That went well, don’t you think?

The NBA’s Chicago Bulls celebrated their “inaugural class” in the team’s new Ring of Honor ceremony during halftime of its game against the Golden State Warriors last week. The first Ring of Honor class included 13 men and the entire 1995-96 team, which went 72-10 and won the NBA championship. It didn’t help that the current Bulls gave up a season high in points in a 140-131 loss, but that was the least of the night’s low points.

The most popular and famous stars of that team, Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Dennis Rodman, didn’t show up. The team wasn’t expecting them to, because all three declined, but it allowed the fans to believe otherwise, at least the fans who didn’t research the matter beforehand.

I’ve attended reunion events featuring great and fondly remembered teams decades after their exploits. The events are inevitably disappointing, because so many fans don’t know much about teams that predate their birth. Nonetheless, if the most celebrated members of that team can’t attend, you change the date to a time when they can attend, or you don’t have the event. The Boston Red Sox haven’t had an Oldtimers Game since Ted Williams died. If Carl Yastrzemski hadn’t been able to make it to the 1967 “Impossible Dream Team’s” 50th reunion, I would have asked for my money back.

[Related ironic note: Jonathan Majors had been cast to play beloved Bull thug  Dennis Rodman in a film with the working title “48 Hours In Vegas,” but the actor was convicted of criminal assault, and was dropped from the film. Funny, I would think that a criminal record makes him the perfect choice…]

Here is what really wrecked the ceremony, however: during the halftime ceremony, hosted by retired Bulls broadcaster Neil Funk, the late Bull’s GM Jerry Krause’s name was announced. “Thunderous boos filled the arena” as his anguished widow, who was on the court among the honored players, was caught on camera weeping. Krause, who died in 2017, has been unpopular with Bulls fans since his efforts to return the team to glory failed to have the desired results.

Writes sportswriter Jon Greenberg, “For all you future producers out there, if a crowd is lustily booing a dead basketball executive, don’t immediately go to his crying widow. Thelma looked miserable and gestured angrily to the crowd …It was horribly awkward. However bad it looked on TV (that shot quickly cut away from the videoboard feed), let me tell you, it was way worse in person.”

Good job, everybody!