Hanging It Up: The Last Dance and Hoop Dreams
“When somebody says, ‘when you get to the NBA, don't forget about me’, and that stuff. Well, I should've said to them, ‘if I don't make it, don't you forget about me.’”
-William Gates, hoop dreams
The minute The Last Dance concluded I dove headfirst onto streaming platforms in search of a sports balm during these largely sportsless times. It was late but Hoop Dreams, a nearly three hour basketball documentary, is where my Roku eventually landed. That’s how I found myself inexplicably standing alone at 2am with the credits rolling and the need to change my apartment.
The credits rolling at 2am was easy to explain. The apartment part was harder to articulate. I didn’t need to change anything major, just something.
The coffee table? Too much work.
Lighting? No.
The walls? Yes! They needed something framed on them. But what do people put on their walls?
I didn’t know. Perhaps my mind was stuck on my basketball marathon, but I was hit with, of all things, a 2008 headline announcing Baron Davis’ departure from the Golden State Warriors. I pinned that front-page to my bedroom wall at my pre-pubescent self’s eye level so I would never forget as long as I lived that: 1) I saw him play, and 2) that he left. At the time, I vowed to never forgive him for leaving. I felt that strongly about it.
Next to Baron came the infamous and inevitable angsty band poster that eventually faded and was replaced by something else. But Baron remained. I was never as confident with a poster as I was with that newspaper and pin. To a younger me it was simple— reigning or leaving, legends went on walls.
. . .
While The Last Dance is only a portion of the illustrious career of NBA legend Michael Jordan, no stranger to posters himself, like with many of his stories, it begins and ends with a win.
The Last Dance’s opening moments usher us in with a victory that happened over 22 years ago when Michael Jordan emerged triumphant from the last game of the 1997 season, the NBA championship, and obtained his 5th Finals MVP all at once. A living legend by almost any metric, Jordan grants access to a film crew requesting to document his team, the Chicago Bulls, for the next NBA season. The contract is signed on one condition, Jordan had final approval over how anything filmed was released. This never-seen-before footage largely comprises Netflix/ESPN’s and director Jason Hehir’s mini-series over 20 years in the making and chronicles one of the most talked-about seasons of basketball in history.
To say it is awe-inspiring to watch Michael Jordan play basketball is an understatement. After 1990, six of the next eight championships found their way back to Chicago via the Bulls. The common factor? Michael Jordan’s and teammate Scottie Pippin’s dynamic play, and Phil Jackson’s leadership as coach. But the credit and attention in the media at the time seemed to be given mainly to Jordan.
It’s easy to see why. All Hall of Fame caliber players stand out on the stat sheet, but that translates to various levels of in-game dominance. Together, Jordan and Pippin become one of the, if not the singular, best basketball duos. A key addition, big-man Denis Rodman, is introduced to the Bulls in 1995, rounding out the starring roles of both the Bulls Dynasty and The Last Dance. But Jordan outplays, outpaces, and outworks everyone on the floor including his own teammates Pippin and Rodman, two other Hall of Fame players themselves. On video, paper and on the court, Jordan seemed unparalleled. When asked what made the Bulls special during the height of their success, teammate Steve Kerr simply replied “We’ve got Michael.”
While the final moments of The Last Dance also revel in a type of victory, Jordan’s second win ultimately is the final product of the miniseries. Like a magic trick, director Jason Hehir is able to produce alternate perspectives on some of the most indelible sports moments of Jordan’s career in a ridiculously satisfying manner. Now there is an official account of the infamous “flu-game”. Fans get more details on the salacious gossip concerning betting pools, partying habits and management personalities. Celebrities and sports stars alike relate tangential tidbits to the camera with bated breadth. We all feel as if we’re a part of the behind-the-scenes magic of Michael Jordan.
It is so fitting that Jordan’s legacy gets a cinematic time-capsule like The Last Dance as Jordan's own competitive opportunities were always so high stakes and therefore cinematic. Nearly every basketball hurdle he didn’t vanquish immediately, fate seemed to conjure another opportunity for Jordan to get redemption. Lose to a team in the playoffs? Jordan gets the opportunity the next year to defeat them. And he did. Or at least, in the scope of The Last Dance and public image of MJ. Because while Jordan did hang up his jersey following the 1998 season with the Bulls, that NBA season was not his last season as an NBA player. But if history books are indeed written by the winners then The Last Dance is in the curriculum, waiting for its values to be instilled in its audience. By his account, Jordan credits his unwavering dedication to his dreams as the reason for his singular success. But is that the truth? What does it actually take?
. . .
While Michael Jordan is peaking in performance in the early and mid 1990s, Gates and Agee are commuting 90-minutes each way from their Chicago suburb to the same basketball Mecca of downtown Chicago just to play ball. They have been recruited from the playground courts of their impoverished communities and placed on some of the best basketball teams in the state. In the past, these schools have nurtured some of the greats including The Last Dance’s own Isaiah Thomas. Agee and Gates are good, fast-tracked to trying out for the best local teams good. This is their best shot to make it out of their community and to a more secure life, and both are living The Last Dance curriculum in real time.
From over 250 hours of footage comes 1994’s monumental Hoop Dreams. Over the course of five years, director Steve James documents Agee and Gates as they tried to turn the heads of college coaches and recruiters to play at the next level. Like The Last Dance, it’s no surprise when Hoop Dreams seems to tell us it takes a tremendous amount of talent, dedication and fortune to become a professional athlete. Even this past year, the NCAA calculated that just over 1% of college basketball players make the leap to the NBA. And that’s not accounting for the people having to fight to get noticed in high school or even earlier to get a chance in college. You would expect a similar amount of dedication on that level. But what is surprising about Hoop Dreams is how much of this country is embedded into the pursuit of two ordinary boys chasing their dreams.
To play at the level Agee and Gates must play to be noticed means to be almost 100% dedicated to basketball. You can’t lose sight of that goal. If your time is spent on issues like your parents being absent or how your family’s delinquent utility payments resulted in a loss of power, you can’t be 100% dedicated. Gates and Agee are. Even school time seems to cut into their time meant for ball. The school that recruits Agee from his local court eventually halves his scholarship without warning and his subsequent inability to afford tuition results in his dismissal. At the local public school to which he eventually relocates, the lower budget and less engaged personnel are recognizable.
But Agee and Gates are expected to handle all these issues all at once, in addition to the huge commitment of basketball. To their own credit, they do. Sometimes it is not graceful, but it is honest. This is real life, after all. Agee and Gates are just 14-years old when we meet them. The abuse, injury, heartbreak, and perseverance they exhibit for the next 3 hours is nothing short of extraordinary. If this is what needs to be done just to have a chance at competing in college, I can only imagine what is needed to play beyond that.
But what was Agee’s and Gates’s North Star during all this strife? Professionals like Isaiah Thomas who visits Agee’s practice one day to tell the young players that they can be just like him. Players like Thomas are the success stories that then go on to become worldwide legends. And the biggest legend of them all, Michael Jordan. Unsurprisingly, his poster is on nearly every boy’s bedroom wall in Hoop Dreams. Walls tend to be the place where people try to capture their dreams.
But herein lies one contradiction of Jordan’s image that is painfully highlighted in Hoop Dreams: the legacy of Michael Jordan is founded on the principle that there is only one Jordan, not only in accomplishments but also in skill. Hoop Dreams asks us to consider that just can't be the case. After three hours, it is abundantly clear that Agee and Gates are just as skilled as those competing on the next level and beyond. The opportunity to prove yourself is ultimately the limiting factor. Hoop Dreams is particularly heartbreaking because it tells us that the same dreams that can make you Michael Jordan can leave you with nothing. That’s a truth that’s much harder to watch and live than it is to say. Many kids like Arthur and William place their lives in this opportunity they may ultimately never get, thinking they know what failure would mean for them. Entering the theater, the audience probably underestimates that potential failure too, but not by the time they have left.
Because of this, I find myself watching The Last Dance and Hoop Dreams with two minds.
A side of me lets the unadulterated entertainment of Michael Jordan’s story wash over me in the undeniable euphoria that it has brought to so many. I see the constant struggle Agee and Gates had growing up and saw some of my own struggles in theirs. A scholarship is obtained, a test is passed from the self-discipline originating from basketball. I see the full realization of the NBA dream, or the value in the attempt at it. I picture the flashes of “Champions” in bright lights on the Jumbotron. I catch a glimpse of one man’s goal becoming the goal of five, five becoming a whole team, and a whole team sharing a single microphone for sunny and breathless victory parades for an entire city. Is this the pinnacle of dreams? This side of me cannot see these works in any other way.
But I see Hoop Dreams and The Last Dance simultaneously through another immutable side. A side that is saddened to see the stories of the Agees and Gateses of the world remain largely unchanged as I watch over 20 years later. A side that saw and sees Michel Jordan use his platform for many things but not ideology, especially when it could come at the cost of future wealth or image. I see a different side of the full realization of the NBA dream. The surveying of children on playground courts to find the next Jordan. But for what? The flashes of paparazzi cameras. The body guards needed to clear paths to walk. How can this be the pinnacle of dreams?
. . .
So what do people put on their walls?
By early morning I haven’t slept and I can’t stop thinking about wall galleries, beveled frames, and what dreams of mine go in them. One night, I’m sure my subconscious will put the pieces together and I’ll bolt awake with the definitive answer. Until then, I’ll make do.
As for my Baron Davis paper, it had a good run. It yellowed and faded to near illegible ink before it was replaced after I moved out.
And when I decide on something for my current wall? I just hope I feel as right about it as I did this:
