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Thirty years ago this upcoming summer, the Chicago Bulls won their fourth NBA championship as I had just graduated eighth grade and was preparing for high school.
At some point that summer I was sitting in the basement of my best friend Sean Hill, a great guy whom I had known since preschool, probably listening to him play the drums. I remember Sean's Dad Kevin, a Chicago cop, coming downstairs to have a brief word with Sean and me. Mr. Hill essentially congratulated us on graduating and told us to enjoy the next four years as they would go fast.
For some reason, I never forgot those words. Mr. Hill was talking about high school, but he could have been just as well discussing the last 30 years.
How time flies!
Where the hell did 30 years go?
And what the hell happened to the Chicago Bulls and me during that time?
At some point that summer I was sitting in the basement of my best friend Sean Hill, a great guy whom I had known since preschool, probably listening to him play the drums. I remember Sean's Dad Kevin, a Chicago cop, coming downstairs to have a brief word with Sean and me. Mr. Hill essentially congratulated us on graduating and told us to enjoy the next four years as they would go fast.
For some reason, I never forgot those words. Mr. Hill was talking about high school, but he could have been just as well discussing the last 30 years.
How time flies!
Where the hell did 30 years go?
And what the hell happened to the Chicago Bulls and me during that time?
Thirty years ago, the Chicago Bulls were my life, behind my family and friends, of course. The Bulls were a passion that developed into an obsession.
I remember five or six year old me watching the Bulls early in the Michael Jordan years, when the team was quite bad on WFLD-32 in Chicago, bouncing a rubber ball off the bricks in my living room. From third grade through my sophomore year of high school, the Bulls won six championships in eight years, with those many playoff victories serving as memory banks during my formative years. The Chicago Bulls were the reason I dropped all other sports as a fourth grader and solely focused on playing basketball.
If you would have told me 30 years ago that current me would have no interest in the present-day Bulls, I would have called you crazy.
But such has been being a fan of the Chicago Bulls the past 30 years.
Call me spoiled, ungrateful or whatever else you'd like, but the Bulls have been an absolute mess since their last title in 1998. In fact, the Bulls were a dysfunctional mess 30 years ago, with the second three-peat from 1996-1998 marred by organizational chaos.
At some point, winning championships was too expensive for Owner Jerry Reinsdorf and not satisfactory for General Manager Jerry Krause, who so wanted to move on from the title-winning teams and prove that organizations do, in fact, win championships.
Well, at least, not this organization.
Even when Reinsdorf and Krause broke up the Bulls after the 1998 title, pushing out Phil Jackson, Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman, I remained a loyal fan for as long as I could. The Bulls had given me so many positive memories and experiences during my life; I owed the franchise some loyalty, or at least, young me thought.
Unfortunately, the Bulls have done little to keep my fandom since the Jordan years. Sure, there have been fun teams like the ones with Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng and Andres Nocioni from 2004-2007 and even a few really good ones with Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah from 2010 to 2012.
Personally for me, I gave up on the Bulls when they let Ben Gordon walk over a contractual dispute following an exciting first-round loss to the defending champion Boston Celtics during the 2009 NBA Playoffs. Gordon may seem like a weird player to lose your fandom over, but seeing him leave was like watching the Bulls let Jordan, Pippen and Rodman leave. The Bulls always let personal grudges get in the way of good business, which was to put good basketball on the floor, first and foremost.
In the years afterward, I have paid attention to the Bulls and wished the team well. Even a couple of years ago, when all Bulls games were on broadcast television for the entire season, I watched as much of the team as I could, hoping it could rekindle my fandom. Of course, the Bulls are no longer available on regular television and are simply not worth my money and time. I am just not a person who subscribes to being loyal to a franchise that is not loyal to its fans.
Unfortunately, the Bulls have lost me forever. While Krause has died, Jordan and Jackson have nothing to do with the franchise, and Pippen continues to lose his mind with each and every passing year, one thing has remained constant: terrible ownership.
As long as the Reinsdorfs own the Bulls, there is no hope.
This week Billy Donovan resigned as the Bulls Head Coach, with Chicago media saying we were lucky to have him. Honestly, I call b.s. and could care less. Donovan was a great coach at the University of Florida; with the Bulls, he was just another mediocre coach. It's like any coach or player with promise who comes to the Bulls. He eventually becomes less interesting because the Bulls are not interesting. Or imaginative. Or competent.
Now the Bulls have to hire a new front office and Head Coach, as well as hit on two first-round draft picks. While certain media say this is an exciting time to be a Bulls fan, I just shake my end. I know when the Bulls were exciting. I lived it as a kid.
What have the Reinsdorfs done in the past 30 years to show us that they will get this hire right? For goodness sake, John Paxson is helping lead the decisions. Paxson was one of my favorite Bulls' players of all time; as an executive, he lost all of my respect.
Such is the Bulls, an organization I once loved dearly but lost me with their sheer incompetence.
Somehow, someway, the Bulls get away with putting out a middling product year after year and the fans keep showing up.
Why?
Your guess is as good as mine!
While the Bulls will never mean much to current or future me, I will always cherish the Jordan-era; hence, this little passion project exploring the 1996 title run, when the team gave me great joy and pride to be a fan!
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