Close your eyes and picture it: Michael Jordan and a young Tracy McGrady running the wing together, donned in Bulls red.
Apparently, that fantasy isn't as far-fetched as it might seem.
With the recent release of "The Last Dance" on Michael Jordan and the 1998 Bulls, an old clip from ESPN's "The Jump” resurfaced, in which McGrady describes a plot by Bulls general manager Jerry Krause to flip Scottie Pippen for him at the 1997 NBA Draft.
The full video:
"What a lot of people don't know about that night is that Jerry Krause was actually trying to make a trade for me with Scottie Pippen in it," McGrady said, to the shock of Rachel Nichols and Ramona Shelburne. "And Michael Jordan axed that whole deal."
Asked if he knew about that potential trade in the moment, McGrady said yes, even admitting that Krause hosted him for a secret meeting in advance of the draft to talk details.
NBA
"It was a couple days before the draft," McGrady told Nichols of the meeting. "It was all secret, it was all secretive, and it didn't get out... I'm 18 years old and I think I'm about to get traded to Chicago to play with Michael Jordan?
"But Mike wasn't having that."
A central point of conflict in the first two episodes of "The Last Dance" has been Krause's desire to set the Bulls up for a fruitful rebuild before the dynasty had naturally concluded. Folded into that is a palpable tension between Krause and Pippen, who was frustrated with being notably undercompensated but who Krause deemed on the downswing of his career. By the conclusion of Episode 2, Pippen had gone full tilt with a public trade demand and opently berated Krause on the team bus.
Apparently, Krause almost granted Pippen's wish months in advance. But luckily, it didn't come to pass. Though the infusion of McGrady would have jump-started that aformentioned rebuild, it would have come at the cost of a special 1997-98 season, which we now all get to relive.
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