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Michael Jordan's impressive NBA career was showcased in "The Last Dance," a 2020 documentary. It followed the story of arguably the greatest basketball player of all time and his meteoric rise to stardom.
The focus of the documentary was on Jordan's last season with the Chicago Bulls, which ended with another championship. After leading the league in scoring that season with 28.7 points per game, Jordan guided his team to a second three-peat before retiring.
Many fans wondered how the league got footage of Jordan and his team for "The Last Dance." For more than two decades, a lot of fans did not even know that such footage existed.
This article will reveal everything you need to know about the documentary and how it appeared out of nowhere after more than 20 years.
Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls were recorded for an entire season
Adam Silver, the current NBA commissioner, has been with the league for a long time. He joined the league in 1992 and was the head of NBA entertainment in 1997, when he proposed what probably sounded like a crazy idea.
Silver and Andy Thompson, a producer back then, suggested that the camera crew follow Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls for the entire 1997-98 season. Thompson had big plans for the future and wanted to make a documentary.
"If we let the Bulls and Michael Jordan be broken up and retire without shooting a year in the life of this team and this franchise and this player, we will forever regret it,” Thompson said to Silver.
Phil Jackson, the Bulls coach, did not mind the camera crew following him and his team. However, Jordan was hesitant and did not like the proposed idea at first.
When he finally agreed to the idea, NBA Entertainment shot more than 500 hours of raw footage. A lot of amazing moments were later turned into "The Last Dance."
Why did "The Last Dance" footage take two decades to resurface?
Many fans don't understand why the footage only resurfaced after two decades. The recorded footage was stored in the NBA's vault in Secaucus, New Jersey. The raw material of "The Last Dance" was 50 feet below the ground, and the league waited for the perfect moment to use it.
Gregg Winik, President of Content and Executive Producer at the NBA, said that the league put an X on the footage. This meant that the material was not allowed to be used.
The league initially wanted to turn it into a 90-minute documentary for either theaters or HBO. However, both the NBA and Michael Jordan had to agree on the timing and terms of the release.
"The Last Dance" turned out to be the perfect documentary for the league once it was released in 2020. The 10-part documentary was a huge success for both the NBA and Jordan. It even won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series in September 2020.
