"The Jordan Rules," by Sam Smith is a very informational yet resounding book in my opinion. While directly commentating on the Chicago Bull's 1990-1991 championship season, Smith also goes deeper and explains and complicates the relationship between management and the players themselves. This is deeply important, considering every ball player nowadays follows money more so their loyalty to the team. Unless the team is committed to keeping their best players paid, then players will listen to consider teams that offer multi-million dollar contracts. However, if players are not worth the money or off-court-drama, they'll let them go. This was a large problem for the Bulls prior to their 1991 championship run. As anyone with a common knowledge of basketball would now, Michael Jordan was not only the best player of his era, but of all time as well. He definitely knew it too, as he was never satisfied with his salary or with his teammates.
Jordan was just beginning his prime run as a NBA player, having been in the league since 1984. His teammates were never up to his caliber, however this never necessarily meant they didn't give as much as he did each game. According to Smith, in the early years of Jordan's prime, he usually managed to upset teammates by making negative remarks and commentary on their game. "Careless and lethargic," is how he once described the overall team play after being swept by the Detroit Pistons one playoff run. In fact, in the late 80s, the Bulls saw the playoffs so few times as they recorded several 50+ loss seasons that decade alone. Only in 1989 did they reach the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost in seven games to Detroit again. The past failure of the Bulls is heavily due to the fact that Jordan was just a rookie, the management was still in the middle of a rebuilding stage, and generally there was poor coaching. By 1991, this was all resolved by getting rid of Jerry Reinsdorf, who's offensive gameplan was basically was to ride Jordan each and every game, acquiring supporting talent to help out Jordan (i.e. Scottie Pippen), and by hiring the renowned coach, Phil Jackson, who went on to make the Bull's game a team game with a triangle offense dominant offensive game, rather than just Jordan trying his best to dunk on someone.
Now why is this important? Well, to me it gave greater insight on to a very strategic, yet free flowing contest. Being familiar with the triangle offense, I found that it made sense that Jackson had used it for the Bull's. Jordan, who was always getting bodied wherever he was on the court, was now able to breathe a little and others could get the ball. This also sends a message of a spread out effort rather than just depending on one, core effort. Strength comes in numbers, and that had to be learned in order to win.
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