O'Donnell: 'The Last Dance' lacks dimensions of 'Hoop Dreams'

SO ON THE FLY, “The Last Dance” isn't “Hoop Dreams.”

But what is?

“Hoop Dreams” was the brilliant 1994 documentary produced by Steve James, Frederick Marx and Peter Gilbert for the Chicago-based Kartemquin Films.

From 250 hours of video shot over six years, it told the tales of two prospective inner-city basketball prodigies — Arthur Agee and William Gates — and their mine-plagued tries to reach the game's celestial heights.

The documentary transcended basketball.

It touched on race, class, values, institutional hypocrisy and the day-to-day realities of families trying to hold it all together against some of America's most mountainous societal odds.

Championed by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, it impacted the heart, soul and intellect in ways that only the absolute most astute marriage of filmmaking and subject can.

How many times does a viewer in a movie house mist up over a past-due electric bill being paid?

In “The Last Dance,” there are no worries about Michael Jordan paying his light bill.

In terms of cinematic craftsmanship, director Jason Hehir took close to 10,000 hours of fresh and archived video and somehow steamed it down into structure that will engage all the way to concluding Episodes 9 and 10 on Sunday night, May 17.

Finishing touches on those final two episodes were completed by virtual teamwork between New York, Southern California and Florida last Friday.

Whether ESPN will make them available for advance screening by reviewers — as the web did with the first eight episodes — isn't known.

One suggestion would be that the Disney sports child keep them away.

That always leaves open the possibility that Jerry Reinsdorf and researchers at The Institute For More Enlightened Sports Ownership discovered a time tunnel that enables the entire Jordan crew to return to 1998 and defend their sixth world championship.

That would certainly add bounce to Episode 10.

IN THE MEANTIME, random pontification in advance of Episodes 3 & 4 (ESPN, Sunday, 8 p.m.):

• It is laughably amazing how many “Jordan authorities” there have been tucked away in Chicago and national sports media for all these years.

Those babbling hyenas should realize the harder they try to “sell” their faux expertise, the more vacuous they read or sound. (The best are the suspicious 22-year-old undocumented “interviews” suddenly recalled.)

People with most intimate knowledge of much of what Jordan did in the years 1984 to 1999 and why he did it have generally not told their complete stories and most likely never will.

• History must note: At point of entry as Bulls VP of basketball ops in March 1985, Jerry Krause was positioned to own the city of Chicago.

He represented every nerdy 11-year-old, ahem, who thought he was fooling his parents by having a transistor radio tucked under his pillow on a school night to listen to the final innings of a Cubs-at-Dodgers or Giants game on WGN-AM (720).

But within a year of his surprise coronation, Krause had begun his relentless alienation of Jordan and media. And by the time “TLD” begins in October 1997, that boat of potential civic like was more storm-doomed than The Edmund Fitzgerald.

STREET-BEATIN': The 2020 NFL draft should draw record viewership as it begins its laborious three-day run across multiple broadcast platforms Thursday (ESPN, NFL Network, ABC, et al; Joe Burrow goes No. 1 shortly after 7 p.m., the biggest thing to hit Cincinnati since Pete Rose's tax returns.) ...

Nine fans reportedly will be socially distanced inside Roger Goodell's basement to provide virtual booing. ...

Point of intrigue within will be the prominence of Trey Wingo in coverage. Reports grow that he is in his final months as co-host of “Golic and Wingo,” ESPN Radio's national morning-drive show. (Maybe Stephen A. Smith has a bobblehead nephew who can replace.) ...

The SEC may as well be officially sub-branded “The Official Feeder League of the NFL.” Vegas houses have the over/under on the number of first-round draft picks out of the power loop at 15½ (out of 32 choices.) ...

More micro-oriented books are offering 3-1 odds on St. Viator/Notre Dame star Cole Kmet being a first-rounder. (It's bet $360 to win $100 that he won't be.) ...

Post-it to Gov. J.B. Pritzker: It is time to open golf courses with acutely responsible guidelines. (And end elements of “The New Zombie Jamboree.”) ...

Good news/bad news regarding the TV audience for last weekend's WNBA draft: Eyeballs were up 123% over 2019; but net national audience a year ago was a sparse 175,000. (None of that mattered in the household of Fremd icon Haley Gorecki — a pride of Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness — who was a third-round choice of the Seattle Storm.) ...

And Teresa Hanafin of The Boston Globe — apparently from a widow's walk somewhere near Marblehead — on her hope for the Patriots top pick Thursday night: “Michigan QB Tom Brady.”

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.