Scottie Pippen’s recent comments about Michael Jordan have garnered a lot of attention over the last week or so. In an excerpt of his new book, Pippen slammed MJ for numerous reasons, mostly for the way he and many other Bulls players were portrayed during ‘The Last Dance’ docuseries.
Pippen also objected to Jordan calling him his best teammate in the docuseries, suggesting that Jordan was being condescending with his comments. One of the biggest accusations from that excerpt was Jordan allegedly releasing the docuseries to show people he was and always will be bigger than LeBron James.
Fans have been unhappy with Pippen’s comments, especially given how Jordan has been nothing but complimentary and spoken kind words about Pippen when given the opportunity. Some even believe that his comments are insincere, and made in an effort to sell Pippen’s upcoming autobiography.
This wasn’t the case 2 years ago when Scottie was very complimentary of Jordan and the Bulls. In an interview on ESPN’s The Jump, Pippen, accompanied by Dennis Rodman, spoke about the 1998 Chicago Bulls, and how successful they would have been if the team hadn’t been disbanded (4:23 onward).
Pippen and Rodman agreed that they could have won multiple NBA championships if they had stayed together. So much so, that Pippen even suggested that their team would go undefeated across the 50-game lockout season of 1998-99.
Scottie: “I would say at least 2. I would have loved to had challenged ourselves to a point where someone could defeat us. The teams that were giving us the most trouble, Utah Jazz means more in the Finals. They were just as old, if not older than us. Which gives me the sense that we probably could have ran a couple, three more years in terms of teams we could beat on the West Coast.”
Rodman: “That makes me mad because – can we rewind time? Because we had legs for 50 games, my god. Who really screwed this up?”
Scottie: “I think we all knew going into that last season that that was the end. No one really screwed it up. It was gonna be screwed up at the end. We just have to accept that.”
Scottie (When asked what the Bulls’ record would have been in the lockout season): “Probably 50-0”
Pippen’s comments aren’t surprising, given that even Michael Jordan stated in the docuseries that he could continue playing at a high level with the Bulls.
In fact, the team that replaced their dynasty, the Los Angeles Lakers with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, may not have had that success, as their head coach Phil Jackson would have stuck around in Chicago.
There’s no way of knowing how well the aging Bulls roster would have fared after the 97-98 season. But the stars are confident they would have found continued championship success in the years that followed.
