With “The Last Dance” airing its finale episodes on Sunday, we were gifted with the conclusion we all needed as to how the unparalleled success of the Chicago Bulls dynasty in the 1990s finally came to its bitter end. As we all know, the Bulls did end up breaking up following their sixth title in 1998, and to this day, many believe that this was caused by the team's front office and their baffling unwillingness to carry on with the legacy.
Then-Bulls general manager Jerry Krause was at the very thick of the controversy. For his part, Krause provided a very detailed and technical explanation as to why they actually decided to blow up the team at the conclusion of that unprecedented season.
K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago got a hold of some excerpts from Krause's unpublished memoirs, and this is what the former high-ranking Bulls executive had to say:
Did we break up the winning team so that we could satisfy our own egos and win without those players and coaches? Do you really think that people who worked for so many years to win and then win again and again would be dumb enough to let egos get in the way of trying to win again?
According to Krause, one of the main problems was how to fill the positional voids the Bulls were going to face in the coming campaign:
OK. No center, no power forward, very little (cap space) to sign anybody of any quality to replace them. Who defends in the middle if Jordan and Pippen do come back? Who rebounds?
In the end, it was a decision that had to be made, argues Krause. It was more of a natural occurrence as opposed to the front office forcing its hand:
Put yourself in our shoes as we walk out of that room. What would you do? Did we break up a dynasty or was the dynasty breaking up of age, natural attrition of NBA players with little time to recuperate and the salary-cap rules that govern the game?
We'll obviously never know what could have happened if the Bulls went on at least one more title run.
What we can say with certainty is that it is not fair to judge Krause by what transpired in the final season of the Bulls dynasty without first giving him his due credit for the pivotal role he played in all six of Chicago's championships.
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