Bulls fans booed Jerry Krause’s widow to tears, but the franchise only has itself to blame for a disastrous Ring of Honor night.
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The Bulls’ Ring of Honor night was ill-conceived and hastily put together from the very start. Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were the headliners, but neither was ever going to show up
because they hate each other. By picking a game in the middle of January for the ceremony, the Bulls also risked weather-related travel issues, which was
exactly the reason Dennis Rodman couldn’t be in attendance either as a winter storm pounded Chicago. The absence of the three most iconic players to ever wear a Bulls jersey would have been embarrassing enough on its own, but instead this Ring of Honor night drew headlines around the world for something far more unnerving.
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The real villain of the Bulls dynasty is Jerry Reinsdorf, the penny-pinching, union-busting owner overseeing the franchise. Jordan may be fond of Reinsdorf because he paid him a record salary for his final seasons with the team, but Reinsdorf willingly made Krause his meat shield for all the decisions he really controlled. Reinsdorf is the reason the Bulls have lost their status as a glamour franchise in the years since the dynasty ended while wandering the abyss of mediocrity. Reinsdorf is the reason his other franchise, MLB’s
Chicago White Sox, are one of the most hapless and humiliating organizations in their sport.
The hatred sent to Krause on Friday night should have been reserved for the other Jerry for 40 years of running Chicago sports franchises like small market teams. Unfortunately, billionaires tend to find a way to tell their own stories, and for Reinsdorf that meant making Krause the bad guy. Decades later, that narrative would lead to his widow shown in tears as the team attempted to honor its former championship architect.
Bulls fans are stupid and vile for booing Krause, but in truth they meant to boo his photo on the jumbotron, not his widow. That Thelma Krause got caught up in it only shows how poorly executed this entire event was.
This amounts to one big self-inflicted wound for the Bulls. They have no one to blame but themselves. The franchise rushed to plan the ceremony, didn’t put enough thought into who would attend and how it would be received, and ended up putting on huge stain on its only era of greatness.
That the day ended in another Bulls loss to a sinking Warriors team was the perfect closing note. It was a night emblematic of the low-rent organization Reinsdorf has let the Bulls become since the dynasty ended. The
blood on those horns remains as fresh as ever, but unfortunately the Bulls can’t stop mauling themselves.
