Source: Barry Brecheisen / Getty
Scottie Pippen may have won six rings with Michael Jordan, but he still harbors some resentment.
Last year, when Jordan’s The Last Dance debuted on ABC, Pippen wasn’t pleased with the way he was portrayed and even said that while they were “excellent teammates” on the basketball court, he pointed out that off the court was a different story entirely, and they didn’t have a real friendship.
Now it turns out a year after the 10-part documentary, Pippen is still not satisfied with how he and the rest of the championship-winning Bulls squad were shown.
“How dare Michael treat us that way after everything we did for him and his precious brand. Michael Jordan would never have been Michael Jordan without me, Horace Grant, Toni Kukoc, John Paxson, Steve Kerr, Dennis Rodman, Bill Cartwright, Ron Harper, B.J. Armstrong, Luc Longley, Will Perdue, and Bill Wennington. I apologize to anyone I’ve left out,” Pippen said in an excerpt from his memoir Unguarded, according to GQ. “I’m not suggesting Michael wouldn’t have been a superstar wherever he ended up. He was that spectacular. Just that he relied on the success we attained as a team—six titles in eight years—to propel him to a level of fame throughout the world no other athlete, except for Muhammad Ali, has reached in modern times.”
Pippen went on to recognize that even though parts of the documentary focused on his childhood in Arkansas, the attention was quickly focused back on his Airness.
“Even in the second episode, which focused for a while on my difficult upbringing and unlikely path to the NBA, the narrative returned to MJ and his determination to win. I was nothing more than a prop,” Pippen wrote. “His’ best teammate of all time,’ he called me. He couldn’t have been more condescending if he tried.”
The 56-year-old went on to explain that he and Jordan had a conversation after he found out there was some animosity, but it’s clear some tension still remains.
Twitter reacted to the two very successful men still being at odds:
