Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen formed one of the most successful duos in NBA history, but the two no longer see eye to eye. While the relationship has completely fallen apart in recent years, their former teammate Craig Hodges stated on the All The Smoke podcast that the rift started to form when Pippen made the NBA’s 50th Anniversary Team.
“He was playing at Top 50 before then,” Hodges said. “He just didn’t know it, you feel me? He was under the influence of 23… He little brother. Now, when he became Top 50, it became [we’re equal]. ‘What? Let’s go.’ And I think, to some degree, that’s still there in that little rift they having.”
The NBA’s 50th Anniversary Team was chosen in 1996. Both Pippen and Jordan made it in, and Hodges reckons that’s when the former started seeing himself as an equal of the latter.
It should be pointed out, though, that Hodges was no longer their teammate at that point. He played for the Chicago Bulls from 1988 to 1992 and won two championships.
Hodges believes that Pippen is also miffed about Jordan not helping him from a financial standpoint.
“I think he felt that MJ could have done more from a business side of helping him,” Hodges stated. “From the side of saying, you think of how many professional athletes today and of yesteryear who gave a piece of themselves contractually in order to keep my boy here. I think Scottie wanted a little bit of that to happen.”
Jordan earned a combined $63 million in his last two seasons with the Bulls while Pippen made $5 million in that time. The latter could well have been a bit upset about that.
Pippen only had himself to blame for making that little, though. He signed a seven-year, $18 million deal in 1991, which meant he was severely underpaid toward the end of his first stint with the Bulls.
So, Pippen believing himself to be an equal of Jordan’s, but getting paid peanuts in comparison, is what started the rift in Hodges’ eyes. Another former teammate believes it wasn’t too many years after that that the relationship was completely over.
John Salley claimed that Jordan and Pippen’s friendship ended in 2004. The two still seemed on good terms from the outside, but then The Last Dance docuseries came out in 2020.
Pippen was furious at how he was portrayed in it and started firing shots in public at Jordan. The most shocking one of the lot was when Pippen called Jordan a horrible player. You knew it was all over when those kinds of comments were being made.
Pippen did recently state that Jordan would dominate in this current era and has been a bit more complimentary lately. He doesn’t seem to have any interest in mending fences, though, and Salley believes they’ll never be friends again.
Hodges, though, is still hoping that Jordan and Pippen, who won six titles together, will put their differences aside. He believes they are too old to be holding grudges, but Jordan’s history suggests he’s never going to let go, regardless of how old he gets.
