Even though Scottie Pippen has been blasting Michael Jordan for the last couple of months with regards to his memoir, ‘Unguardable,’ the Chicago Bulls legend knows he and MJ were a lethal duo on the court.
They won six championships together, three-peating twice during the 90s. Scottie could bet everything he has that he and Michael would beat any other team in the NBA, including the 2016/17 Golden State Warriors that featured Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Klay Thompson.
Moreover, Pippen is confident that his Bulls would ‘easily’ defeat any other dynasty that came after Chicago. Talking on SiriusXM NBA Radio, Pippen claimed that the Bulls would defeat the Los Angeles Lakers of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
First, he praised Kobe Bryant for all the things he did during his career and the impact he had on his team at an early age, stating Bryant reminded him a lot of Michael Jordan.
“He [Kobe] was great. I had watched Kobe from his early years. I think he came in in 96, and about the time I had moved out and started playing on the West coast, he was in his fifth or sixth year in the league. He was definitely prime Kobe, a very tough player to guard, reminded me a lot of competing against Michael day in and day out, but I was older and he was younger, so it was a lot different. He was definitely one of the toughest players that I’ve ever played against, especially once Phil [Jackson] got a hold to him and Shaq and got that team really to playing together, and playing with some chemistry. They were a very special team; we talk about Golden State and what they did, but the Shaq-and-Kobe era was to me, a lot more scarier of what they could have done had they stayed together than the Golden State era.”
After being asked about a hypothetical matchup between the best Bulls team against the best Lakers team, Scottie took some seconds before answering that Chicago would easily handle the Shaq and Kobe duo.
“I’ve said this to Shaq, the Bulls win in that. The Bulls win that easily,” Pippen replied.
Pippen is very confident in his Bulls. He knows he was part of a very special team that defeated big rivals on the way to six championships. We’ll never know how many more they could’ve won if they stayed together after 1998, but they did enough to be remembered as one of the greatest squads in NBA history.
In Scottie’s eyes, not even the overpowered Warriors or the three-peat Lakers could do anything to his Bulls.
