Chicago Bulls: Rick Mahorn ‘wouldn’t give a damn’ about what MJ did
The hit 10-part documentary series “The Last Dance” that was released highlighting the all-time great shooting guard Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 legendary Chicago Bulls title-winning team made waves around the hoops landscape. This award-winning docuseries was renowned not just around the country, but around a large portion of the globe.
It helped to spurn the impatience of basketball fans wanting to watch college and NBA hoops in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in April and May 2020. ESPN releasing The Last Dance early last year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic was not only clutch for basketball fans, but a real saving grace for the Bulls fan base that was yearning for good hoops to watch.
But not everyone received The Last Dance well, especially with the way the story was told through Jordan’s perspective. This plot line of the docuseries was definitely commanded end to end by Jordan himself, which would definitely rub some of his rivals the wrong way. And potentially the biggest rival of Jordan and the Bulls throughout his NBA career was the Detroit Pistons.
Pistons view of the Chicago Bulls
More specifically, the “Bad Boys” Pistons years were really difficult for Jordan and formed one of the best rivalries around the NBA in the past three or four decades.
One member of those Bad Boys Pistons teams opened up on his thoughts nearly one year after the original release of the first two parts of The Last Dance, the 6-foot-10 and 240 pound big man Rick Mahorn. The way that this story was told by Jordan, and the events leading up to the rise of the Bulls dynasty years of the 1990’s is something that Mahorn clearly didn’t care for.
In a piece released on the Detroit Free Press (paid content) this week, Mahorn opened up specifically on The Last Dance, and the Bad Boys’ rivalry with Jordan and the Bulls from back in the day. Here’s a brief piece on what he had to say on the matter.
", I didn’t watch the Jordan doc because I wouldn’t give a damn or hell about what Jordan did. We whooped that ass, that’s all that matters. But it’s a respect. I finally watched the 30 for 30 probably this year for the Bad Boys because it was something that, I said, ‘I already know about all that.’ But you learn about the players that are around you. It keeps us in contact. It’s nice to get that. We were never acknowledged as one of the best teams in the league, it was always the Celtics, the Lakers and then it was Chicago."
Mahorn was a notable part of that second Pistons title team in 1990. In total he played for the Pistons for six years, during two different stints throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. Mahorn was one of the more physical big men down low that made life so difficult in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s on the likes of Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, and that building Bulls team.
The Pistons won back-to-back titles in 1989 and 1990, which came prior to the Bulls run of winning six throughout the 1990’s. Jordan was able to re-form his game in the wake of the tough and ultra-physical defense that the Pistons played against him.
Next. 3 playmaking PG trade targets for the Bulls. dark
Jordan and the Bulls would go on to win their first title of the 1990’s the year after the Pistons won their second. The Last Dance highlighted this run of titles for Jordan and the Bulls, including the noted rivalry with the Pistons, as part of the 10-part docuseries.