It’s a wrap.
Just like that one of the greatest sports documentaries has come and gone in a time when the entire country needed a two-hour Sunday night distraction from talk of quarantine and social distancing.
ESPN’s 10-part series “The Last Dance’’ provided that for five weeks, as the timing of it in a sports culture that was clamoring for something, anything, to watch was impeccable.
Now, let the debating and barbershop talk begin.
Who better to tackle one obvious debate than Will Perdue?
The former Bulls big man, turned San Antonio Spur in the 1995 Dennis Rodman trade, had the privilege of being coached by Phil Jackson for the first three-peat, and then Gregg Popovich at the start of the Spurs on-again-off-again dynasty.
Perdue made it very clear on which coach was easier to be around.
“[Former general manager] Jerry Krause always used to have the saying, ‘I want a team of character, I don’t want characters.’ I remember the day I found out I was traded I was like ‘Wait a minute, [Krause] is total bulls***. You just traded for the biggest character [in Rodman] in the game,’ ‘’ Perdue told the Sun-Times of his initial reaction of the deal that sent him out of Chicago.
“Secondly, I felt like I was going to miss out on at least another championship. I felt like I was starting to come into my own as a player, so I would have a more prevalent. But I realized pretty quickly that A: I got traded for one of the best players of the time when it came to rebounding and being a defender, a Hall of Famer, and I got traded straight-up so that’s a huge compliment. And B: I learned a lot of stuff about myself both personally and professionally that I probably wouldn’t have learned in Chicago.
“I had my issues with Phil. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye, weren’t always on the same page. I got to go to play for Pop [Gregg Popovich], and at the time Dave Cowens was an assistant and we developed a great friendship. He worked wonders for my career. So it ended up being a win-win, even though I ended up missing out on a couple of championships.’’
What he didn’t miss out on was finding out there were actually different ways to coach a team and relate to players than just Jackson’s way.
“Phil saw us as a means to an end,’’ Perdue said. “He took it upon himself to get the best out of me, Horace [Grant], Scottie [Pippen], Michael [Jordan], Steve [Kerr], every player. Whether you liked his approach or not, sometimes that was his approach. It got you fired up, you played well that way. He did a nice job of identifying how to motivate each individual. Poke the bear, how do you poke the bear of each guy?
“Pop was more of a father figure. I mean he got on your ass, but he wasn’t afraid to have an honest conversation with you in the sense of more like a father figure. He made sure that he had personal relationships with every player in that locker room. He was constantly having meals with players. It was like, ‘You, you and you, we go to Houston, we’re going to dinner. Cancel any plans you have, we’re going to dinner, on me, and just one rule: We talk everything but basketball. No basketball.’
“I’m not saying Phil is an a—hole, but I don’t know if he had my best interest at heart. He had the team’s best interest at heart, no ifs ands or buts about that. Anytime you talked to Pop you could tell he had your interest and the team’s interest at heart. He made us all feel we were an important part of the equation.
“Both were great coaches, but different. I was in a win-win.’’
