ESPN · 2020 · 10 Episodes
The Last Dance
Episode Guide & Analysis
10 episodes. 6 championships. 1 legend.
The greatest sports documentary ever made.
April 19, 2020
The Documentary the World Needed
On April 19, 2020, the world was locked down. COVID-19 had shut down every major sport on the planet. There were no games to watch, no highlights to argue about, no playoff races to follow. Sports fans were starving.
ESPN had been sitting on the most anticipated sports documentary in history — 10,000 hours of never-before-seen footage from the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season, the final year of the greatest dynasty basketball has ever known. It was originally scheduled for June. They moved it up.
5.6 million people watched the premiere. It became the most-watched content on Netflix globally in 2020.
For five Sunday nights, the entire world watched Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Phil Jackson navigate the final season of a dynasty that management was actively trying to dismantle. It was sports, drama, psychology, and history — all at once. And it gave a locked-down world something to talk about when there was nothing else.
Episodes 1–10
Episode-by-Episode Breakdown
Ten episodes. Ten chapters of the greatest basketball story ever told. Each one a masterpiece.
Episode 1
The Beginning of the End
The series opens on two timelines simultaneously: the glory of the 1997-98 season and the scrappy origins of a kid from Wilmington, North Carolina. You see the ending and the beginning at the same time, and somehow both feel inevitable.
Key Moments
- The 1997-98 season opens with tension between Jordan and GM Jerry Krause
- Jordan agrees to let a film crew document the final season
- Flashback to MJ getting drafted by the Bulls in 1984
- The early struggles — a losing franchise, a young player with impossible talent
“I never had the mentality that I was better than anybody. I felt I could play with anybody and compete with everybody.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 2
The Jordan Rules
The Bad Boy Pistons exist in this documentary as the necessary villain — the wall Jordan had to break through to become Jordan. Every bruise was a lesson. Every loss was fuel. The Pistons thought they were stopping him. They were building him.
Key Moments
- The Detroit Pistons and their brutal 'Jordan Rules' strategy
- MJ getting physically punished every time he drove to the basket
- The infamous walk-off — Pistons refuse to shake hands after losing to Bulls in 1991
- Jordan learning that individual brilliance was not enough to beat a team that wanted to hurt you
“They beat us up. They literally beat us up. And I had to figure out how to get past that.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 3
The First Ring
The Triangle offense forced Jordan to do the one thing that went against every fiber of his being: share the ball. Phil Jackson was the only coach alive who could have convinced him. And when it worked — when Pippen grew and the system clicked — the Bulls became unstoppable.
Key Moments
- Phil Jackson arrives and installs Tex Winter's Triangle offense
- Jordan learns to trust his teammates — the hardest thing he ever did
- Scottie Pippen's emergence as a legitimate co-star
- The 1991 Finals sweep of the Lakers — Jordan finally wins a championship
- The iconic image of Jordan crying on the trophy
“I was so focused on winning and so tunnel-visioned that I forgot how much it would actually mean when it happened.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 4
Pippen's Pain
Pippen signed the worst contract in NBA history because he grew up poor and the security of guaranteed money meant more than market value. The Bulls exploited it for years. By 1997-98, the resentment had calcified into something permanent. He was the second-best player on a dynasty and the most underpaid star in professional sports.
Key Moments
- Scottie Pippen's tragic contract — $18M over 7 years while role players got more
- Pippen delays surgery to the start of the 1997-98 season out of spite
- Jerry Krause's failed attempts to trade Pippen
- The tension between Pippen's importance to the team and his resentment of the organization
“I may have been considered the best player on the team, but Scottie Pippen was the best teammate I ever had.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 5
The First Three-Peat & the Fall
The first three-peat made Jordan look invincible. His father's murder proved he wasn't. These episodes cover the most human stretch of Jordan's life — the gambling scrutiny, the grief, and the decision to walk away from basketball at the absolute peak of his powers.
Key Moments
- The 1992 and 1993 championships — dominance that looked effortless
- Jordan's gambling controversies surface publicly
- The Atlantic City casino visit before a playoff game
- The murder of James Jordan in July 1993
- The stunning first retirement announcement in October 1993
“When my father was killed, I lost the person who had been my biggest supporter, my biggest critic, my best friend.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 6
Baseball & the Comeback
The baseball experiment was either a beautiful tribute to his father's dream or a man who needed competition so badly he would accept public humiliation to get it. Probably both. When he came back to basketball wearing number 45, the league exhaled. When he switched back to 23, the league should have started panicking.
Key Moments
- Jordan plays minor league baseball for the Birmingham Barons
- The media treats it as a joke — Jordan treats it as deadly serious
- Batting .202 against Double-A pitching while the world watched and laughed
- The 1995 comeback: 'I'm back' — two words that shook the sports world
- The playoff loss to the Orlando Magic — rust and a new number (45)
“I'm back.”
— Michael Jordan, press release, March 18, 1995
Episode 7
Dennis Rodman's Wild Life
The Rodman episodes are the heart of the series. Beneath the hair and the Vegas trips and the wrestling was a deeply damaged person who found salvation in basketball — specifically in the one skill nobody else wanted to master. He studied missed shots the way Jordan studied game film. He was a genius who looked like a circus act.
Key Moments
- Rodman's 48-hour trip to Las Vegas mid-season — Phil Jackson said yes
- The wrestling career, the wedding dress, the hair colors
- Rodman's childhood trauma and transformation from shy introvert to outrageous superstar
- The rebounding genius — Rodman studied spin, trajectory, and angles like a physicist
“Dennis was the best rebounding forward to ever play the game. And the most interesting human being I've ever been around.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 8
72-10
72-10 was not just a record. It was a statement. Jordan came back from baseball with something to prove, and what he proved was that the best version of Michael Jordan was even better than the version everyone already considered the greatest. The Father's Day championship — his first without his dad — is the most emotionally devastating moment in the series.
Key Moments
- The 1995-96 Bulls go 72-10 — the best regular season record in NBA history
- Jordan's return to dominance after the baseball hiatus
- The combination of Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman as the ultimate trio
- The 1996 NBA Finals sweep of the Seattle SuperSonics
- Jordan winning his fourth championship — crying on the locker room floor on Father's Day
“I didn't come back just to play. I came back to dominate.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 9
The Final Season Begins to Crack
Krause wanted to rebuild. Jordan wanted to keep winning. Phil Jackson was caught in the middle. The 1997-98 season was a championship run fueled by the knowledge that every game might be the last. It made the team play with a desperation that bordered on fury.
Key Moments
- Jerry Krause announces Phil Jackson will not return regardless of outcome
- Jordan's famous response: 'I will not play for another coach'
- The mounting tension between front office and players
- The 1998 playoff run begins — a team held together by spite and excellence
- The Flu Game revisited — exhaustion, dehydration, and 38 points in Utah
“Jerry Krause told Phil that no matter what happens this year, this is your last year. That was the beginning of the end. That's when I knew it was over.”
— Michael Jordan
Episode 10
The Last Shot
The final episode is the reason the documentary exists. The Last Shot is not just a basketball play — it is the most perfectly scripted ending in the history of professional sports. Jordan steals the ball, dribbles up the court, fakes Bryon Russell into retirement, hits the jumper, holds the follow-through, and walks away forever. No athlete has ever had a better final moment. None ever will.
Key Moments
- Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals vs. the Utah Jazz
- The steal from Karl Malone — 'The Mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays'
- The Last Shot — the crossover, the push-off (or not), the jumper, the pose
- Jordan walking away at the absolute peak — the perfect ending
- The legacy: six championships, six Finals MVPs, zero Game 7s in the Finals
“When the game is on the line, I want the ball. That's what I do. That's who I am.”
— Michael Jordan
The Verdict
What The Last Dance Got Right
The documentary didn't just show you Michael Jordan. It made you understand why he was the way he was.
The Competitive Drive Footage
The behind-the-scenes footage of Jordan in practice, in the locker room, and on the team plane is unlike anything we'd ever seen. You watch him berate teammates, challenge coaches, and push everyone around him to the breaking point — and then you understand why they won six championships. The footage doesn't justify the behavior. It explains it.
The 'Why' Behind the Intensity
Before The Last Dance, most people knew Jordan was competitive. After it, they understood WHY. Every slight — real or imagined — was catalogued, stored, and weaponized. The Leroy Smith cut. The Pistons beatdowns. The Bryon Russell trash talk. The series showed the internal machinery that turned a talented athlete into an unstoppable force.
The Phil Jackson Dynamic
Phil Jackson managing Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman simultaneously was like conducting an orchestra where every instrument was also a hand grenade. The series captured how Jackson used Zen Buddhism, mind games, and genuine empathy to keep the most volatile collection of talent in basketball history pointed in the same direction.
The Emotional Core
Jordan crying on the locker room floor on Father's Day 1996, clutching the championship trophy, is one of the most powerful moments in sports documentary history. The series earned that moment by showing you everything that led to it — the father's murder, the baseball exile, the comeback, the doubters. When it hits, it hits at a cellular level.
The Other Side
What It Left Out
No documentary is perfect. Especially one where the subject had input on the final cut.
The MJ-Centric Lens
Scottie Pippen publicly complained that the documentary was too focused on Jordan's perspective. He's not wrong. The series gave Jordan editorial control, and Jordan used it exactly the way you'd expect — to make himself look as good as possible. Pippen's contributions were acknowledged but never centered. It was Jordan's story, told by Jordan, for Jordan.
The Gambling Angle Was Softened
The series addresses Jordan's gambling but never digs into the depths. The Richard Esquinas allegations, the $57,000 check to a convicted drug dealer, the secret-suspension theory — all of it gets a surface-level treatment. Jordan's camp had input on the final cut, and it shows in the moments where the documentary pulls its punches.
Teammates Felt Slighted
Horace Grant, BJ Armstrong, and other key contributors to the dynasty felt their roles were minimized. The documentary portrayed the Bulls as Jordan plus supporting cast, when the reality was more nuanced. You don't win six championships with one player, no matter how great. The role players deserved more screen time than they got.
The Darker Side of Leadership
The series showed Jordan punching Steve Kerr in practice and framed it as a moment that brought them closer. It showed Jordan reducing teammates to tears and framed it as motivation. A less sympathetic lens might have examined whether Jordan's leadership style was effective despite the cruelty, not because of it.
Spring 2020
The Cultural Moment
The Last Dance did not just premiere during COVID lockdown. It became the lockdown. For five consecutive Sunday nights in April and May 2020, while the world sat at home with nowhere to go and nothing to watch, millions of people experienced Michael Jordan's greatness together — many of them for the first time.
Social media exploded after every episode. Twitter became a real-time watch party for the entire planet. Memes spread faster than the virus. The crying Jordan face returned with a vengeance. “And I took that personally” became the defining phrase of quarantine culture.
Jordan jersey sales exploded. A new generation discovered MJ.
Kids who had only known Jordan as a meme or a shoe brand suddenly understood what their parents had been talking about for decades. They watched the Flu Game, The Last Shot, the six championships, and they got it. Jordan wasn't just a logo. He was the most competitive human being who ever played a professional sport.
The timing was not just fortunate — it was destiny. The world needed a hero, and ESPN handed them the greatest one sports has ever produced. In a moment when everything felt uncertain and fragile, Jordan's relentless certainty — his absolute refusal to lose, to quit, to accept anything less than dominance — was exactly the energy people needed.
By the Numbers
Key Stats
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes is The Last Dance?
The Last Dance is a 10-episode documentary series. ESPN originally planned to release it in June 2020, but moved the premiere to April 19, 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown when live sports were suspended worldwide. Two episodes aired each Sunday night over five consecutive weeks.
What is The Last Dance documentary about?
The Last Dance chronicles the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season — Michael Jordan's final year with the team — while weaving in the complete history of the Bulls dynasty. Using never-before-seen footage from a camera crew that embedded with the team during that final season, the documentary covers Jordan's rise from college to six NBA championships, his relationships with Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and coach Phil Jackson, and the front office tensions that ultimately broke up the greatest dynasty in basketball history.
Where can I watch The Last Dance?
The Last Dance originally aired on ESPN and is available for streaming on Netflix in most international markets. In the United States, it is available on ESPN+ and has periodically been available on Netflix. Check your local streaming platforms for current availability.
How many viewers did The Last Dance premiere get?
The Last Dance premiere drew 6.1 million viewers on ESPN on April 19, 2020, making it the most-watched ESPN documentary ever at that time. The average viewership across all 10 episodes was 5.6 million. Globally, it became the most-watched content on Netflix in 2020, reaching audiences in over 190 countries.
Did Michael Jordan have creative control over The Last Dance?
Yes. Jordan's camp had significant input on the final cut of the documentary. Director Jason Hehir has said Jordan did not have outright veto power, but his participation was contingent on having a meaningful role in shaping the narrative. This is why some critics — including Scottie Pippen — felt the documentary was too favorable to Jordan's perspective.
What did Scottie Pippen think of The Last Dance?
Scottie Pippen was publicly critical of the documentary, saying it was overly focused on glorifying Jordan at the expense of his teammates. Pippen felt his contributions to the Bulls dynasty were minimized and that the series portrayed him in an unflattering light, particularly regarding his contract disputes and the migraine game. He later wrote about his frustrations in his autobiography 'Unguarded.'
Why was The Last Dance released early during COVID?
ESPN moved The Last Dance premiere from June to April 2020 because the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down all live sports worldwide. With no games to broadcast and millions of people locked down at home, ESPN recognized the opportunity to fill the void with the most anticipated sports documentary in years. The timing was perfect — the world was starving for sports content, and The Last Dance delivered.
What is 'The Last Shot' shown in The Last Dance finale?
The Last Shot refers to Michael Jordan's game-winning jumper in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz. With 5.2 seconds remaining, Jordan stole the ball from Karl Malone, dribbled up the court, crossed over Bryon Russell, and hit a 20-foot jumper to win the Bulls' sixth championship. It was the final shot of Jordan's Bulls career and is widely considered the most iconic moment in NBA history.
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