When Michael Jordan retired from the Chicago Bulls for the first time, Scottie Pippen took it upon himself to establish his own alpha dog status.
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Scottie Pippen is a man who’ll end up going to his grave feeling wronged by everyone. He was an integral, non-negotiable, utterly irreplaceable member of the most iconic NBA team ever. But that much seems nowhere close to enough.
After being portrayed in a slightly cavalier light on The Last Dance, Pippen turned on Michael Jordan seemingly without a care for any and everything that the 2 legends accomplished together.
Scottie Pippen used a number of sales tactics – including Michael Jordan hate – to sell his recently released book. And for doing so, he invited a ton of flak from Bulls fans who believed he was their locker room glue.
However, there are some people with long memories who haven’t forgotten what went down with Scottie Pippen in his heyday
“Scottie Pippen lacks the gift Michael Jordan had for leadership”: A 1993 report blasted Pippen for schooling Toni Kukoc in practice
One of the nicknames that Scottie had during his playing days was pretty unflattering. The man went by ‘No-Tippin Pippen’ because apparently, he was one of the worst tippers ever.
This abrasiveness that Pippen displayed to the world wasn’t exclusively with the wait staff. He seemed to have a special need to reassure himself about being THE man everywhere he went. That much is clear from this recently recirculated newspaper clipping on Twitter.
The Last Dance painted Scottie Pippen a picture of someone that was well-liked in that locker room, a contrast and breath of fresh air from MJ’s take-no-bullshit approach. Know what else the Last Dance didn’t mention? This. pic.twitter.com/5f6t1SF0zW
— rjdisidoro (@rjdisidoro) March 8, 2022
The Last Dance was a series that Pippen had serious problems with his depiction in. But in fact, if we’re to believe people who lived in and remember those times, his character was not nearly as well-loved as claimed.
A part of that bitterness in his personality can definitely be attributed to him feeling undervalued. But if a man lets his pay affect his personality across dimensions, that’s definitely a problem and a cause for concern. Lots of fans never truly fell in love with Scottie Pippen.