Even as a player, Scottie Pippen was always overshadowed by Michael Jordan – even if both were highly successful. With statements in Pippen’s autobiography, the tablecloth between the two basketball legends is likely to have finally been cut.
They were once the dream duo of basketball: Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan won six championship titles with the Chicago Bulls in the North American professional league NBA in the 1990s, as well as Olympic gold with the USA in 1992. Jordan was then the undisputed best basketball player in the world, Pippen had his back.
In the meantime, however, the tablecloth between the two former teammates has been cut. Scottie Pippen mercilessly accounts for Jordan in his autobiography “Unguarded”. The now 56-year-old complains in bitter words about how his by far more famous teammate constantly put himself in the foreground – during and after his basketball career – and ignored the teammates who made his success possible.
NBA legends: Scottie Pippen thinks Michael Jordan is “condescending”
Pippen was particularly frustrated with the documentary series “The Last Dance”, which was broadcast by Netflix last year. It’s about the 1997/98 season of the Chicago Bulls, the last year Pippen and Jordan played together. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. The number 23 was the focus again and again. Even the second episode, which was about my difficult path in the NBA for a while, was all about MJ and his determination to win” , Pippen writes in an excerpt that GQ magazine has published in advance. “I was nothing more than an accessory. His ‘best teammate of all time’, as he called me. He couldn’t have been more condescending had he tried.”
The Bulls were the first NBA team to win three championship titles in a row for the second time. According to “The Last Dance” that was almost entirely due to Michael Jordan – at least that’s how it seems to have arrived with Scottie Pippen. It was only about building up the Jordan myth, annoyed Pippen: “Every episode always the same: Michael on a podium, his teammates were secondary, smaller, the message was no different than when he called us his supporting actors . “
One-sided representation in the basketball documentary “The Last Dance”?
Even when they were active, Pippen and his teammates had always been in the shadow of the superstar – although Jordan would never have been so successful without the support of his teammates, as Scottie Pippen emphasizes. The small forward had also said in the series that he had long been underpaid at the Chicago Bulls, even when he was one of the best players in the NBA.
Pippen is also about money when he criticized Jordan and the Netflix series: “Michael got ten million dollars for his appearance in the documentary, my teammates and I didn’t get a cent.” Pippen also blames the superstar for what he sees as one-sided portrayal in the series: Jordan always had the last word in the documentary.
Source From: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
