Michael Jordan Is Still Mad At Bulls For Breaking Up Dynasty After 6th Title In 1998: ‘That’s Something That I Just Can’t Accept’

Michael Jordan is still mad at the Chicago Bulls for breaking up the dynasty after he led them to their sixth NBA title in 1998. 

Before the 1997-98 season started, Bulls general manager Jerry Krause said Phil Jackson would not return as head coach in 1998-99, so Jordan and his teammates knew the 1997-98 season would be their final run together. 

Chicago defeated the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals. The team was broken up in the summer. 

“We could have won seven,” Jordan said in The Last Dance doc. “I really believe that. We may not have, but man, just not to be able to try, that’s something that I just can’t accept. For whatever reason, I just can’t accept it.”

Jordan and Jackson retired after the Bulls’ sixth championship and Scottie Pippen was traded to the Houston Rockets in a sign-and-trade deal. 

With the Bulls, Jordan won six championships, six Finals MVPs, five regular-season MVPs, 10 scoring titles, three steals titles and one Defensive Player of the Year Award. He’s arguably the best player in NBA history. 

Jordan has career averages of 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.3 steals and 0.8 blocks with the Bulls and Washington Wizards. He’s first in NBA history in points per game, fourth in steals, fifth in field goals and second in player efficiency rating.

Jordan crossed the line several times. He punched Will Perdue and Steve Kerr and told teammates not to pass the ball to Bill Cartwright in crunch time. 

However, Jordan’s fiery leadership style worked, as the Bulls won six championships, went undefeated in the NBA Finals and three-peated twice in the ’90s. 

“I pulled people along when they didn’t wanna be pulled,” Jordan said. “I challenged people when they didn’t wanna be challenged and I earned that right because my teammates came after me. They didn’t endure all the things that I endured. Once you join the team, you live at a certain standard that I play the game and I wasn’t gonna take anything less.

“Now, if that means I had to go in and get in your ass a little bit, then I did that. You ask all my teammates, the one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn’t f—ing do. When people see this, they gonna say, ‘Well, he wasn’t really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant.’ Well, that’s you because you never won anything. I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well. Look, I don’t have to do this. I’m only doing it because it is who I am. That’s how I played the game. That was my mentality. If you don’t wanna play that way, don’t play that way.”

Jordan got emotional while saying that last line in “The Last Dance.” He cried and asked the camera crew for a “break.”