- 3 months ago
Jerome Richard Krause, great or lucky?
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00:22Hi everybody, I'm Brian Kenney, and welcome to ESPN Classic's Top 5 Reasons You Can't
00:27Blame, a series that takes a fresh look at sports personalities who are remembered largely
00:31for their mistakes, controversial moments, or questionable decisions. Our mission is
00:36to neither vilify nor exonerate, but instead to challenge conventional thinking and re-examine
00:41what has been accepted as fact. You'll see new evidence and hear new testimony. All you need
00:46is an open mind. Now in this show, we'll count down the reasons why you can't blame Jerry Krause
00:51for the demise of the Chicago Bulls after their incredible run of six NBA championships in eight
00:56years. First, let's take a look back at the evidence against him.
01:00Jordan, a drive, hang, fire, get out! He scores! Oh my goodness!
01:07Every single night that you watched Michael Jordan, he was Michael freaking Jordan every single time.
01:15It was just astounding just for the sheer beauty of what he did on the floor and the sheer success
01:20of what he did made all of our lives brighter.
01:23There was a certain excitement about the team. There was a certain, like, rock star mentality
01:28about the team. It was great. If one night one of us didn't have it, you could never tell.
01:32We were able to feed off each other and find a way to get ourselves going.
01:36The Bulls of the 90s were probably, without question, one of the three best teams in the history
01:43of the NBA. When you win six championships, especially three in a row, I think you would consider that
01:53particular team a dynasty.
01:56But the wonderful ride would end in abrupt bitterness. Just a week after Michael Jordan
02:02nailed the Bulls' sixth title and second three-peat in June of 1998, Phil Jackson confirmed he wouldn't
02:09resign as head coach. By January of 1999, Jordan and Scotty Pippen were also gone. Standing amid the rubble
02:18of the collapsed dynasty was the Bulls' vice president of basketball operations.
02:25You see if you can make your conference finals, make a conference finals, make another finals,
02:35make a second-round run, and then you retire when everyone's 40.
02:45Jerry Crouse.
02:47He alienated so many people. I mean, he just has such a horrible way about him.
02:52He's not a very personable guy. He's not very media-friendly. He really knows how to put his foot
02:57in his mouth.
02:58The personal insecurities that Jerry sometimes has, his ability to irritate people, to be brusque,
03:05all of those things factor in.
03:07He is blamed for destroying the team because he allowed his ego to intervene between
03:12the team, the coach, and all the people involved.
03:18If Crouse qualified as a scapegoat, he was also a major architect of the team that dominated the
03:231990s. But, like Rodney Dangerfield, he got no respect.
03:29That's all Jerry wants is to be accepted and to be loved and to get some credit. He's always kind
03:35of had
03:35the inferiority complex his entire life and his entire career.
03:39I think Jerry believes he never got enough credit as a scout for finding talent.
03:44And nobody ever knew who Jerry Crouse was before he became a general manager.
03:48And I think once in that position, he decided, well, now it's time.
03:53He was the guy who, uh, he was the guy under the Cubs. They didn't do anything. And then he
04:01was the guy under the Bullets. Um, they were solid. He actually worked for the Bulls, the Suns,
04:12the Lake, the Sixers before, and not many of those teams did anything. And then when he got
04:20to the Bulls, they already had Michael Jordan. How hard is your job if the greatest player
04:27of all time probably at this sport is just waiting for you there? It can't be that hard.
04:35I took public jabs at Phil Jackson. I think Jerry, uh, resented the fact that, that Phil got so much
04:43of the credit when he had hired Phil in the first place. He was basically a buffoon who was riding
04:49the
04:49coattails of Michael Jordan while representing himself as, as the brains behind Michael Jordan.
04:58During media day in October of 1997, Crouse went public with his feelings by saying organizations
05:06win championships. To me, that sort of, uh, epitomized what happened with the Bulls and why
05:13the run ended. I think it was a slap to the players on that team. And I think Michael
05:19took that very, very hard. He's the greatest player ever. He deserved the credit. And yet,
05:25from his perspective, here's Jerry Crouse trying to get credit and saying organizations win
05:30championships. As discontent festered, the Jordan Jackson Alliance strengthened.
05:37Jerry Crouse and I were, you know, really having difficulties working together.
05:42And Jerry really wanted me out and he wanted to start over again and to, to begin anew.
05:48Michael hated Crouse so much that Michael was willing to place his principles on the table
05:54and say, I just, I won't play anymore if you fire my coach or run him out of town.
05:59He hopes that it turns around and at some point they can work it out and Phil will stay there.
06:04He really held tight to that. And then, when it didn't happen, you know, that was probably the,
06:09uh, the worst day of his career.
06:11I am here to, to announce my retirement from the game of basketball.
06:16Michael Jordan never wanted to retire. He didn't want to leave. His head was forced
06:22by Jerry Crouse.
06:23It is a tragedy that he allowed Michael to get away.
06:26Jerry Crouse thought that the only way he could preserve any kind of place in history was
06:32to build a team from scratch without Phil Jackson, without Michael Jordan.
06:36He truly wanted to wipe that slate clean after six championships and, and started over in his
06:44image and proved that he could win a ring by himself.
06:51When the dust of defection had settled, the Bulls were gelded of championship talent.
06:57They failed to make the playoffs the next six seasons.
07:02After Crouse dismantled the team, the team became a, a civic joke, a civic embarrassment.
07:08It was every Chicagoan's dystopian nightmare. Uh, things went from bad to worse to worse.
07:15Jerry Crouse will go down as the most hated man in the history of Chicago sports,
07:20which is exactly what he didn't want.
07:24There's, there's also Steve Bartman and the Billy Goat guy.
07:29Just seeing why Jerry Crouse is blamed for the fall of the Bulls.
07:32We're going to count down the top five reasons you can't blame Jerry Crouse later in the show.
07:36But here are a few additional reasons why you can't call Crouse. We call them the best of the rest.
07:41Look, Crouse won 69% of his games with
07:45joining 33% without.
07:52Maybe he wasn't that good.
07:56A lust for credit.
07:58I remember talking to B.J. Armstrong and Scotty Pippen.
08:02Somebody asked Scotty, you know, what do you think the legacy of this team is going to be?
08:05And then the smile that was on his face just totally disappeared.
08:09And he said, all they're going to remember is Michael winning championships.
08:12You have volatile egos run amok.
08:17You have championship banners hanging everywhere.
08:20And you have everybody wanting credit in some way, shape or form for their part of that banner.
08:28I think that really explains a lot when you look at why that team broke up.
08:31I defy you to find me somebody who could have come in and kept that thing together with all those
08:37diverse personalities and egos.
08:40Another best of the rest, attrition.
08:43Ten Bulls became free agents after the 1998 season.
08:47I think ultimately the reason the Bulls were broken apart was because everybody's contract ended in 98.
08:55I think it was unrealistic to expect the team to all of a sudden just say,
09:00sure, we'll put together a hundred million dollar payroll and try to win one more championship.
09:04We could have kept all of them by signing them to multi-year contracts,
09:08but we would then have been locked into mediocrity because of the NBA salary cap.
09:13If we had kept all of these guys around, we would not have been able to get better.
09:21Reason number five is the defendant in this case, Jerry Krause.
09:25He delivered quality goods.
09:28It's unfair for the city to hate Jerry Krause and dismiss him as a bumbling idiot.
09:33He put six championship teams on the floor.
09:36Who else did that?
09:37Aside from Michael Jordan, um...
09:39He had guys there for Michael Jordan to play with, but he already had Michael Jordan.
09:48That's like putting a ladder on the top of the Empire State Building and saying you built the entire Empire
09:57State Building.
10:02He was the most valuable person.
10:04I mean, he assembled that team year after year.
10:07He assembled it and then he reassembled it and he filled in the holes and he brought in the pieces.
10:11And that was all Krause.
10:13When Krause was hired as vice president of basketball operations in March of 1985,
10:19the Bulls, who had made the playoffs once in seven seasons, were a pedestrian band with one brilliant soloist.
10:26We had a bad ball club and a young man named Jordan and 11 guys we didn't want.
10:32And, uh, and we had to rebuild that to totally turn that thing around.
10:37Every single component in 26 championships was provided by Jerry Krause, starting with Bill Jackson himself.
10:44There was a plan there that he followed that worked perfectly.
10:48The genius of Jerry Krause was in finding players who would be better playing with Michael Jordan than they would
10:54be anyplace else.
10:55Krause was able to complement him with Bill Cartwright.
10:58Defense, rebounding, and Cartwright was a special kind of personality that affected the rest of the team.
11:05Horace Grant became one of the Bulls' Dobermans, one of the key people in their pressure defense, one of the
11:10key people in their rebounding.
11:12There were some tremendous coups.
11:14The guy who really identified and really maneuvered and moved mountains to orchestrate a deal to get Scottie Pittman was
11:20Jerry Krause.
11:21We went after John Paxson.
11:23No one especially was interested in John Paxson.
11:25He was practically a gift to us.
11:31After Chicago completed its first three-peat in 1993, Michael Jordan abruptly retired in the wake of gambling allegations and
11:40his father's murder.
11:41Two years later, when Jordan returned to the Bulls, Krause again revamped his star supporting cast.
11:48Jordan and Pippen are the only two players on the second three-peat team that were on the first three
11:55-peat team.
11:55So over a couple of years, Jerry really turned the ball club over.
11:59I think history will show that Jerry Krause needs to be given credit for putting that support staff around Jordan.
12:06The Chicago Bulls are world champions for the sixth time in the 90s.
12:12I knew there was a good time where we were going to have to rebuild.
12:14It wasn't something that I relished, but at that time, I wanted to continue that team as long as we
12:20could win championships.
12:23When the brilliant trinity of Jordan, Jackson, and Pippen went their separate ways, Krause hunkered down in the hope of
12:29crafting a new championship team.
12:32What were you going to do? At that point, you had no Pippen, you had no Jordan, you had no
12:36Phil Jackson, you had no veteran core.
12:38The best idea was to break it down, to start over, to draft high, to save money under the cap
12:44for free agency.
12:45You can't blame Jerry Krause because he won six championships in eight years, and you win six championships, you don't
12:52deserve to be blamed for anything.
12:55Did that reason grab you? If not, we've got four more to go. Here's reason number four.
13:02Scottie Pippen. If Krause was unappreciated by the fans, Pippen was short-ended by the front office.
13:09Voted in 1996 as one of his 50 all-time greatest players, the seven-time All-Star complained that he
13:18was not only unappreciated, but underpaid.
13:21Scottie said stuff like that all the time, you know. He's quitting the team, he's quitting basketball.
13:26I mean, you know, who could do that? He says, I'm never going to wear a Bulls uniform again.
13:29Scottie thought that he should get more respect. He thought that he should be held up on a pedestal as
13:34a superstar in the league.
13:36The 98 season when Pippen was out injured and angry and asking to be traded, Krause was on the bus,
13:42and Pippen was drunk at the back, screaming at Jerry Krause to trade him. And it got really ugly.
13:50The source of Pippen's frustration was a five-year, $18 million contract extension he signed in 1991. Three years later,
13:59he was the Bulls' fifth highest paid player.
14:02It was his fault. I mean, he wanted a contract that was front-loaded. So Jerry Reinsdorf held him to
14:10it and he resented that.
14:11Both Mr. Reinsdorf and I sat in the room with Scottie and said, don't sign this contract, it's going to
14:15be outmoded. And he said, I need the security, I want the contract.
14:20See, Scottie was immature and he just wanted that money. And even though Reinsdorf told him that, Pippen did it.
14:27When the Bulls refused to renegotiate his contract, Pippen began counting down his days to free agency.
14:34Scottie wanted out. He wanted to make his big money. And wanted to try to prove himself outside of the
14:39shadow of Jordan.
14:40I think Scottie was going to go. I really believe that. I think Scottie wanted a payday. He wanted a
14:44multi-year deal. He wanted security. I think that impacts everything else.
14:49Nine days after Jordan retired, Pippen got what he wanted by signing a five-year, $67 million contract with Chicago
14:57with the understanding he would be dealt to Houston in a sign-and-trade.
15:02With the Bulls dynasty reduced to a memory, the rest of the cast dispersed throughout the league.
15:08I ended up signing right after that with San Antonio and Judd Bushler signed with Detroit. Bill Wennington went to
15:15Sacramento.
15:16But Scottie's signing with Houston was probably the first domino to fall.
15:20I think a significant amount of blame can be placed on Scottie Pippen's departure from Chicago and the downfall of
15:27the Chicago Bulls.
15:28He was a player that you could build a team around. And when he left, I think it all kind
15:32of fell apart.
15:36Phil Jackson left. His decision not to renew his contract drove a stake into the heart of the Bulls.
15:43The one person who might have been able to keep the dynasty together was Phil Jackson.
15:47Because I think if Jackson had decided to come back, Jordan would have played for him.
15:51Phil deserves some of the blame. I really believe that they would have stuck around for one more year.
15:58Jerry Reinsdorf would have brought them all back for one more year if Phil had given the word.
16:03Acting in concert with Michael Jordan, Jackson over nine seasons had created such a steely, if not insular team mentality,
16:11there was no room for anyone from the outside, especially Jerry Krause.
16:16One common binding element he found was that they all had this resentment on some level about something toward Krause.
16:23And he said, well, maybe we can use that.
16:25Phil was the ringleader. And that was the most amazing thing to me about Phil,
16:29was how he was able to get these superstar players to side with him and create these perceived battles between
16:37the players and management.
16:39Phil was motivating the team. And it's a great ploy. And it was the players against management. And it worked.
16:47He knew how much power he had. He knew that no matter pretty much whatever he did, that he wouldn't
16:53be looked at as the bad guy.
16:55Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf would be looked at as the bad guys. And he took advantage of that power.
17:00Jerry Krause did not break up the Bulls. Phil Jackson broke up the Bulls. Phil Jackson engineered the whole thing.
17:06They wanted Phil to come back and coach again. Jerry Reinsdorf begged him to come back and coach again.
17:12But Jackson vowed that he would coach one more year and never coach again.
17:16Even though, at the end of the season, the ownership still offered me a job,
17:21Jerry Krause and I basically had an agreement that we got on far enough with each other.
17:25I think Phil Jackson, up until the moment he got on his motorcycle and rode off into the sunset,
17:31could have said, you know what, I want to coach one more year or I want to coach two more
17:35years.
17:35Phil did walk away from his team in a lot of ways.
17:40He portrayed it as being pushed out when in fact he was moving on his own volition.
17:47Three reasons down and two to go. Here's reason number two.
17:51Jerry Reinsdorf, out of loyalty to Krause, the Bulls owner chose not to address the impending breakup.
17:58I have to blame the owner for this because I can think of too many owners out there
18:01who would have found a way to keep this all together.
18:04I think the fault rests with him.
18:06It still takes an owner with some vision and some charisma to be able to bring them all back
18:13to the bargaining table each year and keep it together until it's time to dismantle it.
18:18A hands-off owner, Reinsdorf deferred all decisions and their results to Krause.
18:25The only real decisions, of course, that I made were to get people who knew what they were doing
18:30so I could stand out of the way and let them get their jobs done.
18:33We talk about everything and I will give him my reasoning and thing, but basically basketball,
18:37he's left it to me to make those decisions.
18:40This is what fuddles me about the Reinsdorf ownership is that all of this was going on beneath him here.
18:48I never got the feeling he was so hands-on in certain times when he should have been.
18:53He always sat back and said, no, this is Krause's baby.
18:56Jerry Reinsdorf's hands-off approach, you know, I think did a lot of damage to the Bulls
19:01in the fact that at some point you have to take responsibility of your franchise.
19:05I think that approach was the demise of the Chicago Bulls.
19:08He's a loyal guy and he believes that Jerry Krause did a lot to build that dynasty
19:13and he's not going to just cast him aside, not even for Michael Jordan.
19:19In the end, you lost them both, Jordan and Jackson, because Reinsdorf refused to ever side with the other two.
19:26He had to side and be loyal to Jerry Krause to the end.
19:29Jerry Reinsdorf loyalty is a most admirable trait but also a weakness in this case
19:37because it resulted in the demolition of this team.
19:45Michael Jordan, the best and most influential player in the NBA,
19:50could have come down to earth and kept the Bulls together.
19:54Michael Jordan is responsible for demonizing Jerry Krause.
19:58For all his gifts and his glibness,
20:02Michael Jordan is still at heart the guy who picks on the kid at the back of the bus sometimes.
20:07And Jerry Krause was that kid for many years for him.
20:10One day we were on the bus and Michael said from the back of the bus,
20:14Jerry, you can go fishing tomorrow, they got a lot of lakes out here.
20:18He said, don't worry about it if you don't catch anything, you can always eat the bait.
20:23Jerry Krause was first and foremost Michael Jordan's enemy.
20:25Michael Jordan is everyone's hero.
20:29You gotta hate Jerry Krause.
20:31Jordan had a personal animus for Krause that was almost contemptible.
20:37And that boiled over into a friction between players and the general manager
20:43that shouldn't have been there, didn't need to be there.
20:46Let's face it, Michael Jordan is the reason the Bulls won.
20:49But Krause did a few things that helped and it wouldn't have killed him to give him a little bit
20:53of credit,
20:54but Michael just couldn't find it in his heart to do that.
20:56When we traded Charles Oakley for Bill Carvey,
20:59Michael came out and blasted me personally and blasted the organization and said we never should.
21:03Of course, because Charles Oakley and Michael joined our close personal friends.
21:10Should have traded Charles.
21:11Michael could have made it easier by just, you know, being nice to the guy every once in a while.
21:15But let's face it, Michael was the man.
21:18No matter what he did, he could do no wrong in the eyes of his teammates and the fans.
21:24Michael had so much power with his teammates, with his coaching staff,
21:29that if he had made the move to come back, it's likely that other guys would have fouled him.
21:33I would have stayed if Michael was there. I definitely would have stayed.
21:37I think Jordan's retirement hurt the Bulls the most.
21:40If Jordan stays, Phil Jackson stays, Scottie Pepin stays, the team stays intact.
21:45Because Jordan, he's the man in Chicago. He makes that thing go.
21:50Had Michael Jordan been there, the demise would have never occurred.
21:54It never would have gone from a world championship to 15, 17 victories in one season.
22:03You can attribute it almost totally to Michael Jordan's departure.
22:13There you have it, the top five reasons you can't blame Jerry Krause for the demise of the Chicago Bulls.
22:18Maybe we change your mind.
22:20But if you're still watching this, our guess is we at least made you think of the story in a
22:23different light.
22:24I'm Brian Kenney. Thanks for watching.
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