japan, that have been previously hit by certain viruses have still been knocked for a loop. 

Does this change the way we look at healthcare and public health? Does this teach the Filipino patience as well as the unknown art of queueing? Does this make us take a long hard look at how we earn and save money and what we buy in the future? Does this change our rules about travel? When I was a youngster, I recall that you have to take certain shots before you went abroad. Furthermore, will the manner of how our food is handled and eaten (especially in China) change? 

The last time I felt like our world has been rocked and tilted off its axis was 9-11 and I was living in New York back then. To date, the horrific terrorist attack on the United States has had an effect on our world from how we take to air travel, how we view Muslims, how we handle our security, and how geopolitics is played to name a few.

To be honest… this pandemic – we are sailing into unchartered waters. Some say the Philippine economy was doing well; others, not. Some say that how we are dealing with pandemic is bad; others say it is better than other countries. Whatever the answer to both, I think it is immaterial. We are in the middle of the great unknown and sailing into a sea of uncertainty with guarded optimism while expecting the worst.

In the last several years, I would joke at home about stocking up in the event of a zombie apocalypse. No doubt, the result of an imagination gone wild after watching one too many episodes of The Walking Dead and films such as 28 Days Later and Z Nation.

My late grandfather – whenever someone would open, say, a can of corn beef -- would go out and buy two. He never allowed their stocks of food and canned goods to be depleted. Saving for a rainy and difficult day, he once told me. I thought it was hilarious and a tad ridiculous. And yet, decades later, I find myself during this time of lockdown – not to mention this bizarre fear of a zombie apocalypse – constantly replacing our stock.

I figure the lockdown will be extended for another two weeks. I think our economy can still take that hit, but for how long? If it extends even further, there will be bigger damage. I can only surmise what the effect on employment will be. I myself am scared I could lose my job. What more the graduates of a shortened school year? What can they look forward to with an economy that has taken a battering? 

We have seen a capacity to help on a large scale. And I think it is good. But is there a scarcity of food? Feeding the poor is one thing, but are there enough people going to work to produce food and even raise and grow them? The balance has been upset after all. I have seen reports about importing rice as a back-up. It is well and good, but that sends signs that we are reaching a certain threshold of tolerance. 

It’s funny how I ruminate while lying down in bed – with a hearty laugh I must add – that the biggest winners of the lockdown are not only the front liners who will be replaced by many a younger generation who will see the profession as something more than noble – but also Netflix, YouTube, Zoom, cable television, Facebook and social media. Humor during a dark time. It is a coping mechanism.

In reality, this sends a signal to the human race. Not since World War II has the entire world been affected by an event of this magnitude. Yes, the Cold War reshaped the map of the world as it was divided by the superpowers. But in this pandemic, the nuclear weapons and military strength hasn’t protected the populace. 

There is this famous quote by Mohandas K. Ghandi that I have kept close to my heart since I first came upon it as a youngster, “There is sufficiency in the world for man’s need; not man’s greed.”

And it’s so true at this point in time. Even in the midst of this pandemic, some folks still have nefarious intentions. 

There is one thing I have learned is to always look at things from another perspective. And while we see positives amidst the chaos and inefficiency, one can still see the goodness in man. Now, let’s hope that the learnings stay with us and continue. Or else, we will be doomed to repeat them because you know these pandemics come in cycles.