The focal point of Episode 6 of The Last Dance was Michael Jordan’s gambling, and the controversy that surrounded him in the 1993 playoffs after he took a trip to Atlantic City during the Eastern Conference Finals.
Jordan, infuriated by constant questions about his gambling habit and whether he had a problem, resulted in him going media silent for two weeks ahead of the NBA Finals. However, as they arrived in Phoenix for those Finals, Jordan called up Ahmad Rashad of NBC Sports — who was also his close friend — and said he wanted to do a sitdown interview before the game and talk about his gambling and get it all out there.
Rashad remembers scrambling to get a camera and get set up, but also wanted to do everything he could to make sure he didn’t look like a “homer” in giving Jordan an easy interview. As he recalled when speaking to Greg Braxton of the Los Angeles Times, Rashad asked NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol to write the questions for him, so as to ensure they got everything they wanted out of the interview.
“I said to Dick, ‘Here’s what I want you to do for me. I want you to give me the questions. You give me what you want out of this interview. That way it won’t look like I’m taking it easy on my friend.’”
What most remember about the interview is Jordan denying he had a gambling problem while wearing a pair of sunglasses indoors, which didn’t exactly help his case. Rashad said he and Michael laugh about it now, but not convincing him to take them off is his one regret about the entire thing.
“The only thing I wished, I wish he had taken those glasses off. I said, “Mike, can you take off the sunglasses?’ He laughed and said, ‘Aw, man, let’s just do this.’ ”
Having Ebersol write the questions — which neither Ebersol nor Rashad told anyone at the time — didn’t stop Rashad from getting criticized by his colleagues in the media for being too easy on Jordan, or simply being jealous of his access and wondering how he got the interview in the first place. Rashad’s friendship with Jordan is fascinating — and we really could use a documentary on Rashad’s life because it’s incredible — but in this instance he tried to go above and beyond to ensure he wasn’t giving Jordan an easy way out of what needed to be a strong interview.
