The final two episodes of The Last Dance, the extraordinary documentary about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, centred on the Bulls's rivalry with the Utah Jazz. The Bulls beat the Jazz in the 1997 and 98 Finals and those series featured Jordan at his most ruthless.
Karl Malone, who was the star of that Jazz team, does not feature in the programme, so it's impossible to fully know (though very easy to guess) what he thinks of Jordan in 2020. Or so we thought. An interview with Malone recorded in February about MJ magically surfaced in the last 24 hours.
It features a white-bearded Malone trying to explain his thoughts on Jordan. We'd politely suggest that it appears that Jordan is still renting property in Malone's head, 22 years later.
Now we know what Karl Malone thinks of Michael Jordan pic.twitter.com/Q7a7QdFHZp
— E60 (@E60) May 20, 2020
“Everybody says this person (Karl) was a bad man and all that. Well, yes, I give them respect. But I’ve got a setup. I’m a man, and I was a bad son of a bitch, too. So that’s how I look at that, and that’s who I am.”
Jason Hehir, who directed the documentary, said this week that Malone refused many opportunities to take part in the show.
"He declined through another party," Hehir said. "We asked him multiple times. Believe me, we exhausted just about every avenue. We started in January 2018 on that one because we knew that (Malone) was gonna be a tough sell."
