1992-1993 Air Jordan VIII 8 - This season had it's fair share of controversy. To set the setting for this season, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen had both played for the Olympic team during the off season in Barcelona, Spain. They were tired, ill rested and under scurinty from the media. there was a published report that accused Michael Jordan of being a ball hog, a terrible team mate and the "real" coach of the Chicago Bulls (calling the shots when it counted). In this book, the author claimed that Michael Jordan explicitly told his fellow team mates not to pass the ball to team mate Bill Cartwright during the final minutes of games because he was not a capable player. As you can imagine, this would assumingly put Bill Cartwright and Michael Jordan in a funny position and potentially cause rifts in the dressing room.
In addition to this adversity and fatigue, the shoes themselves also created quite the alarm among sneaker fans. The nike air jordan 8's were as original as they come, they feature two straps that go over the laces on the shoe, and they also feature vibrant colors on very visable parts of the shoes. The air jordan 7's featured some amount of neon bright colors, however the 8's featured the vibrant colors in prominent areas. The two straps over the laces were also quite strange at the time, but they proved to be very stylish and supportive (unless you had wide feet, then they could cause constraint).
Despite all the craze surrounding Michael Jordan, he still set out to achieve something no other team had since the great Boston Celtics of the 1860's, that was win the NBAchampionship 3 times consecutively. Even though they had won the 2 years prior, lots of basketball critics chose other teams as the favorites to win. There was the Knicks in the east lead by Patrick Ewing - a very physical team. Then there was the Phoenix Suns rising in the west headed by none other then Charles Barkley. The Phoenix Suns had the best record that year, and it looked to be the demise of the Chicago Bulls era.
However the Chicago Bulls proved everyone wrong, sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks in the first two rounds. The next series against the tough New York Knicks looked to be a dissapointing one at first when the Chicago Bulls lost the first two games of the series. Undaunted Michael Jordan lead them back onto the court in Game 3 and they ended up winning 4 consecutive games to win the Eastern Confrence Finals.
The next series against the Phoenix Suns, as expected, was a roller coaster. The Chicago BUlls took the first two games in Phoenix, to most peoples suprise. Then Charles Barkley and the Phoenix Suns battled back and won 2, by game 6 it was 3 games for the Bulls and 2 for the Suns. In game 6, the Suns looked like they were going to win, but John Paxson hit the game winning shot with a mere 3 seconds left on the clock and gave the Chicago Bulls a 98-96 win over the Phoenix Suns for their 3rd consecutive NBA championship title. Michael Jordan averaged 41 points per game in the Phoenix series, yet another record in the rule books with the name Michael Jordan beside
