Michael Jordan is widely regarded as the key to the success of the Chicago Bulls in the 90s. Most people believe that MJ was at the front and center, leading the team to all those championships. However, Craig Hodges has a completely different take on it. During an appearance on Stacey King’s Gimme The Hot Sauce Podcast, he refuted those claims, shining the light on Phil Jackson.
Advertisement
Hodges believes that the narrative favoring MJ was pushed with the 2020 documentary The Last Dance. In that miniseries, Jordan was presented as the main man, responsible for everything great that happened with the Bulls.
“When we look at [The] Last Dance and how much of the spotlight was on MJ when we look at what the reality of the situation was…The only alpha dog was really Phil Jackson,” Hodges said. Jackson’s contribution to the Bulls’ success has never been undermined, which makes his comment more interesting. Hodges may believe that the Zen Master is yet to get proper acknowledgment for everything he has done for the franchise.
Former Bulls star Stacey King took the conversation forward by explaining why Jackson deserves more recognition. He said, “They think it’s always the player, but it’s the coach that’s the leader…He’s 6’10, he’s not a little coach, so that already demands respect. Second, he played the game, he won championships…and his voice carries.”
Jordan’s popularity combined with his obvious on-court dominance took away credit that could’ve been evenly distributed across the Bulls team and allowed him to receive perhaps more than he should’ve. A perfect example of this is Chicago’s 1993-94 season that saw them employ an incredibly efficient triangle offense with Scottie Pippen at the helm.
These Bulls won 55 games, a mere two less than the previous season, without Michael as he’d retired to pursue a career in baseball. They would lose Game 7 of the ECSF in a brutal series against the Knicks but the point remains that in MJ’s absence, they were able to rack up wins on the regular. On the flipside, they couldn’t get past the second round without ‘His Airness’ so the difference between a second round exit and 6 titles could in fact be a single man.
The 13-time NBA Champion (2 as a player, 11 as a coach) is looked as perhaps the NBA coach of all time. He revolutionized the league with his use of the triangle offense alongside his assistant coach Tex Winter. Post the Bulls and Jordan era, Jackson went on to win five more championships with the late, great Kobe Bryant’s Lakers, further cementing his legacy as the greatest NBA coach.
Michael Jordan helped mold his teammates into becoming winners
Even if we take Hodges and King’s comments at face value, it’s undeniable that MJ contributed a lot to the team’s success. He might not have been the sole leader of the Bulls, but he was the one instilling fear in his teammates, pushing them to become better. A better look at this was provided in The Last Dance documentary.
In an episode, MJ said that he has been seen as ‘not a nice guy’ and a ‘tyrant’, but he was never bothered by those comments. He said, “Well, that’s you because you’ve never won anything. I wanted to win, but I wanted them to be a part of that as well.” Trying his best to hold back tears, MJ said, “It is who I am, that’s how I play the game. That was my mentality.”
Everyone enjoyed racking up titles for their resume while they played with him. But later, so many people turned on MJ, claiming that he was too hard on them. The NBA legend added that they could’ve left if they wanted to or didn’t feel comfortable playing the game his way.
