As the Dynasty Turns

OK, Bull fans, how’s this for your old nightmare scenario?

G--Randy Brown.

G--Ron Harper.

F--Jason Caffey.

F--Scott Burrell.

C--Luc Longley.

It wasn’t just a bad dream, either. That was the starting lineup for last week’s exhibition game in the United Center against the Philadelphia 76ers. In no particular upset, the visitors won.

The 76ers won 21 of 82 games last season, which is one measure of how this preseason went for the last great dynasty of the 20th Century.

“Next year’s team?” Bull guard Steve Kerr was asked.

“I hope not,” said Kerr, laughing. “We had a lot of cap room out there.”

Not that this was any laughing matter for Chicago fans, watching with horror as their heroes began the last week of the exhibition season without Michael Jordan (ingrown toenail surgery), Scottie Pippen (ankle surgery) and Dennis Rodman (contract dispute).

This, of course, was but a prelude to the Great Hysteria awaiting at season’s end, with Coach Phil Jackson announcing this is it for him, and General Manager Jerry Krause announcing this is it for Jackson and Jordan insisting if Jackson goes, he goes, etc.

Said Jackson last week as his world fell around him, eschewing the wisdom of Sitting Bull to quote Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman: “What, me worry?”

Why start now? The question isn’t so much will they win another title but how did they ever win one--much less five in seven years--with all this internecine bickering?

“It’s almost amusing to talk about,” Kerr says. “We all sort of marvel at how nobody can seem to enjoy the championships around here. It just seems like a rather strange phenomenon, I guess.”

He guesses right. Before the Bulls, no NBA team had won three titles in a row since the 1964-66 Boston Celtics, mirroring trends in baseball, where only the 1972-74 Oakland A’s have done it in 44 years, and the NFL, where no team has won three Super Bowls in a row.

The Bulls have five titles in Jordan’s last five full seasons. They broke the NBA record for victories with 72, vowed to pace themselves and won 69 despite the emerging Jackson-Krause struggle, the general manager’s public courtship of Iowa State Coach Tim Floyd, Jordan’s threats to leave, Rodman’s head-butts, Rodman’s crotch kicks. . . .

The list goes on. Of course, zero hour is next summer and, meanwhile, they’re a lot older than they used to be.

Jordan, 34, and Rodman, 36, are back, though only the Las Vegas blackjack dealers, who saw a lot of Rodman when he said he was too ill to join the Bulls two weeks ago, know what kind of shape he’s in.

Pippen, 32, may not make it before the new year. Don’t expect him to push it. He’ll be a free agent and has a bad relationship with management, the more so after spending his summer making appearances for Nike, deferring his operation until he was on the Bulls’ time.

Jackson, hoping to avert panic in the streets, said they might be 15-15 when Pippen returns. Of course, that would still leave them time to rally, make the playoffs and maybe even secure home-court advantage for a series or two.

By April, they’ll be healthy enough to kick everyone’s rear ends in the playoffs again--remember, they’re 75-20 in their title runs--and ride off in a blaze of glory.

What, Phil worry? (Well, maybe just a tad.)

THEY DON’T MAKE MEDIA DAYS THE WAY THEY USED TO

“Management felt it had to go through a process that even dimmed or diminished our championship. . . .

“I think there’s a heavy price to pay for it.”

--Jackson, first day of camp

In case you’re not a Chicago emigre and don’t subscribe to the Tribune or Sun-Times to stay abreast of developments, a lot has happened since the Bulls’ victory celebration.

Owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who had been dropping hints about breaking up the team, champion or not, told insiders he would trade Pippen if he could get three high No. 1 draft picks.

Lo and behold, on draft day, Krause worked out a three-way deal in which Pippen would go to Boston for the Celtics’ No. 3 and 6 picks and Denver’s No. 10.

Reinsdorf couldn’t pull the trigger. A hard-line, bottom-line businessman, he wanted to be rebuilt, not rebuilding, when the leases on the United Center’s luxury suites come up for renewal next summer. But, faced with the wrath of a crazed citizenry--Jackson and Jordan might have left if Pippen were traded--Reinsdorf backed down. The owner lives in Arizona but said he was worried about his grandchildren going to school in Chicago.

So he decided to bring everyone back.

Of course, Jackson wasn’t in any hurry. Reinsdorf had to fly to Montana to make the deal, agreeing to double the coach’s pay to $5.7 million and agree to take Rodman back.

Then Jordan made Reinsdorf fly to Las Vegas to court him, whereupon Jordan agreed to a token raise--from $30 million to $34 million.

Of course, these days $39.7 million doesn’t buy happiness. On media day, the first camp session, a ceremonial affair with optimistic predictions and frozen smiles, Jackson made it clear this was it.

Krause made it clear that was OK with him, declaring, “Organizations win championships, not players or coaches.”

To which Jackson responded: “He would say that, right?”

Jackson, asked about Pippen’s attitude, blasted his bosses again.

“I’ve seen this happen before,” he said. “The Bulls preach loyalty over the years and that this is a family affair and Scottie sees that and has to wonder what does loyalty really mean?”

Looks like there’s a lot of feeling out there. The rest of the preseason was quieter, if no less eventful.

The Bulls opened at home and were bombed by the Seattle SuperSonics.

Rodman, who had been begging the Jerrys to sign him, even vowing to play for free--Reinsdorf tried to take him up on it but the league wouldn’t OK a $2-million deal with $7 million in incentives--agreed to terms. Rodman said he couldn’t join the team until after it returned from Paris because of bronchitis, then hied himself off to Vegas to undergo the famed Casino Cure.

When the team returned from Paris, Rodman said the deal was off unless the clauses were removed, since Pippen’s surgery and Toni Kukoc’s sore foot would imperil the bonuses that were based on victories.

Jordan announced he’d sit out the last three exhibitions. Since one was in his beloved Chapel Hill, N.C., it was obvious he was really hurting.

Jordan returned ahead of schedule to play in the last exhibition, like cavalry riding to the rescue. Of course the Bulls lost that one too, to the Sacramento Kings.

Nevertheless, the Bulls have only to heal to go back to being the best team in ball. Although there’s an upstairs-downstairs split between the team and management, the players are more united than they were in the early ‘90s, when Pippen and his buddy, Horace Grant, regarded Jordan with as much envy as admiration.

Now the Bulls are embedded in their roles. They may try to win to spite management--insiders speculate the two Jerrys don’t care if they win another title--but they’ve shown they can ignore discord.

“We share the ball,” says Jackson, hanging on to happy thoughts. “We pass it around. We share the glory.

“Michael gets his large share and Scottie gets the next and Dennis gets a lot and Toni [Kukoc] gets some and everybody kind of shares the rest of the stuff. But internally, everybody has to face a lot of responsibility and criticism and praise for what they’re doing. . . .

“Doesn’t matter if a guy makes $100,000 or $100 million, this team supports guys from one to 12 and the coaching staff and the trainer. . . . We don’t let things that could affect us, something either off the court or on the court, destroy the harmony that we’ve built as a team.”

Not yet, anyway, but the distractions are girding for another assault.

THEY DON’T MAKE SPOKESMEN THE WAY THEY USED TO, EITHER

“As long as we’re winning, then [distractions] are no problem. As soon as we start losing, if we get off to a bad start, then obviously it becomes a problem because that’s what losing does. It creates a lot of controversy. Fans get upset. Players are not happy. Coaches are not happy. . . .

“Winning solves everything. Doc Rivers called it the great deodorant because it covers up all the stink. And he’s right.”

--Steve Kerr

Steve Kerr?

Little blond kid from Palisades High? Came off the waiver wire four years ago?

Yes, that Steve Kerr, now the unofficial spokesman when Jordan, Pippen and Rodman don’t feel like talking, which is often. Candor and grace being in short supply, Kerr had become a recognizable face around Chicago long before he hit the shot that closed out the Jazz.

This is a surprise to Kerr, who used to be happy when fans knew he wasn’t one of the ball boys.

“I love it. There are days when you just kind of want to go home and not deal with it, but for the most part, this team gets so much attention. We just got back from Paris where the whole country was dying to see us play. There’s just so much excitement around the team that, to me, it’s fun.”

At least he got something out of the trip. Like most of the NBA players ordered abroad to promote Commissioner David Stern’s international program, most Bulls (like most Lakers in 1991) couldn’t have cared less about any City of Lights. Bill Wennington, a hit since he’s from Canada and speaks some French, said his favorite part was watching the bus driver maneuver in the wild traffic, calling the rest “tedious.”

Thankfully, they’re back in the real world, however challenging.

It’s another day in the real world, anxious reporters from Chicago newspapers, radio stations and TV stations, who have anxious readers, listeners and viewers who want to know if the Bulls will be all right. And if there’s no getting away from the fact they have all this discord, it’s OK, isn’t it? They thrive on it, don’t they?

“I don’t think so,” Kerr says. “I think that’s something that’s been said over the years.

“I don’t think we thrive on it. It’s just the way it is. We always have turmoil around here because of the star power with Michael, Scottie and Phil and because of the constant friction between management and players.

“It’s always there. Doesn’t necessarily mean we thrive on it. I think we’d be better off if we didn’t have it.”

Thrive they do, or they always have to this point. Next summer is a long way off. (Isn’t it?) Kukoc’s foot will be OK and Scottie will be back before they know it. (Won’t they?)

What, them worry? (Yes, but they’re keeping it to themselves.)