I’ve watched the first 8 episodes of the ESPN documentary that is ostensibly about the 1998 Chicago Bulls season, but uses that season to make multiple jumps to the past to follow threads for a while and then jump back into the “present” season. It has worked pretty well and even my 10 year old who is not the biggest sports fan has gotten into it enough to want to watch it with me.
I’ve never been too worried about bad language in front of him, but the “mature language” warning all over the documentary is warranted. Jordan lets loose quite a few f-bombs in every episode and some of the language / trash talking in the last couple of episodes is a bit cringe worthy in 2020.
We got season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks in 1983 and started going to the games pretty regularly though we split the season with two other families. We went pretty regularly and had seats behind the basket on the Mavericks bench side. I believe it was section 121 at Reunion Arena. The next year was the rookie year for Jordan and his fellow UNC classmate, Sam Perkins, who joined the Mavericks.
One of the highlights of having season tickets was getting to go to the 1986 NBA All Star game and getting to see All Star Saturday. Sadly, if you’ll recall, Jordan was injured his second season and he did not participate in either the dunk contest or the game. That’s the year that Spud Webb won, beating out Dominique Wilkins.
I was lucky enough to attend Dean Smith’s Carolina Basketball School in the summer of 1986 and the summer of 1987. Kenny Smith was still at UNC at the time (now part of the awesome TNT basketball crew) and I remember him working with us on drills. Michael Jordan also came that first summer and did a short clinic on the courts outside of Granville Towers, the dorms where we stayed during the camp. They then had a pickup game with current and former UNC students including Jordan and Kenny Smith. I had some crappy 110 film camera shots from it but I can’t seem to find them anymore.
The documentary is now on Netflix and it’s definitely worth a watch especially if you watched the NBA in the 80s and 90s as I did. It gives quite a bit of insight into Jordan.