As the documentary established, Krause was the driving force behind the breakup of the Bulls' dynasty that produced six championships in eight seasons in the 1990s. Late in the dynasty, Krause was concerned that an aging core was breaking down. On multiple occasions, he had considered trading key pieces such as Hall of Fame forward Scottie Pippen with the hope that he could obtain full value before injuries and age took their toll.
So is it as simple as pinning the end of the Bulls' reign on Krause? Not in the eyes of former Bulls coach Tim Floyd, whom Krause hired to replace Phil Jackson after the final championship and ahead of the start of the rebuild in 1998-'99.
"He's been very unfairly maligned," Floyd said of Krause on the Mully & Haugh Show on 670 The Score on Tuesday morning. "He's in the Hall of Fame for a reason. I don't know what was said in either episode about Jerry, but I do know he did a lot of greats things, a lot of things he should be really commended for. One, he was the first general manager in the NBA to hire a strength coach -- Al Vermeil. That had never been done before. I think the players really bought in, and it was a big part of what they were doing. He was the first guy to run a system of play that was outside of plays ... That came from Jerry Reinsdorf's belief that a system of play would lead to team play, and that's what both of them wanted. The system of play that he embraced was that of Tex Winter (the triangle offense)."
Floyd made news Monday, when he told ESPN 104.5 in Baton Rouge that he met with Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf during the NBA Finals in 1996 to have discussions about replacing Jackson as Chicago's coach after the season. That was a revelation because it pushed up the timeline of the start of the Bulls' conversations to perhaps dismantle the dynasty by one full year.
"Jerry really wanted to make a change that year," Floyd said of Krause in summer 1996.
The Bulls held off, then went on to win two more championships.
It was after the Bulls beat the Jazz in the NBA Finals in 1997 that the discussion about the team's future reached a fever pitch publicly and Jackson's future became really cloudy, as he didn't agree to return for the final championship season until late July 1997 -- after he had a long sitdown directly with Reinsdorf.
All the while, Krause continued to keep a close relationship with Floyd, who views Krause in a different light than many others. In Floyd's mind, many of Krause's traits that caused players and Jackson to despise him were what made him a Hall of Fame general manager -- and the Bulls great.
"Another real strength of his -- and maybe we wouldn't be having all these conversations about the greatness of the Bulls -- was that he didn't acquiesce to the players," Floyd said. "He believed in protocol, which was handed down from Jerry Reinsdorf, who I thought was a great owner. Jerry Reinsdorf believed in protocol, and I think that's where a lot of the issues came along the way.
"There's a lot of players that have these strong, strong, strong personalities and they start telling management who they want on the team -- 'I want this guy on the team, and I want this coach and I want this general manager.' And that's not the way the Bulls were run. I look at a lot of the current teams in the league and I look how management has cowed down to the players and cowed down in some instances to the coach -- but more in today's times, it's to the player. How has that worked out for those franchises? Short term? Yes. Long term? Probably no. So what others might view as weaknesses in Jerry Krause, I really view as strengths. I think he did a lot of things really, really well."