NBA Finals the Story: 1990-1999: Basketball Greatest Decade Beyond Court, Jordan Years, Right Into Surrounding Stories of Its Many Stars

The 90's were the greatest decade for the NBA. The Michael Jordan years launched the league toward unprecedented success. The NBA stopped to be a North American sports league and became global. Part of it is because the Dream Team presented the biggest stars at the 1992 Olympics, to a global audience, for the first time. But the process was in motion, already. And Michael Jordan was rapidly becoming a global icon. This is the story of the NBA Finals in the 90's, and the stories behind the scenes. The NBA Finals and the people that made that basketball decade spectacular, how they became pop stars, the controversies around those years, including Michael Jordan takeover and his two-year hiatus to play baseball, right after his dad tragic assassination. The Bad Boys from Detroit, led by the smiling assassin, Isiah Thomas and his eternal rivalry with Michael Jordan. And then the Hakeem Olajuwon domination over a couple of seasons, the domination of a Nigerian-born player who never played high school basketball, who was never part of the playground or AAU basketball scenes. And finally, the San Antonio Spurs arrival, led by Tim Duncan, a product of the Virgin Island nonetheless, when Gregg Popovich was just another coach who was trying to be successful. The 90's were not the golden age of NBA basketball but the decade when the NBA stopped being a league firmly rooted in the U.S. and started to pave the way for the future. Season by season, the author tells the many stories that surrounded the games, the emotions and pathways that led the teams to the biggest stage there is in basketball, the locker room frictions, the trades that impacted the outcomes, the unsung heroes, like John Paxson, Steve Kerr, Sam Cassell, Mario Elie. How the Bulls dynasty died because of backroom issues; the Pippen-Kukoc controversy in Chicago; how Dennis Rodman became the missing piece in Chicago's second three-peat; how great players were never capable to take the ultimate step and became unfortunate heroes, like Charles Barkley in 1993; Clyde Drexler while ha was in Portland; Patrick Ewing in 1994; Karl Malone and John Stockton in 1997 and 1998. And finally, the iconic games, The Flu Game in Salt Lake City, why John Paxson took the winning three-pointer in Phoenix in 1993, why Jordan trusted Steve Kerr to take the mid-range winning jumper in Chicago in 1997, The Shrug, Nick Anderson's absurd choke job in 1995 for Orlando, the "mailmen don't deliver on Sundays" missed free throws by Malone again in 1997 and finally the coaches. How Phil Jackson became the master of 11 rings. How Gregg Popovich went to the Virgin Islands to meet the player who made his Hall of Fame career possible. Step by step. Event by event. Game by game. The NBA of the 90's won't have any secrets.