Spurs vs Bulls Hypothetical 1999 NBA Finals (My Opinion)

Disclaimer: This hypothetical is solely based on Michael Jordan's claims in The Last Dance documentary that the Bulls would have won their 7th championship in 1999 if they had stayed together. Since we can't go back in time, it's impossible to prove. All we know is that the Spurs are the team that actually won it that year. Most of the media personalities seem to side with MJ in his beliefs, but I personally don't agree with him. Yes, I'm a die hard Spurs fan, but in this hypothetical I'll do my best to be as logical as I can without letting being a fan cloud my judgment.

As always, I use FACTS to back up my claims. If you ever want to dispute any of the facts I present, I would be happy to point you in the right direction so you can do your research. This piece of writing is strictly MY OPINION, but an opinion that will be based on facts. I can't promise that readers won't feel a sense of partiality whenever they read what I write about my favorite teams/players, but the one thing I can promise is that it's based on what actually happened. In other words, you might not agree with the presentation of my narratives, but you WILL NOT find a lie in anything I write.


At the end of the series finale of The Last Dance, Michael Jordan made the claim that he felt like the Bulls could have won a 4th straight NBA championship in 1999, which would have been No. 7 for him and the Bulls franchise. He said that the team was robbed of the opportunity, and that they were entitled to defend what was theirs until somebody took it. I agree with MJ on both of those points. It's a shame that things had to end the way they did.

A Spurs/Bulls 1999 NBA Finals has been a hot topic in the sports world since The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary highlighting the 1997-98 Bulls championship team. I know for sure this matchup would have been highly rated. You had the Spurs Twin Towers of David Robinson and Tim Duncan, co-anchoring a historic defense, going up against a Bulls Big 3 of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman. Then you have the coaching battle between Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson. The big mistake I always see people make when they favor the Bulls in this hypothetical matchup is that they compare what the 1997-98 team did and dismissing the reality of what happened to the players after that season.

Before I get into how I think the series would play out, let me present you with the facts that support my logic:

*Michael Jordan severed a tendon in the index finger on his shooting hand with a faulty cigar cutter.
This happened in early January 1999 on a trip he took to the Bahamas. He had nerve damage that made it hard for him to palm a basketball. MJ needed surgery to fix the finger that would have sidelined him for 2 months if he decided to come back. But he said that by the time this happened he had already decided to retire, even though he didn't make it official until later in the offseason. MJ said in the documentary that he wouldn't have been messing around with a cigar cutter if he knew the team was being kept together.

*Scottie Pippen was coming off an injury-plagued season.
He had surgery on his left foot right before the start of the 1997-98 season that sidelined him for the Bulls' first 35 games. Then in the Eastern Conference Finals, Scottie injured his lower back and then aggravated it in Game 5 of the NBA Finals when he scored the Bulls' first basket of the game on a dunk. He had surgery on his back in the summer of 1998 and was never the same player. Scottie was still a high-end starter, but not the All-NBA player he was before those injuries.

*Scottie Pippen was highly upset about being underpaid for so long and wanted out of Chicago.
He was the 6th highest paid Bulls player and was determined to get a long-term deal done once his Bulls contract ran out. Michael Jordan rationalized that if Phil Jackson had committed to coming back, that he and Phil could have gotten everybody to come back on 1-year deals so they could try to win 1 more championship. I couldn't see a 33-year old Scottie Pippen, who was angry for years about being criminally underpaid with Jerry Krause refusing to renegotiate his contract, on the verge of getting the first big contract of his career, coming off a year where he missed just under half the season, coming off of back surgery, and didn't get along with the Bulls front office leaving money on the table to come back on a 1-year deal. Scottie finally got his money when he was traded to the Rockets.

*The 1997-98 Bulls were an older team and running on fumes.
They would be another year older in 1999, with their nucleus being in their mid to late 30's. Assuming they did stay together, at the time of the 1999 NBA Finals you would have a 36-year old Michael Jordan, 33-year old Scottie Pippen, and a 38-year old Dennis Rodman. To round out the starting lineup, you would have a 35-year old Ron Harper, and Luc Longley being the young one in the group at 30.

*There were other hungry teams on the rise.
The Pacers took the Bulls to 7 games in the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals, where the Bulls escaped Game 7 with a 5-point win. The Pacers came back the next year and finished the season in a 3-way tie with the Heat and Magic for best record in the East. The Heat gave up the 2nd fewest points per game in the 1998-99 season and had a tandem of Alonzo Mourning (MVP runner-up) and Tim Hardaway. Zo would have given the Bulls front line fits. There was also the eventual conference champion Knicks, who weren't a true 8th seed. They upset the Heat in the 1st round and went on to eventually lose to the Spurs in the Finals. It's hard to imagine a Bulls team with Michael Jordan losing to the Heat or the Knicks, but seeing how the Pacers had them on the ropes in 1998 showed how much motivation teams had in dethroning them.

*The NBA squeezed a 50-game regular season into 90 days in 1999.
People look at the fact that the regular season was just 50 games and assume that would have given the Bulls an advantage because they were running on fumes. The season came after just 12 days for training camp, where rosters weren't even fully set because of free agency also going on at the time. Squeezing in 50 games in 90 days resulted in some instances where teams had 3 games in 3 nights, 3 in 4 nights, and plenty of back-to-backs. The quality of play suffered because there was little time to practice and players had to quickly work themselves back into shape. A grind like that would have been hell on the Bulls, especially since they played 58 playoff games over the previous 3 years. There was no such thing as load management back then, so the Bulls would have had to play their stars as much as it took to secure home court advantage because only 6 games separated the 8 playoff teams in the East by the time the regular season ended.


For the sake of this hypothetical projection, let's say Phil Jackson called a truce with Jerry Krause and agreed to come back for another year. Michael Jordan was somehow able to convince Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and all the role players to take 1-year deals. Now the Bulls have everything they need in place to try and become the first team since Bill Russell's Celtics to win 4 championships in a row. But there would be significant obstacles standing in their way, even in the East, because that conference still had the teams that made the road to their last championship difficult. In the end, they would run into a buzz saw in the Spurs and come up short. Here's how I see it playing out:

First of all, keep in mind that whatever the Bulls accomplish in this projection is under the assumption that the players' bodies would hold up long enough for them to go out and make it happen, which was far from a guarantee under the circumstances. The Bulls were worn out physically and mentally by 1999. The biggest thing working against them in this situation would be 302 games played in the previous 3 seasons. Exhaustion is often a major factor in dynasties falling off. There's also the fact that the 1998-99 season was a very condensed 50-game schedule, which is not good for old legs.

Here's a look at the star players for both teams and what they had going on........ 

Spurs
Tim Duncan: He was a monster in his 2nd year in the NBA. This a 23-year old pre-knee injury Tim Duncan we're talking about. He was fast, mobile, and athletic. Not to mention young and hungry. TD was a quiet assassin on offense and a terror on defense. He would have been too dominant, and wouldn't have been intimidated by Dennis Rodman's antics. TD put up double-doubles the first 2 times he faced The Worm in his career, with 19 points and 22 rebounds the first time, and then 14 and 12 the other time. With TD's improvement from his rookie season to Year 2, imagine how he would have feasted on a 38-year old Dennis Rodman.

Here's what former Bull and 3-time champion BJ Armstrong said about TD on ESPN's First Take leading up to the documentary:

"Technically speaking, Tim Duncan, to me, is a player that is really just probably as unique of a talent that I've seen in the NBA. And if you're going to have a player that's going to be able to counter a talent like Michael Jordan, who was almost like flawless technically in his game, Tim Duncan can do that because he could do things - not only offensively but defensively - to control the game."

David Robinson: He was in his 10th season and wanted to win a championship very badly. Athletic big men were the Bulls' kryptonite, so who would guard David Robinson? Granted, he wasn't the same guy that averaged 25 points and 11 rebounds in his first 7 seasons, but he was still an elite athlete at 33 years old. Also, by 1999 The Admiral appeared to finally be at peace with who he was and what he did so well. He was also noticeably playing with more fire and more of a sense of urgency.

Bulls
Michael Jordan: He was clearly slipping. From 1988-1997, in every year he played MJ led the NBA in offensive and total win shares, win shares per 48, offensive box plus/minus, total BPM, and value over replacement player. By every advanced statistical measure, MJ was the best player in basketball for a whole decade straight. He didn't lead any of those categories in the 1997-98 season, his last with the Bulls. His PER (25.2) and VORP (7.1) in that season were career-lows with the Bulls. MJ's raw numbers had also started to decline, and his shooting efficiency was dropping off. He wasn't terrible by any means, given the fact that he won his 5th MVP trophy, but he was no longer the clear-cut winner.

Fast forward a year and now Michael Jordan is 36 years old and the years have taken their toll. He seemed perfectly fine with playing 39 minutes per game in all 82 games in the previous season and then carrying his team in the playoffs by averaging 41.5 minutes per game at 35 years old. MJ was the best in the business at using his mind to push his body to places nobody thought it could ever reach. That's what gave him the strength to push through the food poisoning he played with in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals. In a season that saw so many injuries, a 36-year old MJ coming off 3 straight championship runs would likely feel the physical effects of a challenge no human body was prepared to withstand. You couldn't help but wonder how much more his body could take at that level of play and the amount his psyche could handle. MJ also had the burden of being the world's most famous celebrity.

Scottie Pippen: He was never the same player after having his back surgery in the summer of 1998. At 33 years old, he was still a high-end starter, but not the difference maker he had been. The agile and athletic Scottie Pippen that we saw before the 1997-98 season was gone. It should also be noted that he never made another All-Star team after his foot surgery in 1997. These are facts that most people conveniently ignore when they just assume that a hypothetical Bulls team in 1999 would automatically win it all. All that's doing is minimizing how great Scottie was before the surgeries, acting like a lesser Scottie Pippen would still make them favorites in 1999. The lockout season might have helped him a little bit, but he only averaged 14.5 points per game as the Rockets' 3rd best player behind Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley. To Scottie's credit, he did play all 50 games that season. But again, he just wasn't the same player.

Dennis Rodman: He wasn't having the kind of impact he had in previous years. There were concerns that Dennis Rodman was disinterested, even at the end of the 1997-98 season. For that reason, along with him being 38 years old by the time the 1999 NBA Finals came around, I couldn't see him being able to guard Tim Duncan 1-on-1. The Worm was also playing a physical style that could only hold up for so long. He even started coming off the bench for the Bulls in the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals (except for Game 3), and did it through the Finals. After the 1997-98 season, The Worm only played 35 games over the next 2 seasons (with the Lakers and Mavericks) before retiring in 2000.


As for how the series would play out, I see the Spurs taking it in 6 games, 5 with a couple of lucky breaks. The difference in this series would have been the Twin Towers. Their size would pose some real issues for the Bulls, who had never faced an interior duo like that in the Michael Jordan Era. As great as MJ and Scottie Pippen were in big moments, David Robinson and Tim Duncan would have been too much for the Bulls. They would have destroyed the Bulls front line of Dennis Rodman, Luc Longley (if retained), and Bill Wennington. Say what you want about the Bulls having the better perimeter tandem and backcourt, but I believe Sean Elliott, Mario Elie, and Avery Johnson would have made enough contributions for the Spurs to pull out the win. I'm pretty sure they would get a lot of wide-open shots with the Bulls putting most of their energy into collapsing in the post.

On the defensive end is where you would see the true advantages for the Spurs. Their GOAT-level half-court defense would wreak all kinds of havoc on a Bulls team that operated exclusively in the half court. The Twin Towers would be clogging the paint and forcing the Bulls into shooting a lot of jumpers. They would also be killing the Bulls on the glass. The Spurs were the best defensive team in 1998-99 and had the NBA record for opponent field goal percentage (.4016), which still stands today. They were also top 5 in rebounding (No. 1 in defensive rebounding). Points would certainly be at a premium.

In my opinion, the key to beating that Bulls team would be to let Michael Jordan get his and lock everybody else down. With the Twin Towers shutting the paint down, MJ would just have to shoot jumpers until his arm fell off. Who would help him score? Scottie Pippen was a shell of himself by then. So was Dennis Rodman, but he was never much of a scorer, and he was disinterested in basketball. This series would resemble the early part of MJ's career, when it was him vs. everybody. He escaped Utah in '98 by the skin of his teeth and would have to play an even bigger role in '99 as the only elite player on the team. That's an awful lot to ask out of a 36-year old man who had played in 3 NBA Finals in the previous 3 seasons. 

A Spurs/Bulls series would have definitely been more competitive than the Spurs/Knicks series was, but again, I say the Spurs would take it in 6 games at most. Athletic big men were the Bulls' weakness, and the Spurs had 2 of them. David Robinson and Tim Duncan were just too good on the inside, and the Spurs had a nice mix of veterans. The wear and tear from 3 straight championship runs would have been a lot to overcome against a hungry Spurs team. Many of the Bulls players declined after their last championship season, some quite a bit. As great as Michael Jordan still was, especially in crunch time, I just don't see him and a Bulls team that's another year older beating an already-great-but-still-ascending Tim Duncan and a David Robinson who was still capable, with both of them co-anchoring a historic defense.

So many people to this day still sleep on the 1998-99 Spurs. In fact, they are one of the more underrated and forgotten great teams in NBA history. They tied with the Jazz for the NBA's best record (37-13) after a 6-8 start. The Spurs also had the best metrics of any team by a wide margin that season, including a league-leading scoring margin (+8.1) and defensive rating (95.0). They were a runaway train after getting off to that slow start. The Spurs closed out the regular season by winning 12 of their last 13 games, including 3 against the Blazers (their Western Conference Finals opponent) and the Jazz. Then they went 15-2 in the playoffs on the way to their first championship.

For the record, Dennis Rodman said in The Last Dance that the Bulls would have "easily" won their 4th straight championship. The way they won their last one in 1998 suggests otherwise. They got pushed to the limit by the Pacers and then got taken to 6 games by the Jazz for a 2nd straight year. Not to mention the Nets playing them tough in the first 2 games of the opening round of the playoffs. That team was on its last legs and barely won that championship, mostly on the strength of some clutch plays and bad calls. To me, when you barely win it's always a sign that your time is up.

I won't say that the Spurs would have been able to stop Michael Jordan, but they most certainly would have made him a less efficient player. They held the Knicks to 39.2% shooting and allowed 79.8 points in the NBA Finals over 5 games. The Bulls would have fared better, but it still would have been a struggle for them to score. The Spurs were basically a superior version of those 90's Knicks teams that gave the Bulls problems. They would have been the best defense the Jordan Bulls have faced. In this case, the 2nd best would be the 1992-93 Knicks, who held a younger and better MJ to the most inefficient series of his prime. The Spurs were a different animal altogether.

It really is too bad that this matchup never happened because it very well could have been among the highest rated NBA Finals series ever. I also know the Spurs would have been extremely fired up to face the Bulls. The Spurs winning that series would have also been a nice passing of the torch from Michael Jordan to Tim Duncan. What better way for TD to start his legacy off by beating the consensus GOAT? The media would have also naturally made a bunch of excuses for the Bulls, with the main excuse being it wasn't the same Bulls team. But it still would have robbed the Bulls of some of their mystique and further elevated TD and the Spurs.