Over the past few months, Bulls legend Scottie Pippen has spoken honestly about his opinion on his former teammate, Michael Jordan.
In a series of interviews, and in his book, Pippen bashed the 6x Champ, going so far as to call him selfish for retiring ahead of the 1993-94 season. Pippen said plenty of other harsh things about Jordan and fans no longer have any doubt that Scottie holds a lot of resentment about his past, much of which surfaced in ‘The Last Dance.’
Speaking to Bill Simmons, former basketball star Charles Oakley revealed the truth about the relationship between Pippen and Jordan. According to him, they are no longer on speaking terms.
(via The Bill Simmons podcast)
“No, I think it’s over,” Oakley said. “Yeah, I think it’s over. It wasn’t great from the get-go. I think they [covered] Dennis Rodman more than Scottie — and Steve Kerr,” Oakley said, referring to two key members of Chicago’s second three-peat. “But my thing to that is, Kerr did way more off the court than Scottie. Dennis probably has, too. But on that court, Scottie did a lot more than both of them, but Scottie felt like he was left out of there. And he felt like Jordan wouldn’t have six rings if it wasn’t for him…”
“[Jordan] always praised Scottie, always praised Scottie. He never talked down about him, but I don’t know what happened since ‘The Last Dance.’ It seems like things just — he probably said, ‘OK, Scottie said this stuff about me. OK, I’m not gonna say nothing.’ He’s not gonna say nothing back in the press, none of that, try to go back to Scottie. He’s just gonna keep doing what he’s doing — play golf, fish, relax and smoke cigars.”
Together, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen led the Bulls to dominance in the 90s, when they won three straight titles twice over an 8-year span.
Back then, there was no evidence of problems between the co-stars, and it looked to everyone like they had a profound respect and care for each other.
Now, it seems Pippen looks back on those days with disdain and his relationship with basketball’s all-time greatest player is no more.
Maybe one day, they can find reconciliation. But, until they do, the world will continue to wonder just what went wrong for one of the NBA’s most accomplished partnerships.
