Like every other sports fan, I have been glued to “The Last Dance,” the 10 hour documentary about the 1997-1998 Chicago Bulls final championship before being broken up like a jigsaw puzzle. It has been fairly well done and it has been fairly open on Michael Jordan’s gambling issues heading toward the reasons for Jordan’s first retirement in episode VI. Last week, I posted a brief note on Facebook that despite being the best basketball player ever, a billionaire, owner of his own NBA franchise, his loneliness made me feel sorry for him. I’m going to go a step further – Jordan and arch-nemesis Jerry Krause are more alike that either would have liked to admit.
What do I mean? Jordan was an athlete in supreme shape; Krause was a short, pudgy guy who probably never exercised. Jordan was an idol, constantly in the spotlight; Krause’s secrecy was legendary. Looking at this show, I came away with one point – I don’t know of two people so driven to prove their point, get even with detractors. At each stage, Jordan talks about the players on the other teams that motivated him: beating Clyde Drexler in the 1992 Finals in part because they didn’t draft Jordan because Portland already had a future Hall of Fame 2-guard; Toni Kukoc being sought after by Krause made him try to destroy Kukoc on the court; last night, Jordan admitted that his friend Charles Barkley winning the regular season MVP award gave Jordan more motivation to beat Barkley’s Suns in the 1993 NBA Finals.
Similarly, Krause desperately wanted attention and praise. Lucking into getting the job after the Bulls had already drafted Jordan, Krause did help build the rest of the team – Pippen, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright for the first three-peat; Dennis Rodman and others for the second, but it still wasn’t enough. Also, where Phil Jackson was personable; Krause was difficult with the media, with the rest of the front office, with the fans and most of all, the players. The destruction of the Bulls after the 1998 Championship makes no sense. Yes, they were older and maybe their reign was about to end, but that should have been decided by the players and coaches, given the opportunity to play until they couldn’t anymore. Owner Jerry Reinsdorf is ultimately responsible for allowing Krause to have his way, and it will be very interesting to see if they interview Reinsdorf at least one last time. (Although this fits in with Reinsdorf’s modus operandi – break up teams before they get old. Remember the White Sox “White Flag” trade, trading three pitchers to the Giants when the White Sox were only 3 ½ games out of first place?)
As adults, we have all had setbacks and people who have interfered in our plans intentionally or by accident, but except for a few instances, I don’t think we have acted on showing them up or seeking revenge. Here is where Jordan and Krause are alike – both wanted their goals and both did whatever it took to get it. Jordan was successful, winning six titles and becoming the GOAT to many; Krause was also successful, he put the pieces together around Jordan to amass those six titles, but it wasn’t enough – he had to dynamite the team before they were done.
I think that while this may be something that motivates athletes, maybe any overachiever, to make a slight personal is a bit childish. It worked for Michael Jordan (although he may have turned into the Charles Foster Kane of the NBA); for Jerry Krause (and Jerry Reinsdorf), not so much.

It is May 1st, and all around the sports world, a couple of things are in bloom. Today in Illinois and other states, golf courses are being allowed to open as long as there are no more than 2 people to a party and social distancing rules remain in force. At the same time, NASCAR announced that it will begin racing in a couple of weeks, probably to an empty track.
The loosening, while probably premature, comes at the demand of mostly white people who refuse to be inconvenienced, especially for a virus that is (according to many media outlets like Fox News) mostly killing black and brown folks. The rednecks who protest with guns, without masks, demanding that the governors who have locked down people in their states remove restrictions (or else to the armed ones). Here in Illinois, two Republican lawmakers and a church have filed suit to get Gov. Pritzker’s ban lifted.
It is said that besides being short-sighted and selfish, the drive behind lifting the stay-at-home orders are to force low wage workers back to work to get them off the unemployment rolls. In addition, it is May 1 and with millions of people unemployed, many of them will not be able to pay their rents. While some cities have placed a moratorium on evictions, this is the exception, not the norm. Again, since these hardships will fall disproportionately on people of color and women, so much the better to President Orange and his band of psychopaths.
Which is why it is so ironic that two of the whitest sports are the ones opening first. Yes, I know that many black people, including Michael Jordan, are avid golfers, but still, demographically, the players are predominantly white. There are still courses that do not permit black, Hispanic, Jewish or female members or players. I know a couple of black people who are definitely into NASCAR, but I have long said that NASCAR is the place to bring out your inner redneck.
As a black liberal who is tired of the inhumanity that the GOP and Trump supporters show, it would be easy to hope that all of these morons get Covid-19 as payback for being reckless and stupid, and I do feel that, but the other people who can be infected who have nothing to do with their racist, army wet dream fantasies that keep me from wishing for karma to strike immediately.
So have fun out there on the golf course. Enjoy NASCAR. Keep marching armed on state houses. It’s all fantasy until a law enforcement or National Guard officer shoots one of these stupid bastards. It’s not really real until people start shooting back.
Just stay the hell away from me, my family and friends.

Like them or hate them, melodramas are fascinating to watch. If it’s an argument in the street, or gossip in the neighborhood; it is hard to turn away. It’s like watching the Jerry Springer Show – you know that it’s trash and that you should turn it off, but you can’t; it’s like looking at a car accident.
In sport, it happens quite a lot – this player doesn’t like that player, or someone wants more money or to be traded. It happens so frequently that it really isn’t news, unless of course, it involves a superstar or something titillating. I will add one more way it’s interesting – if it involves your team, or better yet, your arch-rival and there is no rival as despised in Chicago as the Green Bay Packers and boy it seems like there’s a mess going on up north.
The Packers made it to the NFC Championship Game last year once again led by Quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Coming into the season, there was concern that Rodgers would get along with then-new Head Coach Matt LaFleur. As the superstar and the face of the franchise, Rodgers’ opinion carries weight, especially after playing through mediocre years under Mike McCarthy who had been fired. Rodgers had a decent but unspectacular season with a rag-tag group of running backs and receivers. The Packers improvement was on defense, which was needed.
Coming into the 2020 NFL Draft, it was expected that the Packers would take advantage of the deepest draft class of receivers in recent memory and stock up on weapons that would make Rodgers even more dangerous. First, the Packers traded up in the first round to take Jordan Love, a decent but not exemplary quarterback out of Utah State. Yes, Rodgers is aging (38), but he is still among the elite quarterbacks in the league. It makes sense to take a good QB and let him sit on the bench and watch, which is what Rodgers did behind Brett Favre for three seasons, but with the window of opportunity closer to shut, people expected the Packers to get weapons to win now.
Taking a running back in the second round, a tight end in the third, three offensive linemen, a linebacker, and edge rusher and a safety, the Packers picked up no downfield weapons, and by taking Love, it seems like the Packers are looking to the longer distance future than 2020. There are reports that Rodgers is not happy, although I’ve never understood why teams don’t just talk to their superstars and let them in on their thinking, unless of course, their thinking is to trade/retire the superstar.
As a Bear fan, when they took Love, I was happy; they can only play one QB at a time and Rodgers is enough to deal with. I thought that with another speedy receiver, the Packers would again be favored to win the NFC North. With turmoil in the ranks, this makes the Packers vulnerable, especially if there is a rift between Rodgers and LaFleur or the front office.
There are some Chicago sportswriters who are obviously using the stay-at-home order to stock up on marijuana, because they must be high to believe that Rodgers will find a way to play for the Bears after this season. Yes, Rodgers is the best QB I’ve ever seen, and if there is a severe rift between Rodgers and the Packers, he knows that there’s nothing that would PO the team and the fans than if he came to play for the hated Bears. Again, Rodgers has seen what happened when Favre came out of retirement to play for the Packers’ other hated rival, the Minnesota Vikings.
The NFC North is starting to look like a nighttime soap opera. The Bears of course have their own issue, their own QB position – will Mitch Trubisky turn out to be an elite player or a bust; and will Nick Foles take the starting position? The Vikings have to wonder if Kurt Cousins is for real or too streaky. The Lions are the Lions; decades of losing with no real expectation of better now.
No one of course knows when the NFL season is going to start, but, by the looks of this, this division is going to look like a season of The Bachelor.

Part of what makes being a billionaire fun is the ability to own a sports team and make it like a Fantasy Baseball or Football League, but with real players. Of course, these people have lives, but in the overall scheme of things, the players, coaches, even the front office personnel make a great deal of money, so it’s not like you or I losing a job.
Like many people, especially here in Chicago, I have been watching the ESPN Documentary “The Last Dance” about the final season of the Chicago Bulls dynasty and the question keeps coming back “Why did it have to end?” Michael Jordan still had gas left in the proverbial tank; Phil Jackson was still the Zen Master; Scottie Pippen wasn’t done. Why did it have to end?
The easy answer and the villain of the piece is then GM Jerry Krause. His perceived lack of recognition and his pettiness with not being one of the “Hip guys” made him want to tear it all down and rebuilding it in his own image. Without Jordan however, the task was doomed to failure, and Krause, secretive and brooding, made every wrong move in the media by announcing at the beginning of the season and half way through that Phil Jackson would not return as Bulls’ coach, which led to Jordan’s second retirement, the end of the dynasty, and, except for a couple of years with a young healthy Derrick Rose, overall mediocrity.
Krause is dead now, and many people feel that Krause should have been given his say while he was alive. That’s true, but the true villain of the piece is Owner Jerry Reinsdorf. We all know that Reinsdorf’s loyalty to company guys is almost absolute, but what about his loyalty to Jordan? Jackson? Pippen? The fans? If no one else, the shareholders? Reinsdorf is the managing partner, which means that while he does not have majority ownership, in the partnership, he makes the decisions. If I’m the boss and an employee says that he or she wants to do something that I think will be disastrous, I say no, you can’t do it. Period. End of story.
One has to wonder what blackmail material Krause had on Reinsdorf to get his way? Or did they both think that building a championship team would be easy? That anybody can do it? That the team, Krause and Reinsdorf were special?
I had planned to post this at some point this week, but in a shocking move, Blackhawk Owner Rocky Wirtz took the NHL Coronavirus break as an opportunity to fire President and CEO John McDonough. McDonough was Wirtz’s first hire after his father Bill died, and generally, it was a coup. They fire team legend Denis Savard who was in over his head, brought in Joel Quennevllle and with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, set the stage for three Stanley Cup championships.
Two consecutive seasons out of the playoffs after being unceremoniously swept in the 2016 playoffs, mean that the core was aging. While Toews and Kane continued to perform, especially the latter, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, and others showed their age. Marion Hossa in effect retired. Of course, after losing, someone has to take the blame and GM Stan Bowman was not going to take the bullet. It was far easier to fire Quenneville and replace him with young Jeremy Colliton. The fans were livid; Colliton still gets booed in the United Center and most of the fan ire is leveled at Bowman.
Bowman deserves some of it. In signing the core, he paid too much and too late for Seabrook, whose production fell precipitously. Bowman’s record of drafting and recruiting has been at best, mixed. He drafted Artemi Panerin, a superstar, but one who they could not sign under the salary cap. Alex DeBrincat was a smart acquisition as was the trade for Dylan Strome. However, other trades, especially to bolster the blue line have not gone well at all. Every year, young defensemen were drafted; older blueliners were signed as free agents or traded for and the result was the same: the most shots on goal against in the league despite solid goal play by Corey Crawford, Robin Lehner and others.
So what does this mean? Was McDonough too loyal to Bowman? Was this a power struggle between the three men: Bowman, Quenneville and McDonough? It was a huge surprise since Wirtz said just a couple of months ago that all of the leadership would be returning next season.
Jerry Reinsdorf has seen success. His Bulls won 6 NBA Championships in eight seasons and the White Sox won the World Series in 2005. Wirtz has doubled the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup total in 13 seasons. Were they good or were they lucky? Undoubtedly, some mixture of both. One has to wonder if Reinsdorf wishes now that he had stopped Krause from dismantling the Bulls and let them defend their titles until they couldn’t anymore. That was then; the Blackhawks saga is ongoing. Does this mean that Bowman and maybe Colliton are history?
A lot of fans would like that, but fans react with their emotion. The bigger question is: do the owners know what they’re doing?

Fortunately for us sports fans during the pandemic, we have the NFL offseason and ESPN’s “The Last Dance” on the final year of Michael Jordan’s tenure with the Chicago Bulls. Out of all that comes the NFL story that has everyone’s mouths open. After acquiring Tom Brady from the Patriots, Tampa traded a 4th round pick for retired TE Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski retired at the end of the 2018 season, but there were plenty of rumors that he wanted to come back and play. Personally, I thought retiring was another smart move by the tight end who famously saved his NFL earnings and lived on his endorsement revenue. Avoiding the possibility of CTE was a rational move.
Of course, first came Brady leaving for Tampa as a free agent. Brady suffered through his worst season since his rookie season last season, even though the Patriots once again made the playoffs and came close to yet another Super Bowl berth. Brady’s first time in free agency was a surprise and made everyone wonder “what happened between Brady, Bill Belichick and owner Bob Kraft?” Maybe tired of the “Cheater image?” Part of it might be because the Patriots have been piecing together a receiving corps out of free agents, waivers, and cast offs for years while adding defensive players. The loss in Brady’s production is in great part because the receivers he was throwing to couldn’t get open. With Mike Evans and Chris Godwin already in Tampa, Brady’s receivers are already many orders of magnitude better than who lined up in Foxboro.
So, the Bucs go out and trade for the best tight end of the past several years, but why did Gronkowski retire rather than play for New England? Was it because of the reported “no fun” attitude of the team, practices and games? Or was it deeper?
I will say this, the Patriots are shrewd. They got a 4h round pick for a player who had retired in return for a 7th rounder.
I do know that the whole NFL world will be watching to see the reason for the break up and of course, how will with the Buccaneers and Patriots fare when the season starts? Something to while away the hours at home.

This pandemic has changed every aspect of life: working, schools, stores, not to mention the human toll that is being taken. Here in Chicago however, there is no greater disconnect that the wishes of fans and what team management actually does. Of course, most of the loudest noise comes from sports radio and social media – the guys who either never leave their parent’s basements, or guys who think that they know better than Theo Epstein, or Stan Bowman.
I don’t think that, if you polled Chicago sports fans, you would have heard words of hope that two things that fans have clamored for more would actually come to pass. First, when the Bears traded a 4th round draft pick for Nick Foles, everyone expected that Foles would “push” Mitch Trubisky, but Trubisky was expected to be the starter. Over the past couple of weeks, Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace have stated that the quarterback situation will be a completely open competition, meaning that Foles will have a shot at starting. Since Foles’ strengths are knowing the system, making smart decisions, and having confidence, all things that Trubisky lacks, local writers have all but proclaimed Foles the starter. True or not, that makes a lot of fans happy.
More intransigent is Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Bulls and White Sox. His loyalty to staff members knows no bounds, especially in waiting far too long in firing people when they are not effective. For 3-4 years now, Bulls fans have been clamoring for the heads of GM Gar Forman and Director of Basketball Operations John Paxson. Called “GarPax” hardly a day goes by without someone saying that it’s time to clean house, that decisions made during the overhaul involving players and coaches has been a dismal failure. Someone even bought a billboard near the United Center saying “Fire GarPax.”
Unfortunately, no one believed that this would happen because Reinsdorf shows extreme loyalty and it’s only when the clamor gets loud enough that people actually consider not coming to Bulls games that he pulls the trigger (see Jerry Krause). Change however appears to be on the horizon. Forman had been notoriously absent during the basketball season, reportedly scouting players. Why a GM, with a whole team of scouts would be out scouting unless it was a scouting combine or other big event to see lots of prospects at the same time? While no title has been publicized, there are lots of candidates, many of whom have already pulled their names from consideration.
Maybe, despite the claims, no one will take the job if they have Paxson looking over their shoulder. Forman didn’t go to the bathroom without Paxson’s approval. No one can be given “control” over the basketball operation and have Paxson demand his say or he’ll run back to Daddy (Reinsdorf). Today’s Sun-Times is reporting that Paxson is willing to step aside as part of the front office overhaul. (Question: why not resign now and make that decision easier?)
So, from their homes, basements, wherever they live, Bear fans are smiling, and Bulls fans are shocked, surprised and pleased. It is expected that the world will be vastly different after the pandemic; many suspect that changes will be made for the better. Bear and Bulls fans are already seeing it.

Hello out there!
I hope everyone is holding up physically and mentally. One would think that hunkering down at home would provide lots of time to spend here with you on evilopinion, but I’ve actually had work to do despite not being in an office.
Besides, with all sports being on hold, the Olympics postponed until 2021 (Very smart move and I’m happy for the athletes that it wasn’t just cancelled), sportswriters in regular media have been filling up column inches with whatever they can find. Thank goodness for the NFL – their hot stove league, Tom Brady going to Tampa Bay, and the Bears picking up an over-the-hill tight end and Nick Foles to either push starter Mitch Trubisky or replace him have given us all something to read/think/converse about.
I’m happy that the sports networks are showing old games. I have enjoyed reliving the 2010 Blackhawks Stanley Cup Championship season. I’ve watched Stanley Cup finals from the 1950s. I haven’t watched as much old baseball or football, but I’ve been either working, hanging with the kids or catching up on reading and movies. I have tried to avoid politics to keep from throwing furniture. I won’t hoist my politics on you, gentle readers.
I’m still here, my friends. I hope that you are safe and well too. I will post more frequently as time goes on, I promise. In the meantime, try and stay sane.