1. Greg’s mom said she was going to let us move the big TV from the living room into Greg’s bedroom.
2. I felt a lingering frustration with Scottie Pippen after he refused to go in during the final seconds of Game 3 against the Knicks during the 1994 playoffs. While I knew his teammates had since forgiven him, I wasn’t sure that Scottie had really atoned for selfish behavior.
3. The party was going to have two different kinds of ice cream cake.
4. I had serious concerns as to whether or not Dennis Rodman was going to be a good roster fit. With his erratic behavior and penchant for coasting, I worried Rodman was too volatile and his presence could ultimately lead to a locker room divided.
5. Greg had a really big slide in his backyard.
6. After struggling to make it as a baseball player and then hastily returning the previous season only to lose to the Magic in the conference semifinals, I had become increasingly certain that Michael Jordan’s age was catching up with him.
7. Greg had rented Toy Story for the party, but then did a last minute tape switch at the video store and walked out with a copy of Casino.
8. Janet Maslin had given Space Jam a bad review in the Times a few months before and I felt that that kind of toxicity might hinder Jordan’s play.
9. Greg told me at school the previous week that his family usually had five different kinds of potato chips in the house at any given time.
10. With the addition of expansion teams in the early '90s, the NBA’s talent pool had become diluted and I wasn’t interested in watching an inferior product.
11. Greg’s dad made his own beef jerky.