- Phil Jackson wanted Scottie Pippen to join the Los Angeles Lakers in 1999
- This would have given the Lakers a Big 3 of Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, and Scottie Pippen
- Team owner Dr. Jerry Buss didn’t want to do it though, and decided against acquiring Scottie Pippen
From 2000 to 2002, the Los Angeles Lakers won three consecutive NBA championships, with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant leading the way. They could have had Scottie Pippen on that team, too, if not for team owner Dr. Jerry Buss.
“Phil definitely felt that Scottie would be a big improvement for us in the next year or two,” Buss told ESPN before the start of the 1999 season.
“But he is aware that if you take somebody like Scottie with a long-term contract under the current rules, it would have been impossible to ever improve this team.
“Scottie is just a great player and certainly for a year or two, it would’ve been the right thing to do. We would’ve probably done it had he not had a four-year contract.
“When you take him, you’re basically saying this is our personnel for the next four years. Right now we have a lot more leeway than that and I think we should maintain that leeway.”
Scottie Pippen left the Chicago Bulls after The Last Dance in 1998 and signed a 5-year deal with the Houston Rockets worth $67.5 million. At the time, his annual salary of over $11 million was too much for the Lakers to work with.
It’s hard to imagine what a team with these three stars playing together would look like, but they certainly would have won four more championships, bringing Scottie Pippen to a total of 10.
The Los Angeles Lakers Built An Excellent Squad Around Kobe Bryant And Shaquille O’Neal
The Los Angeles Lakers’ policy of saving cap space to build a well-rounded roster around Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant paid off massively. They acquired former Bulls Horace Grant and Ron Harper, who were contributors, among others.
Names like Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, Brian Shaw, and Robert Horry also contributed massively, with four other players apart from Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal averaging over seven points per game in the 2000-01 season.
The NBA’s history is filled with ‘what ifs’ and this is a major one for Scottie Pippen.
He did already win six championships, though, so for him, getting the money was likely far more important than getting a few more titles to his name. It all worked out for the Lakers in the end too.
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