Jerry Krause - The Chicago Bulls - "The Last Dance"

"The Last Dance"

Krause and head coach Phil Jackson had been friends for years, but their relationship was, in Jackson's opinion, shattered early in the 1990s after Chicago Tribune reporter Sam Smith (who Krause despised) published a book on the 1991 title team, The Jordan Rules. The book detailed the tension that already existed between Krause and the players, and ultimately drove a wedge between Krause and Jackson. Regardless of the success Jackson had as head coach of the Bulls, the tension between Jackson and Krause grew in the succeeding years, and by the 1997–98 season, was especially illustrated by the following incidents:

• During the summer of 1997, Krause's stepdaughter got married. All of the Bulls assistant coaches and their wives were invited to the wedding, as was Tim Floyd, then the head coach at Iowa State, whom Krause was openly courting as Jackson's successor (and who would eventually succeed Jackson). Jackson and his then wife, June, were not even told of the wedding, much less invited, only finding out about the event when the wife of Cartwright, who by that time had become a Bulls assistant, asked June what she would be wearing to the reception.
• After contentious negotiations between Jackson and the Bulls in that same period, Jackson was signed for the 1997-98 season only. Krause announced the signing in what Chicago media widely considered to be a mean-spirited manner, emphasizing that Jackson would not be rehired even if the Bulls won the 1997–98 title. That triggered an argument between Jackson and Krause in which Jackson essentially told Krause that he seemed to be rooting for the other side and not the Bulls. At that point, Krause told Jackson, "I don't care if it's 82-and-0 this year, you're fucking gone."
• Krause publicly portrayed Jackson as a two-faced character who had very little regard for his assistant coaches, a perception that certain Krause associates in the Bulls organization had sought to spread about Jackson. At the height of the hard feelings in the spring of 1998, one of Krause's scouts went to press row in Chicago's United Center to explain to a reporter the insidious nature of Jackson's ego (excerpt from the Phil Jackson biography Mindgames).

Amid the distractions, the Bulls still won their sixth title in eight years.

After the Bulls' final title of the Jordan era in 1998, Jackson left the team vowing never to coach again but after he took a year off he decided to give it another chance with the Lakers. Longtime friend of Krause and Bulls assistant coach, Tex Winter, who was the architect of the triangle offense, also soon left the Bulls to accept a job working with Jackson and the Lakers. Krause said that he has not spoken to Jackson since. Despite the obvious joined success of coach, player and general manager, Krause, Jackson and Jordan have never posed together in any photograph. When Jordan was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Krause was not in attendance. While Jordan stated that he did not invite Krause to the ceremony and said "I don't know who would invite him," Krause said that while he and Jordan were never friends, he would not have attended the ceremony in any case, because of his personal boycott of the Hall of Fame over their refusal to induct Winter.