This is Toni Kukoc’s life: with cops and security surrounding him, he leaves the cozy solitude of the VIP lounge and enters a cavernous room filled with sports fanatics. For an instant, no one notices him. Then a kid calls his name: “Toni.” A camera flashes. “Toni.” People come running. “It’s Toni Kukoc!” Within seconds he’s engulfed by a giddy mob of men and women, girls and boys. “Let us through,” the cops command. “Let us through.”
Four preteen girls chant: “Koo-kie, Koo-kie.” A man waves a Croatian flag. A woman waits to take a picture of Kukoc holding her baby. A student from Brother Rice High School begs the guards to let him cut into the autograph line: “I have to get his autograph; I just got to have it.”
Who knows what Kukoc makes of this spectacle? He smiles wanly. He’s been ogled like this since the season began. While we watch him, he watches us. He probably thinks we’re crazy. He’s probably right.
Those were days of senseless desperation. Some reporters, the so-called objective experts, suggested that the Bulls give up–just write off the season, trade Scottie Pippen, get a high draft choice, and rebuild the team. Others wanted to trade Horace Grant–the team would only lose him to free agency at the end of the season anyway. “Might as well get somethin’ for him,” the logic went.
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But the season began on November 5 with a startling last-second overtime win in Charlotte against the Hornets, one of several teams ranked better than the Bulls. And in game three the Bulls clobbered Atlanta. Kukoc was brilliant. On one play he grabbed a defensive rebound, dribbled a few feet, and uncorked a no-look, side-arm, full-court bullet pass to rookie forward Corie Blount. The crowd gasped. And then they roared when he drove the lane and brought the ball around his head, from his right to his left, and dished off to Horace Grant, who went in for the dunk. It was endlessly replayed on TV, that pass, and still no one knew how he did it. “Never seen anything like it,” said Grant–not even from Jordan.
Most of all we loved Toni, for he was the new guy sent from above to save us. We’d never seen anything like him, at least not in Chicago. Gangly yet graceful, with those long, rubbery arms, he ignited the offense by driving to the basket and passing off to Steve Kerr and Bill Wennington for open shots. For a while he was scoring 15 points, dishing 7 assists, and grabbing 5 rebounds a game, unheard-of numbers for a bench player, among the highest of any rookie in the league.
