Michael Jordan gave his blessings for ‘The Last Dance’ after Warriors lost 2016 NBA Finals

It is still a dark memory for Golden State Warriors fans.

After winning a record 73 games during the 2015-16 NBA season and taking a 3-1 series lead in the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, it looked like the Dubs were poised to repeat at NBA champions.

There is no point in rehashing the painful memories, but we all remember how it went down. At the very least, the Warriors’ run provided motivation for Michael Jordan to give the OK to producers for the “The Last Dance” documentary that we sorely need during the pandemic.

ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne interviewed a few people for her piece on how the documentary was made, including producer Mike Tollin, who revealed Jordan said yes to the “The Last Dance,” the day of the Cavs’ parade.

“The universe has such a funny sense of humor,” Tollin told Shelburne. “Because when I woke up, I put on ESPN while I’m getting dressed, and there’s LeBron [James] and the Cavaliers parading through the streets of Cleveland with the trophy that they’d just won.”

Shelburne finished her story by writing “He (Jordan) was ready to tell it, right after another player (James) and another team (the Warriors) got dangerously close to challenging those legacies.”

The 2015-16 Warriors team just seemed to run out of gas. We will never know if that was the fallout from chasing the regular season win record, but Golden State did not look the same in Games 6 and 7. Sandwiched in there is the NBA’s ridiculous decision to suspend Draymond Green for Game 5, which never should have happened.

Of course things didn’t turn out too badly for the Dubs. Kevin Durant joined the team the next season and the Warriors went on to win back-to-back NBA championships.

I still wish the Dubs would have finished the job in 2016, but you can’t argue with how great that team was.

The 2016-17 Warriors are widely regarded as one of the best squads in NBA history and their dominant playoff run won’t be forgotten anytime soon, hence the countless comparisons we have seen between that team and Jordan’s 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.

With the 10-part documentary now officially here, what is your favorite MJ moment?