The Weight

No parents in their right mind would allow a child to root for any Chicago sports’ team, not unless they want to teach lessons about suffering.  I turn my daughter into a White Sox fan so she can carry around a burden including the Black Sox; the feuding Comiskey clan; clam-digger uniforms; and Adam Dunn.  She’s entitled to say:  Thanks, Dad.

 

And this “The Last Dance” documentary on the 1997-98 Bulls places Jerry Reinsdorf as king of the bad owners.  The McCaskeys are merely incompetent, a label that could never be placed on Reinsdorf.  Oh, he’s competent, all right, with a mean streak that could’ve come straight from old man Daley.  Oh, and when it comes to backing his general manager, blind beyond belief.

 

The documentary reminds fans that not only did Jerry Krause think he was more important than coach Phil Jackson, he could find a suitable replacement just like that.  Krause had his man before he even dumped Jackson, and that would be Tim Floyd.

 

Let me tell you about Coach Floyd.  In three-plus seasons, Floyd amassed 49 wins to go with 190 losses, which comes out to a not-so-robust .205 winning average.  In nine years with the Bulls, Jackson put up 545 wins and 193 losses for a .738 winning percentage.  Jackson never won fewer than 47 games a season with the Bulls; it took Floyd into his fourth season here to reach that total.  At the risk of repeating myself, Reinsdorf backed the wrong guy.

And we’re not even talking about his role in bringing the 1994 baseball season to a halt.  Such is the history of team ownership in Chicago.