Since its first episode aired in April, the sports documentary “The Last Dance,” which chronicled Michael Jordan’s storied NBA career and final season with the Chicago Bulls, served as a reminder of how good the 1990s Bulls were while also inspiring other athletes, like Los Angeles Lakers guard Alex Caruso.
Caruso, a champion with the Lakers, not only admitted to rewatching the documentary to serve as motivation, but also made an interesting comparison to it.
In an interview with New Orleans Pelicans guard JJ Redick on his The Old Man and The Three Podcast with Tommy Alter, the Lakers guard talked about his experience of winning his first championship, what he learned from his teammate LeBron James, and his journey from going undrafted in the 2016 NBA Draft to being a key rotation player on a champion team.
When talking about “The Last Dance”, which bagged the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series Award at the Primetime Emmy Awards, Caruso compared watching the 10-part series to a drug, especially considering the number of titles Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, and the rest of the 1990s Bulls won.
“It’s like a drug you can’t get enough of… I watched ‘The Last Dance' documentary and every time they will celebrate a championship. You see the banner coming. You see the confetti coming up. I would get that adrenaline rush, I’d get that feeling and I was like, ‘Man I gotta feel that’. … Before the finals started I watched The Last Dance over again. Because I wanted to get that little bit of juice ’cause I wanted to have the dream again in my head. Even though we [Lakers] blew them [Heat] out in Game 6, until the clock hit zero, I really didn’t have that feeling.”
Watching the documentary must have worked, because the 26-year-old guard played a key role in the Lakers’ win over the Miami Heat in the 2020 NBA Finals, In six games, Caruso averaged 6.3 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists while shooting 43.3 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from beyond the arc. But more than those numbers, it was his effort on defense and hustle plays that helped the Purple and Gold bring home a title to Los Angeles for the first time in a decade.
With the season set to start soon, maybe Caruso could rewatch it again to help motivate him as the Lakers look for back-to-back titles.
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