Having taken 18 months out to play baseball after winning three straight NBA titles, the Chicago Bulls talisman decided to return to the arena where he would promptly win three more.

His career-long agent David Falk drafted and redrafted press releases announcing the earth-shattering news but, frustrated at not being able to hit the right tone, asked the man himself how he would word it.

Jordan subsequently issued a two-word statement telling fans all they needed to hear: "I'm back."

If only AFL media releases could be so concise.

The anecdote is among many to have emerged from The Last Dance, a 10-part series which does for sport documentaries what COVID-19 did for viruses.

It tells the story of the Bulls' '90s dynasty, focusing on the man who won the most valuable player award in all six winning finals series. In fact, the only two titles the Bulls did not claim between 1991 and '98 were when Jordan was playing with an alternative ball.

The title comes from Phil Jackson, the only coach Jordan was prepared to play for and who was told he would be released after the '98 season.

Despite taking more than 20 years to come out, The Last Dance is as perfectly timed as a Jordan dunk.

Having initially allowed the filming on the agreement that the footage would only be used with his permission, Jordan is said to have repeatedly blocked its release. He finally agreed to a documentary proposal in 2016, co-producers ESPN and Netflix aired the first trailer in 2018, pushed back a release to June 2020 and then cannily brought it forward to target a worldwide coronavirus-lockdown audience.

#TheLastDance has hardly been off Twitter's trending list ever since as the sporting public heaps praise on the doco.

You don't have to love basketball to love this. It is compulsive viewing, not least in the strength of its interviewees.

The likes of Barack Obama, Justin Timberlake and Carmen Electra make brief cameos to discuss racial issues, must-have sneakers and dating Dennis Rodman (I think in that order).

It also uses a clever method to tell the story. To focus purely on the climactic 1998 season would have been too drawn out. To have told the story in a strict chronological order would have taken too long to get to the conclusion. But to centre on the main course with frequent flashbacks to various entrees maintains the interest while serving up a feast.

It paints a fascinating picture of Jordan - an iconic figure whose fame and influence transcended his sport.

At one point a comparison is made to Muhammad Ali. It is apt. Watching both at their peak is a reminder not just of how good they were but how superior they were to their contemporaries. However, Jordan never had to protest against fighting the Vietnam war or become the figurehead of a nation's struggle for equal rights.

Throughout the episodes there were hints that Jordan was something of a bully but also the impression that he merely wanted teammates to aspire to his own levels of greatness.

"Once you join the team you live at a certain standard that I play the game and I wasn't going to take anything less," he explains. "If that means I go in there and have to get in your ass a little bit, then I did that."

Asked about his role model status, he says: "I never thought of myself as an activist, I thought of myself as a basketball player."

And of his phenomenal sponsorship income, the owner of the gleaming red Porsche with the number plate "Air" adds: "My game was my biggest endorsement. Believe me, if I was averaging two points and three rebounds, I wouldn't have signed anything with anybody. My game did all my talking."

Jordan averaged more than 30 points per game over his career.

With 10 hours to play with, the documentary finds plenty of time for the back stories of relevant characters, except maybe Luc Longley, the first Aussie to make it in the NBA, starting centre in the best basketball team in history and a notable omission from the lengthy list of interviewees.

The likes of Jackson (who went on to win five more championships with the LA Lakers), Steve Kerr (who, like Jordan, had to deal with his father's murder), the unpredictable Rodman and Kyrgios-esque Scottie Pippen provide fascinating fodder.

But not everybody was happy with the result.

Horace Grant, who won three titles alongside Jordan, said the documentary was edited in favour of its central character while critics have pointed out that it was co-produced by one of Jordan's companies.

It was also crying out to have a microphone by the interviewer, an annoying oversight which resulted in all questions requiring subtitles.

However, it makes up for any flaws with some staggering statistics about the legacy of this era.

When Nike commissioned its Air Jordans, the company hoped it might make $3 million over the next four years. It made $126 million in the first year. In '90s terms, the sneakers were "as hot as a cabbage patch doll".

In 1992, the NBA was shown in 82 countries. Now that number is 215.

But perhaps the most powerful statement from Jordan is in response to the Bulls' decision to break up its golden team in 1999.

"We coulda won seven. That's something I just cannot accept," he says.