What? You thought ESPN had already shown basketball fans all of "The Last Dance" footage in its vault? Nope.
In a previously unreleased clip from the Emmy-winning documentary series, Michael Jordan can be seen chatting with "SportsCenter" anchor Stuart Scott in the midst of the 1998 NBA Finals. Scott asks Jordan what continues to drive him after he had already acquired "enough rings for one hand." At that time, Jordan was looking to win his sixth championship with the Bulls, who were facing a Jazz squad led by Hall of Famers John Stockton and Karl Malone.
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"You set your own expectations. You live up to those," Jordan said in the clip. "Your expectations are gonna be geared toward (what) people feel you can accomplish. Sure, everybody's saying this is Utah's year. Best record, they've got home-court advantage. ... Yeah, that's motivation. If it's not, then you certainly need to look in the mirror.
"But that's a sense of motivation. You've gotta have some inner motivation, too. You want to be successful. It's a long season that you started off trying to end the season with a win. That should never deteriorate, but other things come in with the same type of intensity in terms of motivation."
We found some unreleased footage from The Last Dance 😳 pic.twitter.com/lbN6H4fSlr
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 6, 2020
Scott also wondered if losing to the Jazz would tarnish what Jordan and the Bulls had accomplished over the course of the decade. Considering Jordan is viewed as one of the most fierce competitors in sports history, his answer was a bit surprising.
"No. The things that we've accomplished cannot be refuted at all, and a loss doesn't erase it all," Jordan said. "We end the season with a win, then we make sure that our objectives are met in the course of the year. If it so happens, and it's not meant to be that way, we don't look at the season saying, 'Well, that was a wasted season.'
"No, a lot of good things happened this season, and it was a fun season no matter how you look at it."
Perhaps he only offered that response because losing never entered his mind. He is Michael freaking Jordan, of course.
Chicago went on to defeat Utah, and Jordan ended his Bulls career with an iconic jump shot to close out Game 6. (Don't complain about spoiler alerts, guys. More than 20 years have passed since that series was played).
If that clip wasn't enough for you, here's another portion of the Jordan-Scott interview from the ESPN archives:
