As Villains, the Two Jerrys Still Fit the Bill

The only coach Michael Jordan said he would play for refused to come back.

He won’t be blamed for the breakup of the Chicago Bulls.

Jordan walked away from the team and off into the sunset.

He won’t be blamed for the breakup of the Chicago Bulls.

It appears the only thing that will stay the same around here is the fans’ tendency to find fault in everything that owner Jerry Reinsdorf and General Manager Jerry Krause do.

Reinsdorf/Krause bashing has always been the companion activity to Jordan worship in this town.

No dynasty-producing front office has ever been so maligned. You might think six championships in eight years would buy some appreciation. The problem was, it only made expectations worse.

Here are Krause’s credentials: He drafted, traded for or signed every player on the championship teams except Jordan. When Jordan first retired in 1993, Krause’s players still won 55 games that season.

Here’s what Reinsdorf has done for the franchise: commit millions of dollars to the team, including signing Jordan to the two richest single-year contracts in the history of team sports.

But here’s the type of thing that casts them as villains in the public eye: On Wednesday, a member of Jordan’s camp said Jordan would have given strong consideration to returning if Krause were gone and Jackson retained with general manager duties.

A decade ago, Jackson was Krause’s chosen coach. But their relationship deteriorated, and by last year Reinsdorf essentially had to choose between Jackson and Krause. By keeping Krause, Reinsdorf made his choice, despite Jordan’s season-long claims that if Jackson left, so would he.

Krause then brought in Iowa State Coach Tim Floyd, whom he had coveted for years. Reinsdorf made Jackson an offer to return last summer, then made another last-ditch effort last week, but Jackson didn’t want to come into that situation.

Floyd showed up at the news conference Wednesday and watched the player he’ll never get to coach. It must have been like going to a wedding to watch your first true love marry another.

To make it worse, Floyd had to hear Jordan say, “Sure, I’m saying I would rather play for Phil Jackson if he was here.”

Jordan’s differences with Krause date to his second season, when he sat out 64 games because of a broken foot. Krause wanted Jordan to stay on the bench, to protect his foot and help the Bulls miss the playoffs and enter the NBA’s draft lottery.

But the competitive fire in Jordan drove him to the court, sometimes inserting himself in the lineup and staying past the doctor-prescribed minute restrictions.

Jordan and Krause have also clashed on personnel decisions throughout the years, right up to the Bulls’ trading of backup power forward Jason Caffey last season. It’s pretty easy to figure out whose side the fans consistently favored. Krause gets booed almost any time his name is announced.

And Jordan never appreciated Krause’s candid comments that he looked forward to the challenge of building a champion without Jordan.

Krause and Reinsdorf slipped away with practically no comment as soon as the news conference ended.

Jordan was generally diplomatic during his farewell event, but he couldn’t resist keeping the anti-Jerry rhetoric alive.

There were occasional microphone difficulties that made it difficult to hear the questions. The only one he repeated to make sure everyone understood the topic was a question asking about his differences with management and if he would have come back if Jackson were the coach.

His body language changed, indicating how receptive he would be to that idea.

“That’s a big ‘if’,” Jordan said. “When I retired the first time, Phil Jackson was the coach. I think, even with Phil the coach, I would have had a tough time mentally trying to challenge myself--although he can somehow present challenges for me. I don’t know if he could have presented a challenge to continue on with this season.

“In terms of my disagreements with management, that’s always been my opinion. There haven’t been altercations or twisting of arms. The good thing about any team is they have disagreements, but that doesn’t mean the focus is not there.”

If anything, the contentious ways of the Bulls often made it appear as if they did better when they were bickering.

There should be more harmony now that Jordan and Jackson are gone, but what will be the results? With only four players under contract and the possibility that free agent Scottie Pippen will go elsewhere, this might not be a team that anyone wants to claim as theirs.