Together, Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan fashioned their own twin infinity gauntlets by winning half a dozen championships. But a matching set of hardware does not necessarily make a friendship last. Pippen has aired his grievances with Jordan a few times over the years, and one of his big criticisms of his fellow Hall of Famer is that he’s not a team player — off the court. In his memoir “Unguarded,” Pippen spills a great deal of ink while sharing his thoughts about Jordan’s involvement in the 2020 Chicago Bulls docuseries “The Last Dance.” Pippen believes that it was an exercise in self-aggrandizement for Jordan, who would only agree to participate in the project if he essentially got to control the narrative. “One of his stipulations was that he wanted the last word,” director Jason Hehir told Business Insider.
In his book, Pippen writes, “Each episode was the same: Michael on a pedestal, his teammates secondary, smaller.” Even when he’s praised by Jordan in “The Last Dance,” Pippen believes that it’s disingenuous. “I was nothing more than a prop. His ‘best teammate of all time,’ he called me,” Pippen recalls. “He couldn’t have been more condescending if he tried.”
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Pippen later took aim at Jordan’s prowess on the court as well. “He was a horrible player,” he said on Stacey King’s “Gimme the Hot Sauce” podcast in 2021. “He was horrible to play with. He was all one-on-one, he’s shooting bad shots.”
