Michael Jordan in 1997. Photo / Getty
Michael Jordan's 1990s Chicago Bulls will long be remembered as one of the greatest teams in the history of the NBA.
In the hunt for their sixth championship, and second three-peat, the Bulls organisation granted a camera crew access to follow them around all season long. Footage from that era has been combined with current-day interviews of players, administrators and journalists for the documentary The Last Dance, which details the Bulls' journey in the 1997/98 season before their dynasty came to an end.
The Bulls were on top of the world having captured their fifth title in seven years in the 1996/97 season, but drama surrounded the team as it entered the off-season and it dragged right through the entirety of its most recent championship run.
No team in the league could match the Bulls when they were at their peak, but behind the scenes one man was growing tired of being left out of the limelight.
Amid rumblings changes would be made so the franchise could plan for the future, Jordan slammed the assertion the playing group should be disbanded.
"We are entitled to defend what we have, until we lose it," Jordan said following the 1997 championship victory.
"If we lose it then you look at it and say, 'Let's change, let's go through a rebuilding'. No one is guaranteeing a rebuild is going to be two, three four or five years.
"If you want to look at this from a business thing, have a sense of respect for the people that laid the groundwork so you could be a powerful organisation."
The man behind the desire for transformation was Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause, who saw the admiration being thrust onto the players and coach Phil Jackson, but was allegedly bitter about receiving little public adoration for the role he had played in turning Chicago into a powerhouse.
"He was certainly at the root of what made the tension of that season so severe," Chicago Sun-Times sports writer Rick Telander says in The Last Dance.
Krause took over as the GM of the Bulls in 1985 after impressing owner Jerry Reinsdorf and helped build the Bulls into an unstoppable force.
But as president of Rare Air Media Mark Vancil says in The Last Dance, Krause wasn't happy operating in the shadows as the team he put together bathed in the spotlight of championship glory.
"Jerry had the little man problem. He grew up a little fat kid with not a lot of money, he was always the underdog," Vancil says.
"He just couldn't control that part of him that needed credit."
The Jordan Rules author Sam Smith adds: "All the attention was going to Scottie (Pippen), Michael, Dennis (Rodman) and Phil (Jackson). And Krause was growing resentful about this."
As his resentment grew, Krause began throwing his power around and it got under the skin of Jackson and his players.
A quote attributed to Krause before the 1997/98 season said: "Players don't win championships, organisations do." It was a line that ruffled the players' feathers and set them on course for an ugly showdown with management.
But Krause explained he was misquoted, saying the omission of one important word made him come across like the villain.
"It was a misquote," Krause said in an interview after his comments were published.
"What I said was that players and coaches 'alone' don't win championships, that organisations do.
"I do sincerely believe that organisations, as a whole, win. One part of it can't win alone.
"The guy (reporter) left the word 'alone' out of there. He admitted it later on, 'Yeah, I left a word out'. You dumb son of a b****, that's what killed the quote."
Despite Krause's claim, it was a seminal moment as mistrust grew between the players and head office. Jordan was seething.
"We know that the team is much bigger than the 15 players. Those guys who work in the front office, they were good people, but the most important part of the process is the players," Jordan said of Krause's quote.
"So, for him to say that is offensive to the way that I approach the game."
The team's second-best player Scottie Pippen entered the 1997/98 season under an injury cloud and in the final year of his contract, and Krause was looking to move him on. Jordan's right-hand man was unhappy, feeling his years of service weren't being given the credit they were due.
Pippen's anger with head office was also due in part to his severely underpaid contract. He was one of the best players in the NBA and Jordan's perfect partner in crime, but he was only the sixth highest-paid player on the Bulls roster.
"What made me upset was I knew it was the end of the journey and I never saw it ending like that," Pippen says in The Last Dance.
"Jerry Krause made everything real murky when he said this was Phil's last year, we're dismantling the team after this season. We're basically relieved of our duties.
"That really was what tarnished my relationship with Jerry. He tried to make me feel so special but yet he was still willing to trade me and do all that stuff, but would never tell me to my face.
"After you're in the game for a while you realise that nobody is untradeable, but I felt insulted. I sort of took the attitude of disrespecting him to some degree."
The Bulls dynasty was given one final year to dominate.
— 30 for 30 (@30for30) April 13, 2020
So, Phil Jackson set the theme for the 1997-98 season: #TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/tJHlEJjyjm
There was also tension between Krause and Jackson. Before the 1997/98 campaign, Krause made it clear that was to be Jackson's final season in charge, despite overseeing the team's dominant run that decade.
Jordan was adamant if Jackson wasn't the coach, he wouldn't be pulling on a Bulls jersey. But those threats didn't bother Krause, who remained defiant in his position the organisation needed to go in a different direction.
"I think Jerry was looking forward to having a clean slate and going out and, you know, rebuilding. His relationship with me had become such a circus, there was no chance for reconciliation," Jackson says in the documentary.
Bulls owner Reinsdorf mended things with Jackson, but it only resulted in a one-year deal that Krause was more than happy to let the world know about.
"This will be Phil's last year as the coach of the Bulls," Krause said at the time. "At the conclusion of the year, we'll look towards the future."
Jackson then detailed a more than frosty meeting with Krause where the GM laid down the law to the future Hall of Fame coach.
"Jerry called me into his office and said, 'This is going to be your last year, I don't care if you win 82 games in a row, this will be your last year here'," Jackson said.
"So I said, 'Fine' and walked out of the room, and that was the only words that were exchanged."
Jackson made his final year count as Jordan and Co. delivered a sixth championship to give their coach the perfect send-off.
The first two episodes of the 10-part documentary The Last Dance will air on Netflix on April 20 with two episodes to be released every following week.
Mark Walter, already a minority owner, will buy the controlling interest.