It's true Michael Jordan is worried about being perceived as a "horrible guy" in 'The Last Dance,' ESPN's upcoming 10-part documentary series set to debut Sunday.
But that's not to say that Jordan interfered with production of the docuseries. In fact, he was quite helpful, director Jason Hehir tells The Sports Junkies on 106.7 The Fan.
"He was great to work with from the outset," Hehir told 106.7 The Fan. "I don't want people to think I'm just offering platitudes, because there's plenty of high-profile athletes who were not great to work with. But I was pleasantly surprised at how down to earth, and how cooperative and how involved and engaged he was in this process from the very beginning. From Sept. 2017, when I first met him, he has been aware of everything we are doing an a contributor to it."
"I'm happy to report that he never once – even though he had the power to do this – he never once wielded the power and said, 'You're not going to include this,' or 'you can't discuss this,' or 'I want you to take this out because it doesn't make me look good,'" said Hehir. "He did offer notes, but those were only to enhance the shows.
"So he would offer notes on things I studied for two years on this topic, and he would offer notes on things that didn't even occur to me. You should include this game and this moment, because that's when I knew that I could do this."
"Little things that only Michael Jordan could know, he was adding to us to enhance the quality of this doc," he said. "So I was over the moon about that, because I was a cynic and I was expecting him to be aloof, and he was the opposite."
Hehir did observe that Jordan's "maniacal" competitiveness showed through during production of the docuseries.
"As far as his personality, he is demanding of himself and he demands that much of those around him," he said. "And if that's in a corporate world, it's the same, and if it's in a production world, it's the same with us, and it certainly was the same within the locker room on the Bulls. So the reputation that he has is being this maniacal competitor and win-at-all-costs – that is true.
"He is a maniacal competitor. And the teammates that we talked to acknowledged that, and Michael himself acknowledges that. I don't think it just dawned on him."
"I think he knew that when he was 10 years old, when he was competing with his brothers in the back yard, that he was maniacal about beating them," he continued. "The same way he that was maniacal about beating Magic Johnson, and Clyde Drexler and Reggie Miller.
"But I think that just by how vocal he was about it, I think that he was eager to explain the roots of that and to explain his lack of regret in acting that way."
"He is a firm believer that you can't control what people think about you, you can only control your actions and what you say," Hehir said. "And he knew that he needed to act that way and needed to say some things that were hard to hear as teammates to bring out the best in them."
Hehir says the documentary will show Jordan's contentious relationship with Scott Burrell, a small forward on the 1998 championship team that beat the Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals for the second straight year. Jordan has acknowledged he's concerned people will view him differently after seeing how hard he pushed Burrell.
"Scotty Burrell he thought was a great guy," Hehir said. "He said 'I love Scotty Burrell.' He still hosts Scotty Burrell every summer at his house and they golf together. They're still good friends to this day. But at the time, he felt Scotty was soft.
"And he knew that a soft guy was not gonna deliver for him and the Bulls against the Heat and the Pacers and the Knicks of the 90s Eastern Conference. He needed to toughen Scotty up, so he was very tough on Scotty in practice and we have footage of that.
"We asked him about it, he explains it. We asked Scotty Burrell about it, he explains what it felt like," he said. "But everybody at the end of the day agrees that it had to happen that way, and they wouldn't change a thing because they have the rings on their fingers to prove it."
