Scottie Pippen was one of the best, if not the greatest two-way players in the history of basketball. The man might have played second-fiddle to Michael Jordan for most of his successful years in the NBA, but he was a superstar in his own rights who just missed out on superstardom and a lot of money to win championships.
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MJ was the perfect man to be the face of the league after Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. That much was perfectly clear in just his rookie season in the NBA. So, there wasn’t going to be anybody in the Chicago Bulls team, after 1984, who would be given any sort of importance over ‘His Airness’.
Not even a man who would be one of the top-10 scorers of the 90s while also making his legacy as the greatest position fewer defenders of all time. However, he has the respect of the OGs.
John Salley says Scottie Pippen was an anomaly without whom Pistons never cared about Michael Jordan’s Bulls
In an appearance on VladTV, a former teammate of the Bulls duo and an important role player for the Bad Boy Pistons, John Salley, talked about how his team didn’t care about the Bulls until Pippen came along.
“Scottie was an anomaly,” said Salley, talking about how the Detroit Pistons dominated the Bulls until Pippen and Horace Grant became the team’s big-time contributors after their rookie season, i.e. 1987-88.
How good were Pippen and the Bulls after his rookie season?
Struggling with a lower back problem in his rookie season, Pippen could not play more than 20 minutes a night. He managed just about 7.9 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.2 steals in that period.
Requiring surgery by the end of the season he had missed the 1987 Playoffs. He then made a quick recovery and improved significantly, not only in playing more minutes but improving overall as a player.
The man helped Jordan win his Playoffs series in 1998, before which the Bulls supreme had not won one in 3 years despite being a scoring champion (1987) and Defensive Player of the Year of the NBA (1988).
The Bulls team with Pippen would never go out in the first round after 1987, not even when Jordan would take a break after their 3-peat in 1993. Now you might get the idea, why some OGs of the game say MJ needed Pip as much as the other way around.
