Players and coaches dont win championships;organisations win championships.

These are the infamous, supposedly self-interested words of former Chicago Bulls GM Jerry Krause, the villain of Netflixs ongoing 10-part documentary, The Last Dance. At the time of writing, two more episodes remain of the ultra-popular basketball documentary; and while public favour of former Bulls star player Michael Jordan seems to be at an all-time high, the same could probably not be said of MJs front office counterpart. At a time when people have more reason than ever to engross themselves in television, Krauses infamy in pop culture is currently matched only by Tiger King protagonist Carole Baskin. If you arent familiar with the NBA or the documentary, here are a couple of tweets to give you an idea:

Throughout the series, Krause is portrayed as jealous,greedy and bitter. On multiple occasions he is openly mocked by Michael Jordan,mainly in reference to Krauses stature. On one occasion, Krause is shownswallowing medicine while standing on the sidelines during a practice session.Jordan, without missing a beat, sarcastically remarks: So those are thepills that keep you short! Or are those diet pills? It was Jordan, the mostdecorated player in NBA history, who immortalised Krauses nickname, Crumbs,in reference to the doughnut crumbs which Krause was often said to leave on hissuits. Despite being ostensibly the boss of the team, Jerry Krause was at thevery bottom of the Bulls social hierarchy. He sat by himself on the team bus,he was the butt of every joke, and he was critiqued publicly and privately by the Bulls playing and coaching staff.

Of course, some of this criticism was entirely fair. When Scottie Pippen, Jordans brightest co-star and a perennial all-star player in his own right, asked for a contract which didnt even remotely come close to other players of his calibre, it was Krause who stubbornly refused. Pippen would become renowned as the most criminally underpaid player of his generation. And when the Bulls did win their sixth championship in eight years in 1998 spoiler alert it was Krause who seemingly inexplicably dismantled the team, losing four of the teams starting five players and replacing long-term head coach Phil Jackson. The prevailing diagnosis for this decision has, for the guts of two decades, been that Krause simply could not stand being out of the limelight. That his jealousy simply overrode his professionalism and steered the Bulls into the (mostly) mediocre two decades which followed in his absence. I, however, would like to offer up a defence.

It is not easy to win a battle of public opinionagainst a man like Michael Jordan. In todays age of ultra-accessiblecelebrities enabled by social media, it is simply impossible to quantify thescale of Jordans ethereal fame in the 90s. Between commercials with Nike,McDonalds or Coca-Cola, Jordan would win a record 6 MVP awards and find thetime to star in Space Jam, which at the time was the highest-grossing sportsmovie ever which didnt have a bloke called Rocky in it. Suffice to say: Jordanspeaks, people listen. And, in The Last Dance, he speaks at great length usually at the expense of Jerry Krause.

But heres the problem: in the NBA, general managers arent supposedto engage in wars of public opinion, and Krause was dragged into a public trialwhich he never wanted any part of. One of his more complimentary nicknames wasThe Sleuth, earned due to his renowned ability to keep secrets and do hiswork outside of the mass media horde. The team Krause inherited in 1985 consistedof what Jordan himself compared to a travelling cocaine circus, and TheSleuth transformed this into the most successful team in the history of thesport within 15 years, winning three championships in a row on two occasions.For those unaware, the NBA operates on one crucial egalitarian principle: eachyear, the teams with the worst record in the previous season receive the firstchoices in the following years NBA Draft, consisting of the best prospectsfrom colleges throughout the country and elsewhere. If youre a good team, thatmeans you have to try exceptionally hard to find diamonds in the rough if youare to achieve any modicum of longevity, given every other worse team are beinggiven the best young players in the world year upon year and as it happened,diamonds in the rough were Jerry Krauses speciality. In one famous example, hetravelled to Yugoslavia to personally scout young forward Toni Kuko, who wouldgo on to be drafted as late as 29th overall in 1990, and ended upbeing an integral part of the team as the Bulls won their second three-peat.

Other than Jordan, there was not a single player on any ofthe Bulls championship-winning teams in the 90s who hadnt been hand-picked byJerry Krause, and yet the Bulls faithful and general public have painted him asthe villain at every turn. The Last Dance and its long full-featureinterviews with Jordan and Pippen do not help to soften this depiction.[Krause] would rather destroy an institution than see it thrive, seethes oneof the aforementioned tweeters off the back of another episode of thedocumentary, but in my view this anger is misplaced. Jerry Krause orchestratedarguably the most successful period of sporting dominance of the last 30 yearsand initiated a rebuild of the team when it appeared as though that era wascoming to an end. Krause died in 2017 and wasnt able to be interviewed by theproducers of The Last Dance. Perhaps if he had been, the unfortunatenarrative which continues to shroud his legacy could have been reversed.

Originally posted here:
In defence of Jerry Krause: Responding to 'The Last Dance' - Cherwell Online