titles.

Father time never loses, which is why you don't compete against it. Every person and team who has tried has lost.


Everyone is focusing on the bulls, and them still having scottie and michael, and not focusing on how good and powerful other teams were becoming.

Also, the Bulls lost the intimidation factor, which made them a dominating team. People no longer feared them.

Eaxmple:

1995-96 bulls went 72-10
96-97 went 69-13
97-98 they went 62-20

The decline was in full effect. Like Pat Riley stated, dynasties fall hard and sudden. It is never a slow fade.

Lakers went 62-21, sonics went 61-21, spurs 56-26, and pacers went 58-24. Bulls went 1-1 against the lakers in their final season. In the first game, the bulls won ( but shaq wasn't in that game), and in the second game, the lakers beat the bulls ( with shaq ). Lakers were on the rise, and they went on to form a dynasty.

Pacers split the series with the bulls, 2-2, and they took the bulls to game 7 of the ECF. Also, the bulls won the division by 2 games. It was evident that, moving forward, the pacers now had the younger and better team, and they were now a force in the EC.

San Antonio Spurs won the championship in the 98\99 season. They had a great team that year with a coach who was just as cerebral as Phil. The spurs would have had the better all around team.

Basically, teams were now prepared and up to challenging the bulls.


The aging of Michael Jordan:

Jordan would have been 35 in the following season. He had already lost his GREAT athletic ability, and could no longer jump out of the gym. However, jordan was such an elite fundamental player, he used his intelligence to play at an elite level. But that can only go on for so long. Sports is a young man's game, and jordan was having issues being able to guard the younger and faster guards of the NBA. It was going to continue to decline because father team always wins.....



And most importantly, the Bulls bench was not serviceable any longer.The bench of Kerr, Buchler, Wennigton,Brown, Burrell and Kukoc lacked the athleticism and speed to keep up with younger and stronger benches. This was the main problem to me.

example:

Indiana's bench: Jalen rose, Antonio Davis, Travis Best, Derrick Mckay, Mark West, Austin Croshere. And Other teams had prominent and better benches as well.



We can kick the hypotheticals all day long. But the bottom line is they went out on top, no other dynasty can state that. So it ended the way it should have ended. 6 rings, no championship losses, and two 3peats. Krause did the right thing, and actually preserved Jordan's legacy as an undefeated champion. Magic's decline wasn't pretty. Bird's decline wasn't pretty. Barkley's decline wasn't pretty. Ewing decline's wasn't pretty. Kobe's decline wasn't pretty. Dr.j's decline wasn't pretty, etc,etc....I'm glad we didn't see Mike go out like that.