Phil Jackson by Peter Richmond

Author:Peter Richmond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2014-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Sliding-doors time again: The drumbeats of a major-trade rumor were being passed from hillside to hillside from Chicago to Seattle. The Sonics said they’d heard Pippen was available. Krause insisted he was not shopping Pippen, just listening to offers. Jerry’s fill-in leader, Scottie simply hadn’t grown into the role Krause had expected him to. As Krause saw it, he was still carrying too much baggage.

As the draft approached, a swap of Pippen for Shawn Kemp seemed so inevitable that a hot-dog place out in Niles featured a “See ya, Scottie” meal. The Bulls were said to also want the Sonics’ first-round pick (eleventh) for theirs (twenty-first).

“We had to be overwhelmed to make a deal. We were not overwhelmed,” said Krause. The Sonics pulled out right before the draft. Krause came out on top by a country mile. The Sonics pick was Carlos Rogers, a five-team journeyman. The Bulls pick was Dickey Simpkins, who, albeit in a fringe capacity, would earn three Bulls rings, thanks to the fact that Pippen stuck around . . . and grew.

Had the trade been consummated? Jordan would later say he “probably” would not have returned. But of course, Michael the competitor being Michael, he would have—and would’ve played opposite Kemp, a guy with bad knees and a drug situation. There would not have been three more rings.

But they still needed a leader. So they took Ron Harper to dinner, and act two was ready to begin.

Eight years into his career, Harper, now a free agent, had just come off a steady five years with the Clippers, marked by a disastrous knee injury that had turned him from an airborne scorer into a more earthbound captain.

“Have you seen our offense?” Phil asked. “Do you know about the triangle?” Whereupon Harper answered, “I can tell you everything that offense can do,” and he could, because he’d been a Bulls fan ever since his old buddy Brad Sellers had joined Chicago. At the dinner, Harper spent several minutes outlining variations on napkins.

He’d just jumped off a carousel of coaches, including Larry Brown, the man who, Harper says now, “was never happy unless he was unhappy. He was a pisser. He would wear . . . you . . . down.” (Sound familiar? As in Doug Collins?) Harper was ready for some love. Yes, he could have stayed with the Clippers, gone on to score 25,000 points for a perennial loser and retired without a ring.

Or he could find a way to win—the way he had as a kid, when he’d dribble a ball to downtown Dayton to hang with his friends, then dribble back—six miles round-trip. Then when he got a bike, he’d do the same thing—dribbling as he biked.

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