Why Michael Jordan's Wife and Kids Aren't Featured in 'The Last Dance'
While everyone is stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, the docuseries genre has been a major attraction to TV watchers. And The Last Dance, the ESPN series about basketball legend Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls, is no exception, with close to 100 people providing different accounts coupled with never-before-seen video footage from that iconic era in the NBA.
But throughout the series, there’s something missing—his family doesn’t appear anywhere in the interviews (with the exception of his daughter, Jasmine, making a brief appearance in the final episode), which is surprising, as his older three (Jasmine, along with sons Jeffrey and Marcus) were all born while he was on the Chicago Bulls (he married current wife Yvette Prieto in 2013 and welcomed twin daughters Victoria and Ysabel the following year). It’s an interesting conundrum—if they know the basketball legend best, why aren’t they featured in a documentary about his life?
Well, director Jason Hehir has an interesting answer for this occurrence—he didn’t think the family needed to be used as sources for a show about basketball's G.O.A.T..
“I wasn’t interested in the opinion of any wife or kids in this,” he told The Athletic. “We had the storytellers we wanted and I felt like we had the story covered from every angle.”
Honestly, that makes sense. And just because Jordan’s family isn’t central to the story, that doesn’t mean that the kids aren’t learning new things about their father after every episode. In fact, Jasmine (who was only five years old when the cameras were rolling during the titular Last Dance season) told NBA.com that she always has questions for her father after watching the show.
“I’m definitely texting him non-stop,” she said. “I think there hasn’t been an episode, a Sunday where I haven’t been like, ‘This happened. Let me know your thoughts.’”
Jasmine also made a point to detail how the family is learning more about her dad and his life while playing the game. “I think if you remove the basketball and all the accolades he achieved for obvious reasons,” she said, “I think I’m definitely learning that my dad was really trying to take in the pressures and the expectations and not allowing it to weigh on him and really manifesting it into his own.”
“I’ve definitely seen him really take on that role and embracing that role and not running from it and really becoming the greatest player to ever play the game,” she continued. “And that’s because he always wanted to do that.”
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