Scottie Pippen confronts the narrative the Bulls won all those championships because Jordan was hard on his teammates
Pippen says the Bulls won those championships because they were a great team
Scottie Pippen isn't done taking shots at Michael Jordan, this time saying the Chicago Bulls didn't win all those championships because of him being tough on his teammates. According to Pippen, the story behind their success is entirely different than the narrative Jordan is trying to push in public.
Pippen cringed when watching The Last Dance
In his new autobiography 'Unguarded by Scottie Pippen,' Scottie details how there is a big misconception behind the narrative that everyone on those Bulls teams played better because of Michael Jordan's pressure on them to do better. Apparently, everything presented in The Last Dance documentary was false, and Pippen is not buying into that narrative now in the same way he did back when those things were happening.
"In the doc, Michael attempted to justify the occasions in which he berated a teammate in front of the group. He felt these guys needed to develop the toughest to get past the NBA's more physical teams. Seeing again how poorly Michael treated his teammates, I cringed, as I did back then."
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Pippen wants to set the record straight by saying the Bulls won all those championships because they played as a team and clicked with each other on the basketball court.
"Michael was wrong. We didn't win six championships because he got on guys. We won in spite of his getting on guys. We won because we played team basketball, which hadn't been the case my first two seasons, when Doug Collins was our coach. That's what was special about playing for the Bulls: the camaraderie we established with one another, not that we felt blessed to be on the same team with the immortal Michael Jordan.
He thinks he was a better teammate than Jordan
There is a notion floating around for over two decades now that Jordan was a tough teammate because he demanded everyone be on the same level as he was, which Pippen absolutely denies. We've heard stories from other players that said he was a challenging teammate and someone who was always in your business if you were not performing well, which probably is true knowing his demeanor. That is why Pippen believes he was a much better teammate than Jordan because he was the complete opposite, often showing incredible support to his teammates no matter what happened.
"I was a much better teammate than Michael ever was. Ask anyone who played with the two of us. I was always there with a pat on the back or an encouraging word, especially after he put someone down for one reason or another. I helped the others to believe in and stop doubting themselves."
There is no question that Pippen has a lot of resentment towards Jordan and the documentary because the spotlight was mostly focused on Jordan and his teammates came second. Pippen wants to clear the air and provide a different perspective on how things actually came about in their hierarchy. It will be interesting to see if Jordan will follow up and respond to all these claims Pippen is making recently about the Bulls and Jordan himself as the ultimate leader of that historic team.
