Netflix doco The Last Dance: Ex-NBA player Shane Heal recalls 1997 season against Chicago Bulls
Netflix’s sports doco series The Last Dance – charting the Chicago Bulls’ NBA reign in the 1990s – has former Aussie basketball players like Shane ‘The Hammer’ Heal, who went up against the likes of Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman, glued to the TV.
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Like most sports fans starved of any live action during the COVID-19 shutdown, Shane Heal has been glued to Netflix’s gripping sports doco series The Last Dance charting the Chicago Bulls at the height of their NBA reign through the 1990s.
But for Heal, one of just a handful of Aussies who went toe-to-toe with Michael Jordan and his star-studded, multi-championship-winning team of that era, this TV series possesses an even greater attraction.
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After all, there are not many who can say they were ‘there’ during one of, if not the most, defining eras in basketball history.
Fewer still can say they took to the court with ’90s-era Jordan at a time when he was regarded as not just the biggest name in basketball but, arguably, world sport.
Heal – nicknamed The Hammer during his career – took on the Bulls three times during his stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves during the 1997 season.
The other Aussie, Chris Anstey, took to the court against the Bulls in 1998 in his second season with the Dallas Mavericks while Luc Longley faced Jordan in 1992 playing for Minnesota before teaming up alongside the legend in 1996.
“We played them twice in Chicago and once at home,” Heal recalls.
“And, what I remember about that home game, is the insane electric atmosphere the morning the Bulls were coming to town.”
Heal, now aged 49, and back living in Sydney, said everyone could sense the morning of the home game that “everything had changed”.
“All of the security had to be ramped up,” he said. “There was this feeling among everyone in Minnesota that they had to be at that game, you know? There were no tickets available.
“Everyone wanted to bring their family. It was an amazing time.”
That Minnesota home game in January 1997 is well-remembered as the game when notorious Chicago Bulls bad boy Dennis Rodman kicked courtside photographer Eugene Amos in the groin causing him to hit the floor and stopping the game.
Season four of The Last Dance briefly references it.
Rodman later settled with the snapper for $200,000 but, for Heal, it wasn’t the only time he saw the colourful Bulls forward inviting controversy.
The year before, Heal found himself tagging along to a private party held by Rodman as Longley’s guest during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in which both were representing Australia.
“Luc was out injured … so he was going to this party that Dennis was throwing and he took a couple of us along,” says Heal.
“I wasn’t drinking because I was still playing,” Heal recalled. “But we walk in to this party, past all of these other fans waiting outside trying to get in – this was huge for me because I wasn’t in the NBA at this point – and I see Dennis Rodman, sitting up on top of the bar with no shirt on and he pours an entire bottle of Champagne over his head.
“I mean … that is not something you see every day. But that’s kind of what made him who he was.”
Rodman’s rampant boozing is covered extensively in the Netflix series which also explores the excessive drinking, drug use and gambling which went on behind the scenes of the Bulls despite their sweeping on-court success.
Jordan denies using drugs and alcohol during this time but does concede to gambling regularly.
Heal conceded partying was the norm in the US league both before and after games but added the NBA was “definitely different” to the (Australian) National Basketball League in that sense.
“I don’t think anyone went quite as hard as Rodman,” he said. “But you have to remember these guys are playing four games in a week sometimes.
“You have 10-day road trips, you don’t know what day it is most of the time.
“You’re playing back-to-back-to-back and yeah, the guys are on the road and they’re going out.
“It was definitely a ‘work hard, play hard’ kind of mentality and that was certainly the case with Rodman.
“He worked harder than most. And he partied harder than most too.”
As for his on-court memories of Jordan, Heal remembers a ruthless competitor who didn’t go out on the court to make friends.
“He wasn’t overly friendly no … he was just about winning,” says Heal.
“He was an unbelievable competitor and would go out and play 82 games a year with the exact same intensity.
“He played like a machine basically.
“And I truly think guys today. even (LA Clippers forward) Kawhi Leonard (widely regarded as the best player in the NBA) doesn’t play like that. Not back-to-back like that.
“I think if Jordan played today his numbers would have exploded. I think he would just be on a whole other level compared to these guys.”
Episodes 5 and 6 of The Last Dance airs tomorrow on Netflix.
Originally published as Netflix doco The Last Dance: Ex-NBA player Shane Heal recalls 1997 season against Chicago Bulls