Amid the early success of ESPN’s “The Last Dance,” one main character of the documentary is offering quite the concoction from the Hot Take Oven.
Appearing this week on ESPN’s “First Take,” former Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman said that his team could have “easily” four-peated had they stayed together for the 1998-99 season.
“I would go to war for these guys any time of the day,” said Rodman, per Jeff Garcia of WOAI in San Antonio. “It was just sad the fact that we could have come back and won a fourth championship very easily.”
As the first two episodes of the documentary illustrated though, running it back for a fourth straight season was never a realistic option. Bulls GM Jerry Krause’s relationships with both head coach Phil Jackson and star forward Scottie Pippen were beyond the point of salvation. Very soon after Chicago won their third consecutive title in 1998, Jackson left the team and Pippen was traded to the Houston Rockets. That led to Michael Jordan, who had said that he did not want to play for another coach besides Jackson, announcing his second retirement. Rodman was released soon afterwards.
Rodman’s claim might not be too far off though, as the 1998-99 season was a lockout-shortened one that saw the No. 8-seeded New York Knicks sneak out of the Eastern Conference despite losing star center Patrick Ewing to injury. But a new foe had emerged from the Western Conference in the San Antonio Spurs, who were led by David Robinson along with the up-and-coming Tim Duncan and went on to win the championship in five games.
To this day, no NBA team has won four straight titles since the Boston Celtics in the 1960s. The Bulls almost didn’t even get the opportunity for a three-peat, so even if they could have conceivably made it out of the East in 1999, a fourth title in a row would definitely have been a stretch.
