With Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan making headlines due to controversies generated by the former’s claims about his old partner and the way he treated teammates, everybody has something to say about it.
Charles Barkley recently criticized Pippen for losing friendships just to sell more books and Grant Hill lamented their legacy is tainted after Scottie’s claims. Well, some folks are ready to defend Pippen and his book’s co-author is the first one ready to fire back at criticism.
Michael Arkush recently came in Pippen’s defense, claiming he just wanted to clear the air on the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty and the way Jordan was portrayed in the award-winning docu-series The Last Dance.
Via Essentially Sports:
On the contrary, co-author Michael Arkush believes that the memoir does nothing to target Jordan in particular. Contrarily, it just sets the record straight. In an interview with The Undefeated, the author spoke about his 15th piece of work – Unguarded. “Michael Jordan won one playoff game in his career when Scottie Pippen wasn’t there,” laid out Arkush. He asserted that although Pippen has always respected Jordan, the documentary misrepresented too many things. And Unguarded was Pippen’s way of setting things straight.
It’s odd that to set the record straight you have to attack your old teammate, say he ruined basketball, and call him selfish after winning six championships together. Moreover, he claimed he was a better teammate than Jordan, so it’s unclear what he meant with ‘clear the air.’
NBA fans aren’t happy with Pippen, especially after video evidence shows Jordan showing love to the rest of his teammates and him. After the 1997 NBA Finals, MJ said he and Pippen should share the MVP trophy due to all the great things he did to help His Airness win.
We’re yet to learn about Jordan’s reactions to all the things Pippen has said about him. Still, it must be hard knowing that somebody you believed was your friend is doing this, but Pippen doesn’t seem to be bothered by that.
