Rozner: 'Last Dance' presents defining Jordan moment

Perhaps this column should come with a warning.

Not suitable for younger viewers? Well, that's not really fair. You can't suggest a young person couldn't understand Michael Jordan.

This could serve as a trigger? Maybe for the faint of heart.

Don't read if your vision of sports is holding hands and skipping rocks? That's probably it.

This will not be a celebration of participation trophies.

Michael Jordan wanted only the real thing, the one earned with sweat, tears and even blood, if that's what was necessary.

Jordan's legendary need to win has become the dominant theme of “The Last Dance,” and if that's offensive then you'll want no part of what follows.

There have been few revelations thus far, which hasn't made it any less riveting, but there was a big one Sunday night at the end of the seventh episode.

And it is by a mile THE compelling moment of the series.

After several former teammates spoke of the physical, emotional and verbal punishment Jordan inflicted on them in practice, in order to prepare them for the rigors of playoff basketball — hardly breaking news — that's when Jordan made his case for why it had to be that way.

Asked if that intensity was at the cost of being perceived as a nice guy, Jordan hesitated.

“I don't know. Winning has a price. And leadership has a price,” Jordan said. “So I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged. And I earned that right because my teammates that (arrived) after me didn't endure what I endured.

“Once you join the team, you live (up to) a certain standard ... and I wasn't going to take anything less. Now, if that means I have to go in there and get on your (butt) a little bit, then I did that.

“You ask all my teammates. One thing about Michael Jordan was, 'He never asked me to do something he didn't (bleeping) do.' ”

See, your average person — in sports or business — thinks leadership is talking loud, acting tough and making demands. That's not leadership. That's an obvious weakness and a passing of the buck. It's a transparent insecurity and laughable, asking something of others that they cannot do themselves.

To lead is to first outwork everyone else, to first do it better than everyone else, and only then demand others give all they have. It is first the example and then the mandate.

Jordan acknowledged that not all will view this as appropriate behavior, riding teammates until they broke or stepped up.

“When people see this, they're gonna say, 'Well, he wasn't really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant.' Well, that's you, because you never won anything,” Jordan said with disgust. “I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well.

“I don't have to do this,” Jordan said, meaning he didn't have to explain or defend himself. “I'm only doing this because it is who I am. That's how I played the game. That was my mentality.

“If you don't want to play that way ... don't play that way.”

With tears in his eyes, Jordan called a timeout and got out of his chair.

Wow.

That is a man in pain. He's in pain because he wants to win with every beat of his heart, and a man who is hurt that you would suggest he was a bad guy because he tried to get the same emotion from his teammates.

Those tears are his shock that you can't understand how important winning is to him, his shock that winning isn't that important to everyone.

How can you not get that? How can anything be more important? Don't you need to win? What else is there? How do YOU not need to win?

Those tears were a confession that he can't explain winning to someone who doesn't feel what he feels.

He could have gone all Jack Nicholson at that point, looked at the camera and said to everyone judging him from a couch, “I will not defend myself to someone who has not been in the arena, to someone who has not felt losing, has not felt the Pistons' elbows, has not held a trophy.”

Clearly, this approach is not for everyone. We are all put together in a different way. We are set apart by pain and suffering, good and bad upbringing, by wins and losses.

But if you've ever competed, regardless of the level, it's hard to imagine not wanting to drink in Jordan's desire, to bathe yourself in that life-altering passion to leave a contest with victory — or die trying.

The GOAT could not make any of those teammates as great as him, thus the title. He could not give them his talent. He could not hand them his ability to shine brightest in the biggest moments. He could not grant them his guts.

Those gifts are clearly so rare that there has never been another like him, and there will never be another like him. But he could make them better, smarter, tougher and help them find their desire to compete and win.

He never asked a bad player to be good, but he demanded good players find more, to reach as deep as an athlete could reach.

If you were a Bulls fan in the '90s, just know that all of your titles were a direct result of Jordan's demands.

His former teammates get it now even if they didn't like it then, and plenty of them clearly did not like it.

Funny, though, you don't see any of them giving back their rings in protest.