NBA legend Karl Malone was recently asked about who he would his dream team around. He ended up choosing Scottie Pippen and Magic Johnson ahead of one Michael Jordan.
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Karl Malone is one of the best power forwards in the history of the NBA. Built more like a football player than a basketball player, his size and strength made him difficult to defend in the low block. The two-time MVP finished his career with 36,928 points second only behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Moreover, he had a deadly mid-range jumper, which he used constantly on the pick and roll with John Stockton. The duo dominated the Western Conference every year in their prime, only to lose to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s Chicago Bulls in the finals.
During the 1997 Finals, Pippen hit Malone with one of the greatest trash-talk lines of all time, telling him that the Mailman couldn’t deliver on Sunday. The Jazz forward promptly missed two free throws and eventually lost both the game and the series.
Tie game in game 1 of the 1997 NBA Finals with Karl Malone at the line. Scottie Pippen goes up to him and whispers, “Mailman doesn’t deliver on Sundays.”
Malone misses both free throws and Jordan hits a buzzer beater the very next possession. Legendary. 🗣 pic.twitter.com/2ZRXpVwgLx
— Timeless Sports (@timelesssports_) April 19, 2020
The very next year, Michael Jordan humiliated Malone. In Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, His Airness famously stole the ball from the Mailman before nailing the series-clinching shot.
As a result, Karl Malone might not be the biggest fan of MJ, and that was on full display recently. In fact, the former 2x MVP even explained why he would build his own personal dream team around fellow Bulls player Scottie Pippen instead of His Airness.
Karl Malone explains why he picks Scottie Pippen over Michael Jordan.
The 1992 USA Men’s basketball team, nicknamed the “Dream Team”, was the first American Olympic team to feature active professional players from the NBA. The team has been described by many around the world as the greatest sports team ever assembled.
Fans have begged Team USA to release tapes of the Dream Team going back and forth in practice. Finally, that dream may turn into a reality with the upcoming release ‘Dream Team’ documentary.
As part of the promotion for the same, one of the members of the Dream Team, Karl Malone recently made an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show. The Jazz forward was asked about which two players from the 1992 ‘Dream Team’ that he would make a team with, to which Malone shockingly picked Pippen over Michael Jordan. He goes on to say –
“I would have to say, I would have to start it with Scottie Pippen,” he added saying, “Do you remember the time when Michael retired? – the second, third time – I watched Scottie Pippen when the Chicago Bulls wasn’t really good.”
“And Scottie led that team in every statistical category. And I just remember that. He wants to stop the best player on the other team. That would have been pretty cool, to see Scottie guarding Michael.”
He chose his second player, saying, “My second one would be Magic.”
Arguably, Scottie Pippen would be more valuable in today’s NBA due to the position-less basketball we see today. However, no matter what the reason is, to choose him over the GOAT, Michael Jordan, is, as Stephen A. Smith would say, “Blasphemous”.
Does Karl Malone actually believe that he’d rather build a team around Scottie Pippen? Or is he still holding a bit of a grudge against Michael Jordan for what happened in the past? At the end of the day, only the Mailman himself knows the answer.
