Keep in Mind: Krause Is Architect, not Franchise

Just for the fun of it, see if you can name the man doing the talking in these next few paragraphs. It’s January 1990 and he’s talking about the great young basketball player named Michael Jordan.

“If Michael scores 40 every night, we’re not going to win a championship,” he says. “To win, we’ve got to cut down his minutes and keep him fresh. We’ve got to get him a post man who can score and surround him with shooters. I guarantee you, if the choice is averaging 20 and winning the championship or averaging 40 without it, Michael would say, ‘Give me the ring.’ ”

It’s January 1990 and Jordan has led the NBA in scoring three straight seasons. “But,” the man says, “only one NBA team (since 1950) has won the championship with the league’s leading scorer. Milwaukee, Kareem, ’71.”

It’s January 1990 and the Bulls’ coach is Phil Jackson, hired by the man as an assistant two seasons before and promoted after the man fired Doug Collins. “We felt Michael would benefit from Phil’s low-key style,” he says. He dumped players “who didn’t play hard” and he didn’t sign talented big men Joe Barry Carroll and Ralph Sampson “because we didn’t think they would compete, and they wouldn’t fit with Michael if they didn’t compete.”

It’s January 1990 and he says the Bulls, who have never won an NBA championship, soon will do what no team has ever done. “We’ll win championships, plural, and we’ll do it building around a shooting guard.”

Well. How’s that for a vision and a plan? In the eight seasons since the man drew that blueprint -- and in fact built the dynasty he planned -- the Bulls have won six NBA championships because they created a team worthy of Michael Jordan.

So you’d think the man with the master plan would be regarded as a genius of sorts, even raised to heroic stature and applauded by all so fortunate as to breathe the same air. But no. Not at all. In one of sports’ most curious mysteries, that man more often has been portrayed by the Chicago media as a sinister force intent on dismantling the Bulls.

The man’s name is Jerry Krause. He’s the Bulls’ general manager. Hired by Owner Jerry Reinsdorf in 1985, within three seasons Krause dumped 11 players and kept only Jordan; he hired Jackson; he made a draft-day trade to get Scottie Pippen; he traded for Bill Cartwright, signed John Paxson and drafted Horace Grant and B.J. Armstrong.

As to why, then, the gym rat Jerry Krause would be so perverse as to destroy the brilliant product of a life’s work, the media critics never say. They only imply that Krause wants to tear apart the team to prove he can build a champion without Jordan -- who, they remind us, was a Bull before Krause came on the job. They remind us that Krause once said, “Organizations, not players, win championships.”

Well, as it happens, Krause is correct there. Great institutions succeed for decades despite personnel turnover, whether they be The New York Times, University of Kentucky basketball, the Dallas Cowboys or the Brazilian national soccer team.

But maybe a general manager of multimillionaire NBA stars in the late 20th century ought not say such a truth in public, lest he offend the sensitive ears of the ego monsters we’ve created, Michael Jordan among them and Michael Jordan setting the agenda for his media sycophants who take pleasure in savaging the man Jordan famously called “Crumbs,” as in food crumbs on the short man’s shirt.

Jordan, by winks and nods, would have us believe Phil Jackson quit the Bulls because he no longer could deal with Krause. Maybe. But maybe Jackson quit because he needed a year’s silence away from the madness. Maybe it’s as simple as a wealthy, aching, 52-year-old man wanting to rest while having a bad hip repaired.

At the same time, Jordan suggests that Krause wants to get rid of Scottie Pippen. Say what? If the general manager wanted to rebuild by trading Pippen for young players, he’d have done it by now. Heaven knows Pippen has made enough noise about leaving the Bulls. By not trading Pippen, Krause seems to be saying what Jordan wants said, that the Bulls will meet Pippen’s free-agent price.

Oh, and there is this. Though a bright man, Jordan doesn’t always get it right. He whined out loud when Krause traded Charles Oakley -- a trade that established a dynastic foundation by bringing in the big man Bill Cartwright. Similarly, Jordan and Pippen both denigrated Krause for his seemingly pointless pursuit of a Yugoslavian kid named Toni Kukoc -- and the acquisition of Kukoc made Jordan, Pippen and the Bulls better than ever.

As for Jordan’s future, the first thing to remember is that above all other things, he is a player. He can still play. He’ll play because he can’t not play.

And he’ll play for Tim Floyd, a young coach out of the college ranks with no NBA experience. That’s exactly the type of coach he said he would never play for, once even demeaning the man he’d never met by referring to him as “Pink” Floyd. He’ll play for Floyd because, at some point, Michael Jordan will whisper to himself, “Hmmm. Crumbs hired Phil and that was perfect. Now he’s hired Pink Floyd. Let’s see what he’s got.”