Scottie Pippen’s relationship with his superstar teammate, Michael Jordan, and the former Chicago Bulls’ head coach, Phil Jackson, has been nothing short of complicated. Pippen was on record saying he was never really tight with either of them.
He even alleged that Jackson was a racist, which was heavily scrutinized by many in the basketball fraternity, including Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Stephen A. Smith.
Now Jackson has addressed the issue and revealed that he was shocked to find out that’s how Pippen feels about their time together. Appearing on the Dan Patrick show to promote ‘Masters of the Game- A conversational history of the NBA and its 75 legendary players,’ a book he’s co-authored with Sam Smith, the legendary coach narrated his side of the story.
“I was an assistant coach when Scottie came into the game, and I played with him and against him one-on-one and tried to help his game out a little bit. I was big in promoting Scottie because we had Scottie coming off the bench, and I had to sub in as a coach for Doug Collins when he got thrown out of a game, and that was like the immediate thing I did.”
“I put Scottie in the game and upped the pressure defense. This is one of the best defensive players to ever play the game. So I had a lot of admiration for him and had a lot of contact with him.”
The game he’s referring to here is a regular-season matchup between the Bulls and the Milwaukee Bucks from 1988. Head coach Doug Collins had an early ejection from the game, and as Jackson took over, he changed the way they were playing defense and also put in Pippen to increase the defensive pressure.
Some note that it was Jackson’s first taste of calling the shots, and it sparked the legendary career with the Bulls and then later with the Lakers.
It was also indicative of how highly Jackson thought of Pippen because he used his first chance as the head coach to put a brighter spotlight on the power forward. But from his perspective, Pippen’s personality did not let the relationship blossom.
“He was the on-court guy that I alerted all the time. Defensive strategies would come (through him), double-team straps, etc. Whistle! ‘Hey, Scottie, it’s time.’ So, yeah, it was shocking to hear the comments that he made,” Jackson noted.
Under the legendary head coach, Pippen averaged 19.0 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 5.7 assists from 1989-1998. He shot 48.4% from the field and 33% from the three-point line. But his defensive involvement was what differentiated him from others. Just for instance, he had 713 blocks and 1680 steals in the 754 games he played for Jackson.
It looks like the former Bulls head coach is illustrating how he thought he was close with Pippen and recalls the role he played in his development into a starter. But he’s also taken aback by the comments, and he can trace it back to where it all started to go south.
“But he had a situation that was coming off the bench, not being able to play the last few seconds of a basketball game that was critical, and it made a big change in his life.”
Ironically, the 11-time NBA champion was also the one to ask Pippen to go back in when he infamously refused to re-enter the game during the Bulls’ playoff run in the 1993-94 season. In a crucial Game 3 against the New York Knicks, Pippen sat out because he didn’t agree with the play being called.
“Michael called the next day from baseball and said, ‘I don’t know if Scottie will ever be able to live this down.’ And I think it’s been a hard thing to live down. You know, refusing to go to a ball game because things don’t go your way.”
Author and longtime Bulls reporter Sam Smith also revealed what Jordan really felt about Pippen’s controversy at the time and what he told the 11-time champion, Jackson.
“When some of those things came out, we talked about this in the book that Phil had asked Michael about that and Michael really expressed regret. I thought it was really poignant that Michael told Phil that he feels terrible about losing the relationship with Scottie. You know, a 20-25 year relationship that was closer than a lot of people thought,” said Smith.
The Bulls were one of the most exciting and popular sports dynasties of all time. But whenever this story is told in its entirety, Pippen fails to come out as an outright hero. And the moment against the Knicks, as well as his treatment of his teammates and his coach post-retirement, went a long way in diminishing his greatness.
It plays a huge part in why people today look back at Pippen as Jordan’s sidekick rather than as one of the 75 best players in the league’s history.
