Watching Michael Jordan’s maniacal struggle to eclipse the NBA dynasties of the 1980s is a reminder of what the player empowerment era has all but eliminated: the hero’s journey, a story arc rich with rivalries and villains, and the resulting bond between superstar and city forged over time by battles lost and won.

From 1980-87, the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers duked it out for the crown, with at least one beating another every year but ’86, when a young Hakeem Olajuwon prevented another Lakers-Celtics epic. He too would get his due nearly a decade later with the same Houston Rockets. The characters, their styles and conflicts all bred familiarity as the plot unfolded toward an annual resolution.

It was a rich storyline even casual fans in those cities could not help but follow with bated breath, and it was something entertainment folks everywhere else could join midstream and understand like a film franchise. You do not have to see every movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to know the superheroes, alliances and enemies. So, when the Detroit Pistons finally defeated the Celtics in 1987, and then the Lakers in 1989, everyone could appreciate what Isiah Thomas had gone through to beat Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

View photos It took four years for Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls to slay the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons. (Focus on Sport via Getty Images) More

The heroic rise of Michael Jordan

Same goes for Jordan’s Bulls, who survived three straight playoff losses to the Pistons before first declaring victory in 1991. The torch is passed, and the story continues. And when Chicago slayed every would-be challenger — Clyde Drexler’s Portland Trail Blazers, Charles Barkley’s Phoenix Suns, Patrick Ewing’s New York Knicks, Reggie Miller’s Indiana Pacers and Karl Malone’s Utah Jazz — we had a full appreciation of Jordan’s greatness. (It would have been nice to see him face Hakeem’s Rockets, though.)

The dismantling of the Bulls before Jordan could be slayed, combined with the 1999 lockout, reworked the plot, and then the increased flow of player movement abandoned it altogether. The Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers and Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs split the next five straight titles, but with the ultimate hero out of the picture, it never felt the same. Duncan’s personality and a competitive imbalance in the Eastern Conference did not help matters when it came to rebranding the league’s rivalries, and the transient nature of the modern superstar eliminated the familiarity that bred contempt and mass intrigue.

In “The Last Dance,” Jordan said he wanted the opportunity to defend the title until Chicago no longer could. He never got the chance, and we never saw the story through. Who can say how our appreciation of dynasties built by O’Neal, Bryant and Duncan might have changed had either defeated Jordan’s Bulls?

What was lost when Jordan left Chicago

The 2004 Pistons were a superstar-less team that reveled in low-scoring games and served as a fitting transition from familiar star-laden rivalries to ephemeral superteams. The feud between Shaq and Kobe birthed the 2006 champion Miami Heat, the first hired-gun title in recent memory. Having battled Jordan’s Bulls in Orlando and Duncan’s Spurs in L.A., O’Neal never belonged to Miami the way superstars before him were ingrained in their franchises. That team also launched Dwyane Wade, but we will get to him.

The 2008 Celtics broke the mold, turning a 24-win team into a champion overnight with the trade acquisitions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. That of course made Bryant’s back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010 all the more impressive, since we had followed his journey through the muddled mid-2000s to emerge a champion again. It is also what we love about Dirk Nowitzki’s 2011 Dallas Mavericks — the slow build of a franchise around a solitary superstar who we had seen rise and fall together before.

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