The basketball world has been enthralled by the first four installments of ESPN’s The Last Dance documentary on Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls. The documentary hasn’t just followed that season, but has traced the history of the major players and how the Bulls as a franchise got to that chase for a sixth ring in a masterful bit of storytelling and structure.
Sunday night the world got to see the third and fourth episodes, that focus heavily on the Bulls having to conquer the Detroit Pistons and their various struggles in doing so. The journey Michael Jordan takes to his first championship and the criticism he faced as being just a scoring champ and not elevating his teammates were awfully similar to those lobbed at LeBron James as he was trying to get over the hump to win his first title.
While some like Dwyane Wade, Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum, and others have been active on Twitter during The Last Dance airings, LeBron — who stumped for the early release of the documentary on a podcast in March — hasn’t offered much public reaction. On Monday, James was watching the latest episodes and felt a special kinship to Jordan when they showed footage of the Bulls in the locker room after finally winning their first title in 1991 over the Lakers.
Watching Episode 4. Watching/Seeing MJ hold that first 🏆 damn near had me tearing up 🥺! That feeling and level of emotions is unexplainable when you been through the 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 27, 2020
LeBron knows that feeling of finally getting over the hump to your first title after years of racking up individual accolades, so it’s not surprising that he connected to that moment especially. There are plenty — particularly Jordan fans — that would be quick to point out that LeBron’s first title didn’t come with the team he came in with, but was instead on the Big Three era Heat, which has been a constant critique ever since he left Cleveland for Miami in 2010. In the years since he has shed that label, most notably winning a title and bringing a championship to Cleveland in 2016, but that first championship still remains extra sweet whether people were happy about it or not.
