The Jordan Rules (3 page)

I kept those letters. Eventually, Shari found a big publisher and worked up to about a $60,000 advance. Which sounded great. But now I had to write a book in my spare time. I was in Oakland with the Bulls during the annual long road trip the Bulls took when the circus descended on the old Chicago Stadium. I went out to celebrate at a local seafood restaurant. I was alone. I ordered the Dungeness crab. I thought, “Geez, what have I gotten myself into? Be careful what you ask for. You might actually get it.”

***

There's always been this mystery and guessing game about
The Jordan Rules
: Who was the source, the Deep Throat. I've always hated that since the implication is someone handed me all this information and I sat around and just waited. Real people don't say they are insulted. Just politicians when they don't want to answer. I was insulted, though I've never been considered important enough to say so. Before coming to the
Tribune
, I was an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C. I have an accounting degree and a Master's. I know how to get the story.

There was no secret source. Everyone was the source. That's the great thing about the NBA: It's the only sports league built like a small town. The NFL is like the military filled with classified information. Baseball is insular and shrouded in obscure lore. But the NBA is Mayberry at Floyd's Barber Shop. Did you hear what Clara Edwards said? There are basically no secrets in the NBA. Everyone talks about everybody. There aren't that many players, and only a few who really matter. Agents tell secrets to get other clients. Backstabbing is a hobby. It's also why all the conspiracy stories are ridiculous. No one can keep a real secret in the NBA.

And so it was that way around the Bulls. Back then, it was 5 a.m. wakeups for us all. Phil would often let me ride with the team when he decided to show them America, taking the bus between Houston and San Antonio or Portland and Seattle instead of flying like the other teams. The players never much cared, but one of Phil's secrets was that he did. He came from a family of ministers, and to him his team was something of a congregation. He felt responsible for educating them. One of the stories I loved best in
The Jordan Rules
was during the first Gulf War, when the U.S. was deciding whether to go into Baghdad. Phil asked the players their opinion one day in a team meeting, and the aggressive young kids like Jordan, Pippen, and Grant were saying to go for the kill. That George Bush, the 41st president, didn't, I thought, was one of his greatest victories. Phil asked them to think about whether such an invasion might not only cause enormous loss of life, but might also light a fuse to an explosion 20 years later that could target the U.S. and kill thousands of Americans.

Phil felt it was his responsibility to open them up to more than basketball. He knew the birthdays of the wives or girlfriends. I remember him saying that even a nod as a player came off the floor or a question about something going on at home was as important as a game plan. It showed he cared, and that they mattered to him. Did I ride along to reveal secrets I wasn't supposed to know? I believed in the what's-there-stays-there thing with the team. I took those rides strictly off the record, which meant no reporting. I did pump Phil constantly for his theories on basketball and life. But every bit of information about things that went on behind the scenes came from interviews with people who were there and shared the stories with me. And there wasn't anyone in the organization, including Jordan, who wasn't cooperative.

Despite what they tell the students in school, journalism isn't “publish or perish.” It's creating relationships. To me, there is no relationship ever worth ruining for a story. To me, there never is one story big enough. You get your stories from working with people. It's why I can still work with the Bulls and those players all these years later. They knew I maintained the distinction. Even Jordan.

***

As the years went on, Michael's prickly and demanding behavior, which was doubted at publication, became widely accepted. The book didn't end any potential dynasty and I didn't have to feel badly about costing someone a job. But I did have a regret. At the time, with the internal difficulties plaguing the team, Bulls general manager Jerry Krause and I weren't getting along much. Well, basically not speaking. Jerry will be viewed somewhat better by history, much like the book, as people come to accept he was the chief executive of a team that won six titles, and the way Jordan and Pippen treated him did less justice to them. But at the time, Krause was the villain.

Actually, I'd gotten along well with Jerry years before, and once in Portland, where he had lived, I spent a day with him touring around and seeing old ballparks where he worked. Of course, he did go back to the team hotel and have his room changed seven times because the bed wasn't to his liking. There were always things like that which made the jokes too easy.

When it came to acknowledgements in the book, I said something nice about everyone. Except Jerry. I didn't say anything bad, but I just left him out. I've regretted that for a long time, as despite our adversarial relationship, I realized that omission hurt Jerry. Jerry tends not to take things well, and after publication he confronted me with a list of what he said were 183 mistakes in the book. For example, I characterized his dress as “slovenly.” He said it wasn't. He was too easy a target with his perpetual grumbling, and Jordan and Pippen relentlessly mocked him. I wish I hadn't taken the easy way out. I wish I'd thanked him, if not for being the most cooperative executive, for being professional and allowing all of us to do our work. And he did a heck of a job. Thanks, Jerry.

***

Since I'd never written a book I wasn't quite sure how to do it. Having grown up in newspapers, lying about my age to get a delivery job at 11 and priding myself on being a deadline writer, I'm not much of an editor or rewriter. I remember reading Hemingway rewrote the last line to
A Farewell to Arms
39 times before he was satisfied. I have accepted not being Hemingway. I like to think about what I'm going to write, but once I begin I don't like to change much. Habit, I guess, as newspaper writing, especially in sports with late night game deadlines, doesn't allow much change or deep contemplation. We'd always joke we loved the daily newspaper because it allowed us to correct our mistakes the next day.

I know you are supposed to be more literary and accomplished when you write books. But I prefer the faster feedback. I suspect I'm more wired for the daily journalism business. I like to get a story and tell it immediately. Who wants to wait six months? What's the fun of knowing something and then not being able to tell someone for a long time? I always considered myself a better reporter than a writer. I liked that part the best. I loved finding out things. I couldn't wait to tell someone. It was so much more difficult to write it down. I'd always read someone who used the word I never could quite grasp. Eventually I decided what was best for me was to have fun with the writing with a joke and a bit of my sardonic personality. But that's rarely allowed in newspapers. Just the facts, ma'am.

I've always viewed writing as entertainment. I never could understand all those “classics” I had to read in school. I hated that stuff. I believe that Shakespeare movie that postulated someone else wrote those plays. A talent like Shakespeare would never take credit for that convoluted, hard-to-read stuff. My secret, if you will, is to inform and entertain. What's the point if too many won't read it because it's too confusing. I never was much for writing for the other writers.

So my first interest and responsibility, anyway, remained my daily beat job with
The Tribune
. Plus, it was going to be an exciting and turning point season on some level—break through or break up the team—so it was to be a good newspaper story. Not only was that my first responsibility, but it also was my first love. I loved going to the games, hanging around with the coaches and a few players on the road and talking basketball. It's just a simple game and we could talk endlessly about it, in large part because of the small town element. Every game no matter how seemingly insignificant was a test of character and ability, to see who could perform when it was most important. So you'd have as much interest in the neighbors, so to speak, as your own family. What was Ewing doing? Or Reggie? Can you believe what Hakeem was saying? Or Barkley? And how about a trade? We know I love to speculate on those permutations.

So I decided I'd cover the team just as I always had. I got my book advance. I had my computer and babysitting money. I'd travel and go to games and write all the daily stories and Sunday features and league notebooks. Then I'd set up a lunch after practice or dinner on the road with a player or coach, say it was to gather book material and discuss things that went on over a period of time. I started gathering the book information about a month after the season began, in December, and started writing the book in January.

My son, Connor, was about 18 months at the time, and I didn't want to miss any more of those important times than I had to. So I'd get home from a practice on the off day, write my story for the newspaper, mess around with him until he went to sleep and then write at night. I was usually about two months behind on information, meaning in February I'd be working on material from December. It usually took several weeks of going to different players and coaches to find out what happened at a certain time. I'd take about four nights a week, usually from about 10 p.m. until about 4 a.m., and write. I did virtually all the writing for the book at those hours. I've never been able to wake early. My first newspaper job in Ft. Wayne, Indiana was for an afternoon newspaper that came out around 3 p.m., which meant you did a lot of your reporting in the morning. The news final deadline was about 1:30 p.m. So you'd have to be in the office by 7 a.m. I was at that job for almost four years and never felt rested. For the book, I'd write until maybe 4 a.m., then sleep until noon (my wife had the early shift and I'd take care of my son if he got up before 4 a.m. or 5 a.m.), and get ready for the game.

How did I decide what to put in the book? Well, there were several other beat writers with the team. So it was obvious what was being reported daily. My job as an author was to create more depth for the book, expanding on what everyone knew or thought they knew. The depth basically came from the follow-up meetings and storylines I pursued and things I'd find out months later. So that's what happened? It was often made clear from players and coaches there were things they were okay with in a book they did not want to see in a newspaper. Something in the newspaper meant a cascade of immediate questions and perhaps a distraction for the team. So many times players and coaches would tell me I could write something but not for the newspaper, and we'd do the interview on those grounds. Certain things were vital for history if not necessarily for immediacy.

***

The Jordan Rules
wasn't a difficult story to get if you looked. For several years, players would tell me something about how Jordan had held someone up to ridicule, or skipped a mandatory workout of some sort. Phil had explained publicly, which was part of his brilliance, that the pretty girl gets kissed. In other words, some people just get better treatment because society sees them as more special than others. For instance, it was mandatory for everyone to listen to Phil's pregame talk. Michael never did. His pregame habit, or at least one of them, was to have a bowel movement while Phil was making his pregame remarks. I don't believe Michael was making any sort of editorial statement. But it became a habit, and fortunately for him he was very regular. Players would tell me to write about it. I would tell them to say it and I'd quote them. They couldn't do that, of course. So players were only too happy to fill me in on intimate details about the team. For example, as told in the book, Michael was brutal with Dennis Hopson. It was nothing personal, sort of like his and Pippen's stupidity toward Toni Kukoc during the 1992 Olympics, brutalizing him only because Krause was so committed to recruiting Kukoc. Hopson wasn't open to discussing the situation, but teammates and friends were anxious to talk about how he was treated.

Michael regularly picked on Horace Grant to the point of embarrassment, and Horace was happily anxious to talk about it. I've been friendly with Horace and many have suggested he was the main source for the book, and certainly the source of certain information. But any reading of the book shows so much he could never have known about. Scottie would hang out with Michael, but then Michael would tell Scottie to fetch something for him and Scottie would be furious and quite open about it. He'd invite me back to his home and fill me in. For Michael, it was just fun, and often I thought the players took the joking too seriously. But it's not easy spending so much time together, especially with someone so celebrated when you're used to being a star athlete your whole life. For all of Michael's teammates, that ended as they were pushed out of the way, literally, as people tried to get at Jordan. Fans would ask Pippen and Grant to get Jordan's autograph for them.

Michael had been marketed as perfect. And he looked the part with that magnificent smile and spectacular game. I always figured
The Jordan Rules
took some pressure off him by showing he wasn't perfect and didn't have to be, and that the fans would still love him. Not that the book did him any great favors. But he always worried about being unloved and unpopular, and here I was writing about him being a real guy, hardly a criminal but difficult at times. How dare me! And you know what, they still loved him. Maybe even more.

I did see in Michael the elements of sporting genius. I wrote in the book about how B.J. Armstrong went to the library (they had to use those back then) to check out books on genius to help understand Jordan better. I loved that and knew B.J. would have a special career after basketball; he is now a highly regarded agent. It's the genius of guys like Kobe, as well. Really, most of them, like Kareem, Oscar, Isiah. You didn't mess around with Larry Bird. If you wanted to have fun, Kevin McHale was the good time guy, not Larry. Brilliance rarely includes kindness. The really great ones have this streak in them that manifests itself in different ways. Kobe's competitiveness is much like Jordan's, and like Jordan, he's tough on teammates. But Jordan was more comfortable with people and outgoing in a way Kobe never understood how to be. With Jordan, there generally was a good reason why he said or did something, and I always tried to explain what it was.