Scottie Pippen has been making the rounds when it comes to press appearances recently. In an effort to promote his new memoir, Pippen has been doing a lot of interviews where he gives his thoughts on different parts of his legendary NBA career.
While most of the comments have been directed toward Michael Jordan, Pippen has been talking about his career as a whole. One part of his career that isn’t talked about a lot is his stint in Houston. Pippen joined an older Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon to form a big three.
That big three never worked out, primarily due to their diminishing skill set as they grew older. But the relationship between Barkley and Pippen, especially how it deteriorated, played a big part in things going south in Houston.
Despite this, Pippen doesn’t seem to have hard feelings. In a recent interview with GQ Sport, Scottie Pippen spoke about his time in Houston, and how Charles Barkley stopped training with him and Michael Jordan’s trainer Tim Grover (27:44 mark).
The duo had agreed to work out together under Grover, who had helped train Michael and Scottie Pippen in Chicago. But Barkley started to falter in his training, and would often try to cancel and postpone training with Scottie and Grover. The entire arrangement only lasted 2 weeks.
“We are good, man. I am good with Charles, you know. When I went to Houston, me and Charles Barkley decided we was gonna work out, we was gonna train together. I brought a trainer up from Chicago, Tim Grover, who had been training me and Michael for years. And Tim was willing to train us and do all this stuff throughout the season, under my pay. And that deal last for about maybe a week and a half, maybe two. Imma give him two weeks. We had a full routine, we meet at the club, we work out, we go to practice or eat breakfast, whatever. And Charles stayed on that regimen for about two weeks. After two weeks he started calling the trainer, when he was at the gym, saying he wasn’t coming, can we train a little bit later in the afternoon? Blah blah blah. And that went on. The next time it’s like ‘I aint training today’. So he started selling out on me in terms of our working out. And then, he started getting a trainer to kinda work him out on his own time, which wasn’t the deal. And now, I talk with Tim, ‘he’s got you working double’ blah blah blah’. Tim was cool with it, I didn’t mind. But at the end of the day, the results that I got from playing with the Houston Rockets that season wasn’t satisfactory to me.”
Pippen also discussed his relationship with Dennis Rodman in the interview, and why he considered Michael Jordan his best teammate ever.
Charles Barkley has not been happy with the things Pippen has been saying and even accused Scottie of trying to drum up controversy in order to sell his book.
Grover had a great relationship with Michael Jordan. Jordan was the only player from the Bulls that Grover had not approached about potentially training. But they eventually connected, and Grover became MJ’s personal trainer and held the same role for several other key members of the Chicago Bulls.
Perhaps Grover’s regimen may have been too difficult for Barkley at that point in his career. But at the same time, Michael Jordan would have maintained that level of effort consistently regardless of his age.
Maybe Pippen thought that Grover’s presence in Houston could help Barkley the way it did for Michael. But clearly, that was not the case. And the Houston Rockets would not find any championship success at all.
