Michael Jordan is one of the deadliest NBA players anyone has ever seen take the court. The closest we’ve come to seeing someone replicate his actions was his close friend Kobe Bryant. Together, the two possessed such an incredible variety of skills and moves to contribute on both ends of the floor at any given time. However, in 2017, Scottie Pippen was on ‘The Jump’ on ESPN when he made an atrocious statement about MJ and the Lakers legend.
Advertisement
We all know things between Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan haven’t been the best lately. It all started with Last Dance and how Scottie and other Bulls teammates were unhappy with the way they were portrayed. Pippen felt his contributions were not fairly shown, and his stellar career was made to seem like a subpar one. However, 3 years before Last Dance aired, Scottie was out making such statements about MJ.
Scottie Pippen claimed Kobe Bryant could ‘outshoot’ Michael Jordan
Scottie Pippen was a regular on ESPN’s hit show, The Jump. During one of his appearances in 2017, the show cut to a commercial break, but Pippen and Tracy McGrady could be heard talking. Pippen said,
“There is no way Michael Jordan could outshoot Kobe Bryant”
He then went on to say,
“Kobe thrilled people like Stephen Curry thrills people in today’s game.”
The next day, Rachel Nichols made a quick segment out of it, called ‘Hot Mics’. She asked the two to continue their discussion on air, and now Scottie went a bit on the back foot. This time he said,
“For a score, Kobe Bryant’s shooting reminds me of someone like Stephen Curry when he was in the prime of his career… Michael Jordan was more multi-dimensional. He dunked the ball way more earlier in his career, and made highlight reels.
At this point, Rachel Nichols pulled up the stats, which showed MJ was a better 2-point shooter at 51%, compared to Kobe’s 48%. The two of them had an equal 33% from the deep, although, Kobe had 5546 attempts compared to MJ’s 1778.
From the numbers, it looks like both of them were the same type of distance shooters. Except Kobe played in an era where 3-pointers were gaining importance quickly, hence the higher number of attempts. Maybe if both of them played in the same era and took a similar number of shots, the comparison would’ve been clearer.
MJ once admitted only Kobe Bryant could beat him 1v1
Back in 2014, Michael Jordan was promoting NBA 2K14, when he was asked about playing others in a 1v1. He said he could beat LeBron James, and took other names. When it came to Kobe, MJ thought Kobe could beat him. His reasoning?
“I don’t think I would lose, other than to Kobe Bryant, because he steals all of my moves.”
Phil Jackson also revealed a similar incident, where MJ admitted Kobe might beat him, again, for the same reasons.
