A Chicago Bulls Ring of Honor ceremony featuring Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and many more sounds like a fun time for it all. It wound up getting ugly instead.
None of Jordan, Pippen and Rodman showed up for the Bulls’ ceremony honoring their inaugural Ring of Honor class at halftime on Friday, with all of them sending video addresses to at least acknowledge the event. Jordan’s video wasn’t what we would describe as emotional.
Other honorees included Phil Jackson, Toni Kukoc, Artis Gilmore, Tex Winter, Chet Walker, the entire 1995-96 team, Jerry Sloan, Bob Love, Dick Klein and Jerry Krause.
It was that last name which caused the ceremony to enter disgraceful territory.
To put it mildly, Krause, the Bulls’ general manager from 1985 to 2003, is not popular among Chicago fans. Jordan famously despised him and he is widely blamed for the exit of Jackson in 1998, which precipitated the collapse of the team’s dynasty. Krause died in 2017, so he wasn’t able to defend himself when the team’s legacy was re-examined in ESPN’s “The Last Dance.” Instead, the whole documentary became a chance for everyone to dump on Krause.
So it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise when Bulls fans loudly jeered Krause’s name when he was announced. It still was a surprise, though, because some in the United Center crowd booed with Krause’s widow Thelma there.
Thelma Krause didn’t seem to take the boos of her late husband well:
You can see a closer look at her reaction here.
Among the many people bothered by the sight of fans booing an elderly woman because they hate what they think her husband did to their sports team was Bulls color commentator Stacey King, who played for the Bulls alongside Jordan and under Krause from 1989 to 1994.
He opened the third quarter by ripping into those fans:
King’s reaction:
“I’m a little upset right now … We just had a remarkable ceremony, bringing back the legends and I’ll tell you what, Chicago is a sports town. What we witnessed today when Kerry Krause’s name was called and the people that booed Jerry Krause and his widow, who was accepting this honor for him, it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I hurt for that lady. Brought her to tears.
“Whoever booed her in this arena should be ashamed of themselves. That’s not Chicago, that’s New York, Philly. Chicago’s not like that. We don’t have a reputation of being that way. Whether you like Jerry Krause or not, that man brought six championships here. He didn’t shoot a basket nor did he get a rebound, but he put six titles up in this arena. There’s a lot of teams that only have one. That was really classless. I was disappointed in the people that booed. It was a sad thing.”
Unfortunately, it seems quite possible Chicago will now have a reputation of being that way.
It obviously wasn’t all Bulls fans booing Krause, and it’s not like some criticism of Krause isn’t warranted. But the man’s Ring of Honor ceremony is not the place to do it, especially when it’s his widow and now him there. And especially when Krause did draft one of the players being inducted (Pippen), traded for another (Rodman) and, y’know, hired the coach being inducted (Jackson) in the first place.
Bulls team president Michael Reinsdorf released a statement after the ceremony to endorse that resume while not criticizing the fans’ jeers, via K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago:
“Jerry Krause is a six-time NBA champion and two-time NBA Executive of the Year. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for his accomplishments and is an important part of our history. His legacy deserves to be celebrated and respected. We were incredibly honored to have Thelma with us this evening to recognize Jerry as a member of the inaugural Chicago Bulls Ring of Honor.”
If those Bulls fans really wanted to complain about the direction their team has taken in the last 25 years, team owner Jerry Reinsdorf was right there.
