'The Last Dance' Clips Remember The 1990s Chicago Bulls As They Went Into Their Final Championship Season
This weekend brings the debut of the ESPN documentary series The Last Dance, chronicling NBA superstar Michael Jordan and the rest of the multi-championship-winning players of the 1990s Chicago Bulls as they head into their 1997-1998 season when they would win their final championship together.
Before the series premiere, ESPN has released a couple The Last Dance clips that recall what made the Chicago Bulls so great as they went into this season. For a time, it was unclear whether the team would even be back in full due to contract negotiations that still needed to take place. But once everything was settled, the game was on to make history yet again.
The Last Dance Clips
As one of the clips above shows, the final season saw the Chicago Bulls granting unprecedented behind the scenes access to a documentary crew to chronicle this historic championship run. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and more are all followed around during practice sessions, workouts, and warm-ups, preparing for the coming season. It also sets up one of the challenges they had to overcome in the form of the team's general manager, Jerome "Jerry" Krause.
Even though I don't follow sports at all anymore, as a kid of the 90s growing up in the Midwest, I was obsessed with the Chicago Bulls and the NBA at large. This hits right in my sweet spot of sports nostalgia, and I can't wait to hear my favorite players talk about this incredible time for basketball fans.
The Last Dance premieres on ESPN on Sunday, April 19 at 9:00 P.M. EST, and a new episode will debut every Sunday night through May 17. The documentary will also be available on Netflix for international viewers, though it's not clear when it will be released worldwide yet.
In the fall of 1997, Michael Jordan, Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf and head coach Phil Jackson agreed to let an NBA Entertainment film crew follow the team all season long. The result would be a remarkable portrait of an iconic player and a celebrated team – a portrait only now being revealed, more than two decades later, in "The Last Dance."
As the series weaves its way through the tumultuous 1997-98 season, viewers will be transported back to how it all began – from Jordan's childhood roots, the Bulls' dire circumstances before his arrival and how the team was built after drafting him in 1984, to the struggles that eventually led to the team's first NBA championship. As the series takes the audience through the Bulls' first five championships, viewers will experience the off-court challenges, struggles and triumphs that were a part of the culture-shifting phenomenon created by Jordan and the Bulls.