do you think that Michael Jordan would be as successful without you no in 2009 when Michael Jordan entered the Basketball Hall of Fame the first person he mentioned and thanked was Scottie Pippen you never just saw me so Scottie Pippen next year it was Michael who presented Scotty to the Hall of Fame when Pippin worked on ESPN and had to do a Lebron vs Jordan comparison Pippin said this and there's no game that I would ever play in and pick LeBron James over Michael Jordan but this was in 2018 when Scotty and Michael's relationship seem
like the happiest marriages while Jordan was known to be a harsh teammate who bullied players and even punched Steve Kerr in the face we never heard those kinds of stories about Scotty and then came the pandemic and the sporting world stopped he has just tweeted within the past two minutes that the NBA is suspending the season deprived of anything to cheer for Netflix offered a 10 episode salvation for all sports fans it was the last dance a long-awaited documentary about the last season of the Bulls Dynasty with behind the scenes footage nobody had ever seen
before and when the documentary came out that's when Scotties and Michael Jordan's relationship started to change see the Last Dance wasn't really a basketball documentary it was more like basketball was just a means to an end and where historic NBA events were used to tell a preset narrative and that narrative was to glorify the cult of Michael Jordan and his place as the basketball goat the Last Dance presented basketball in a way that can be understood by non-basketball fans and casuals it was directed in a way that puts an individual over a team which is
not surprising considering that director Jason Hare needed Jordan's approval to make the film and that Jordan's presence in the film was conditioned by control over the content Last Dance minimized the roles of Jordan's teammates not properly explaining that MJ had by far the Best Supporting Cast in the NBA the documentary never mentioned that Steve Kerr was the most accurate three-point shooter of all time that Horace Grant made for all defensive teams or that Tony cucouch was the best European player in the most versatile power forward in the NBA the doc barely mentioned a defensive Ace
Ron Harper and they completely failed to say a single thing about Center Luke Longley Dennis Rodman got a lot of screen time but much less is the best rebounder in NBA history and more of a party animal that Jordan needed to drag by the ears from Carmen Electra's hotel room but the player who was most heard about the whole thing was Scottie Pippen and it's not hard to see why I had a ruptured tendon in my ankle and I decided to have surgery late because I was like you know what I'm not gonna mess somewhere
up trying to rehab for a season Scotty Pippin to the Bulls will be out for two to three months what Scotty was trying to do was trying to force management change his contract and Jerry wasn't going to do that MJ called out Pippen as being selfish for delaying surgery that season Jordan was making 33 million dollars while Scotty was earning just 2.7 million while the second episode of the documentary did center around Scotty in his unbelievably hard road to the NBA in the end the focus of the narrative quickly returned to MJ and despite being
so jordan-centric the Last Dance was a successful project because it achieved three goals it managed to entertain and occupy the Sports World in the biggest absence of sports since the 1860s it served as a Nostalgia for the people who lived through the Bulls Dynasty and it revitalized the interest in Jordan among the younger Generations if we look at the dock as an entertaining story for the masses the Last Dance absolutely killed and knocked it out of the park but in terms of explaining basketball nuances and strengthening relationships between the Bulls players the Last Dance backfired
completely in May 20 20. after the last episode aired Jordan sent a rare text to Scottie Pippen what's up dude getting a word that you're upset with me love to talk about it if you have time Pippin did call him back and explained his displeasure with how the rest of the Bulls were portrayed when asked about it Scotty backtracked a little bit this documentary has not changed our relationship we will be friends forever I told Michael I wasn't too pleased with the Last Dance he accepted it he said hey you're right that was pretty much
it but it wasn't it and this comment aged badly really quickly in 2021 Pippin started to unravel his feelings about Jordan issuing a series of comments during the promotion of his autobiography titled unguarded Scotty told a story about how Jordan used to cheat him out of 100 during each Bull's game by bribing the staff to tell him who was going to win Jumbotron races during a GQ interview hip accused Jordan of being selfish for leaving the Bulls to pursue a baseball career what did you think when he said he was going to go play baseball
yeah it was it was a big decision but it was a it was a selfish decision but it was kind of uh Who Martha Jordan was implying that he spent too much time grieving the death of his father Scotty also downplayed Jordan's Flu Game saying that he didn't receive any praise for playing the 1998 finals with a herniated disc but the biggest criticism about Jordan the player was when Pippin said that the Bulls didn't win six rings because of MJ and that they did it in spite of him seeing again how poorly Michael treated his
teammates I cringed as I did back then we didn't win six championships because he was tough with the guys we won in spite of his bullying we won because we played team basketball which hadn't been the case my first two seasons when Doug Collins was our coach in his book Scotty also changed his perspective on the Lebron vs Jordan debate I may go as far as to say Mike ruined basketball in the 80s on the playgrounds you'd have everyone moving the ball around passing to help the team that stopped in the 90s kids wanted to
be like Mike and Mike didn't want to pass didn't want to rebound or defend the best player he wanted everything done for him that's why I always believed LeBron James was the greatest player this game has ever seen he does everything and embodies what the game is truly about the rest of the book was even more critical about Jordan and the Last Dance saying that every episode was the same Michael on a pedestal his teammate secondary referred to as his Supporting Cast Michael could shoot six for 24 from the field commit five turnovers and he
was still in the minds of the adoring press in public the errorless Jordan Scotty was also pissed that Jordan received 10 million dollars for his involvement in the documentary while he and the rest of the Bulls got nothing pip wasn't done there and he also unloaded on Phil Jackson during an interview with Dan Patrick no no I understand that Scotty I'm just going by what you said you said you need to read between the fine lines it was a racial move to give tony cucoach a ride so I mean if you knew that Scottie Pippen
had been with the Bulls from 87 wouldn't you give Scotty Pippen one opportunity to get a last second shot without Michael Jordan but have you talked to Phil about this because by saying a racial move then you're you're calling Phil a racist I haven't got a problem with that Scotty took shots at Charles Barkley calling him not dedicated enough to win a title and Isaiah Thomas whom he called a dirty player however while we do agree that the Last Dance was overly centered on Jordan and that there is a lot of Truth in Pippin's words
about the documentary we can't escape the feeling that Scotty overreacted in the dark MJ still said there is no Jordan without Pippin the Last Dance covered how underpaid Pippin was and his success is the leader of the Bulls without Jordan Phil Jackson called Scotty the second best player in the league and the doc mentioned hip and guarding magic in the 91 finals instead of Jordan a key moment that turned the series around so for Scotty to be going on this kind of media Rampage it just feels like a bit too much we understand that it's
hard to be the robin to Jordan's Batman and live constantly in his shadow and then relive that all over again in the documentary but after the dust settled and all the insults had landed it sounds like Pippin was just trying to say outlandish quotes to sell more copies of his book throughout all of Pippin's bad mouthing Jordan never said another word publicly there was no statement trash talking or even acknowledging that Pippin suddenly turned into his biggest hater it was only a sign that all the bridges were burned and that their relationship was broken Beyond
repair to add insult to injury in 2022 MJ's son Marcus short started dating Scotty's ex-wife Larsa Pippen which certainly didn't feel good for her ex-husband wherever Scotty looks Jordan was sticking it to a Pippin and it seems like his anger towards MJ not stop anytime soon
