In one of his latest interviews with VladTv, Dennis Rodman has again sparked the raging debate comparing Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Rodman took up John Salley’s comments hailing Scottie Pippen as a better player than MJ. Rodman seemed to agree and added how Michael Jordan would not have won his six championships without Pippen.
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In retrospect, Dennis Rodman had often been jealous of Michael Jordan. He has expressed his frustrations back in the ’90s decade for not receiving the same attention or money as ‘His Airness’.
Dennis Rodman regards Scottie Pippen in a higher position than Michael Jordan
In his interview with Dennis Rodman, Vlad reiterated former Bulls player John Salley’s comments on Scottie Pippen from an older interview. Salley hailed Pippen as the most skilled player he had worked with, sidelining Jordan. Following this, when Rodman was asked to agree or disagree, he hesitantly agreed with Salley.
Adding further, Rodman said that Michael Jordan would not have been able to win the league by himself. He needed Scottie Pippen’s skills and Rodman’s defensive prowess to keep dominating the league with the Bulls. Praising Pippen further, the Worm said:
“Michael couldn’t do it by himself. Michael’s scoring 40 points a game and Scottie came in man just fill in the blanks amd just made him just like a major, major superstar. I just think Scottie Pippen is probably one of the innovators of the power forward point guards. Because he’s 6’9″, and these kids said they are 6’10” doing the same thing Scottie was doing. I mean Scottie, his game was polished, he was good. I think if Scottie played today, probably he’d had triple double.”
This can be true to some extent as Jordan was struggling to win the NBA Championship despite his individual prowesses in the league. Pippen joined Chicago Bulls in 1987, and the Bulls won the first Championship in 1991.
After the release of Last Dance, Scottie Pippen himself tried claiming his due credit over Michael Jordan. Like Salley and Rodman, Pippen claimed that the Bulls wouldn’t have won their championships without him. Furthermore, he took another solid dig at MJ by calling LeBron James statistically the greatest player.
Rodman was always jealous of Michael Jordan’s successes
In his book ‘Bad As I Wanna Be’, Dennis Rodman seemed to have a lot of complaints about Michael Jordan’s greatness and stardom. The Worm had signed with the Chicago Bulls when his book was released. He was unsatisfied with his status and salary compared to Michael Jordan’s.
Jordan had become the highest earner in the league by 1996, with an annual salary of over $30,140,000. This had made Rodman insecure with his $9,000,000 salary, which was meager compared to Jordan’s. Perhaps, all such complexities fueled the current perception that Rodman has for MJ over Pippen.
