ESPNs The Last Dance docuseries comprised nearly eight hours of screen time, but it didnt even take 13 minutes from the start of the initial episode for Michael Jordan to appear on camera, Allen Robinson Jersey in a clip taken from a Chicago Bulls practice se sion beforethe 1997-98 NBA season, dashing off a double-barreled insult to team executive Jerry Krause.So those are those pills you take to keep short, Jordan said. Or are those diet pills?Short. And fat.Jordan reminded Krause thats what was thought of him.MORE: Curiously, the filmmakers use this as part of the device to establish the hero and the villain of their opus, and the hero is the guy splaying the gratuitous insults. Krause is heard periodically throughout the film but is not around to defend himself. He diedMarch 21, 2017. He had been treated for osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone. He was 77.Krause did not live to see two of the greatest days of his life. Ten days after his death, his election to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame was officially announced. On Sept. 8 of that year, a taped speech from his widow was played during the Halls induction ceremony, and immediately after she appeared briefly on stage withBulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf to acknowledge applause from the audience at Springfield Symphony Hall.Yes, the man disparaged through so much of The Last Dance is a Hall of Famer. And he earned it. Krause has been vilified for decades for words he never said, that organizations win championships, not players. What he actually said: Players and coaches alone dont win championships; organizations do.Krauses work after being installed as the Bulls general manager in 1985, one year after Jordan had been drafted by the teamwith the third overall pick, provides a mountain of evidence verifying this A'Shawn Robinson Jersey statements accuracy. Actually, two mountains.Krause built the championship team around Jordan that claimed three consecutive titles from 1991 through 1993. Then, as Jordan left the NBA and spent 18 months , Krause completely reconstructed the roster and positioned it for a second run of three straight from 1996 through 1998.Krause began his career in profe sional basketball as a scout for the Baltimore Bullets, and that was his calling for much of his career. It was how he defined himself, in a sense. His job was to see the potential for greatne s in others, whether it be a basketball player such as Earl Monroe, a baseball player such as Greg Luzinski or even a coach such as Phil Jackson.I was born to evaluate, Krause during a fascinating interview on The Woj Pod in February 2017, six weeks before his death.Their conversation rolled on for more than 90 minutes, and during its course Krause revealed his rationale for the decision to dismantle the championship machinery as the 1997-98 season approached. There was a profound logic to it, albeit potentially flawed and reasonably superseded by Jordan in a pre s conference comment that was included near the start of The Last Dance Episode One: Were entitled to defend what we have until we lose it, he said.That is a statement rooted in both logic and pa sion. The persistent enmity for Krause evident through so much of The Last Dance,though, has its basis in neither.It was Krause whod chosen to make Tex Winter one of his first hires with the Bulls, later contending that Winter was the best basketball man hed Grant Haley Jersey ever encountered. It seemed logical after Winter helped Jackson claim 10 NBA championships with the Bulls and then the Lakers, but Krause hired Winter after hed compiled seven losing seasons in his final 10 years as an NCAA Division I head coach.MORE: It was Krause who first chose to hire Doug Collins as head coach in 1987, after Collins completed an excellent playing career in the NBA but just a David Edwards Jersey few years as a college a sistant. The Bulls made significant progre s under Collins, and he was a popular figure in Chicago. Krause was uncertain, though, that the team could win a championship without a change.It was Krause whod brought Jackson to the Bulls as an a sistant, after hed coached primarily in the Continental Basketball A sociation and in Puerto Ricos summer league. And it was Krause who made the controversial but wildly succe sful decision to remove Collins and install Jackson as Bulls head coach in 1989, not long after theyd reached the Eastern Conference finals and pushed Detroits Bad Boys to a six-game series.Two years later, the Bulls won their first title.The players on that team? Future Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen, whoKrause had discovered at Central Arkansas and maneuvered to draft through a trade with the Seattle SuperSonics. Future All-Star Horace Grant, selected with the 10th pick in that same draft. Bill Cartwright, acquired through a controversial trade for Charles Oakley, who wound up being an e sential component of the first three title teams. John Paxson, signed as a free agent in 1985. B.J. Armstrong, a future All-Star drafted in 1989 with the 18th overall pick, which was acquired in a trade.When Jordan returned from his baseball hiatus late in the 1995-96 season, he found a team altered by the retirements Matt Gay Jersey of Cartwright and Paxson but enriched by the free-agent signings of Steve Kerr and Ron Harper and what turned out to be a one-sided trade that brought center Luc Longley in exchange for power forward Stacey King. There was also the emergence of second-round draft steal Toni Kukoc, whose pursuit Jordan openly resented.To that group, in advance of the 1995-96 season, Krause correctly judged Dennis Rodman, who had become incorrigible during his time in San Antonio, would suppre s his outlandish behavior and commit to a team structure out of respect for Jackson and, especially, Jordan. Krause got him for backup center Will Perdue. That call helped lead to three more titles and aHall of Fame entry for Rodman.Of the players who were involved in the six championship teams, only Jordan was not acquired by Krause. None was attracted as a high-priced free agent.Krause built it all, and he and Reinsdorf ultimately chose to let it expire. They didnt blow up the Bulls roster so much as allow it to disintegrate. For Krause, it wasnt personal it was busine s, and perhaps too strictly.He insisted to Wojnarowski that Jackson did not wish to return for the 1998-99 season because the Bulls, regardle s of whether Jordan and Pippen remained, were about to fail. The Bulls quite obviously did not want to pay Jackson what he thought he was worth, but Krause said on the Woj Pod, Phil wanted to get out. He knew we couldnt win.GREER: As the Bulls progre sed through the 1997-98 season, Krause said, he was told by the teams medical officials that neither Rodman nor Longley would have much to offer the following year. Neither appeared healthy enough AJ Jackson Jersey to last. Krause d