In the case of the Chicago Bulls, they could not have fallen any harder than in 1999. In a season that was plagued by a lockout lasting 204 days, the 1998-99 NBA season was only 50 games long, of which the Bulls won 13, good enough for last in the Eastern Conference. Coming off a second three-peat in the same decade, first to last is certainly not what the Bulls had in mind that year.
The team's look and performance was very different than years past
Listening to the lineup introduction of that season, it was highly irregular to hear a Bulls squad not featuring Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, or Dennis Rodman. Despite having Tony Kukoc and Ron Harper, that Chicago team was a shadow of what it once was. Head Coach Phil Jackson was gone as well, and things looked bleak for the team.
Toni Kukoc led the team with 18.8 points per game, one of the few diamonds in the rough for the Bulls that season. But, emblematic of the season to come, Kukoc’s season high 32 points in the season opener weren’t enough to beat the Jazz.
As the top dogs in the NBA for all of the 90s, the Bulls were certainly on other teams hit lists. Everyone wanted to take advantage of a Michael Jordan-less Bulls team and got some long awaited payback.
"It was a shocker. We didn't have MJ, we didn't have Scottie, Rodman was gone… When you beat everybody for five years straight, ten years straight, a lot of teams were trying to get revenge on our team," Ron Harper told NBA Europe in 2021. "We were just going out there, we were just trying to play and compete. It was a shortened season that year and we got beaten up but you know, they couldn't stand back from all the years that we needed to sit them."
Life after Michael
The next winning season after the 1997-98 championship wasn’t until the 2004-05 season. It took 7 years after Michael Jordan left Chicago for them to finally figure it out and string a winning record together. The team was coached by John Paxson, a member of the first Bulls three-peat in the 1990s.
The team also featured some recognizable faces like Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, and Luol Deng. However, the entire atmosphere and love from the fans was different. After so many years of success, the failures of the early 2000s in the wake of MJ could be felt by the players.
"In regards to playing for the Bulls after Jordan, it hit me right away," Eddy Curry once revealed. "Going to the game, right away, you realized the effect MJ had on the organization because we were horrible, but it was always packed in the United Center.”
Losing a star is always difficult, but losing the greatest star the game has ever seen was a challenge that took almost a decade to try and fix.
More must-reads: