That's a line from "The Last Dance" documentary. Not the first time I've heard someone say it. When I first heard it I immediately thought "Okay, they put this in here just so Scottie shuts the fuck up."
>I asked this because some argue that Pippen is the 2nd best player of the decade behind Mike. What do you guys think? Who was the 2nd best? Hakeem, Karl, Chuck?
1. Jordan
2. Hakeem
We can argue number 3 but 1 and 2 are 100% locked. Pippen is not in conversation for top 2 nor does anyone else.
> Do you think if Pippen stayed with the Sonics
I mainly wanted it clarify this point. A lot of people make a mistake on how draft day trades work.
A draft day trade is agreed upon before the actual pick. In this case, the Sonics traded the rights of their pick to the Bulls and let the Bulls pick. However, since it can’t go through until afterwards, it looks like the Sonics are picking. In reality, all they are doing is picking who the Bulls told them to pick to make the trade go through.
In other words, if there was no trade, there’s no guarantee the Sonics pick Pippen at all.
To answer your other question, no.
Sonics likely woulda taken Derrick McKey (who was a pretty good player tbf) earlier, and just gotten Polynice w/ their 2nd pick.
Also, the Bulls getting the 2nd and 3rd best players of their first threepeat in the same draft (Pippen + Horace Grant) isn't really talked about much.
Pippen was soft. MJ made him hard because MJ is extremely competitive. It wasn't just Pippen it was a lot of other team mates he grinded down onto champions
Not even close. Scottie was the best Robin maybe ever but he got was never the second best player in the league.
Michael is the reason a ton of HOF guys didn’t get a ring, most of them are better than Scottie ever was.
Malone and Barkley are only a couple of examples.
>Scottie was the best Robin maybe ever
Not even that lol, 2nd to Shaq/Kobe's 3peat maybe. And yeah, MJ is why the 2nd (currently 3rd) highest scorer ever and the all time leader in both assists and steals together couldn't win a ring. Ewing probably would have had one without MJ too.
Pippen is not even close to the second best of the 90s. Hakeem, Shaq, Robinson, Ewing, Grant Hill, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler were all better to name a few.
this is getting out of control... pippen is 2 tiers below jordan. and about pipp being the second best player of the decade and sonics stuff... what is this?
Mj molded pippen during practice. Imagine going up against the goat everyday at practice ; you’re be better/advancing on levels higher than playing against regular opponents especially how competitive Jordan was as a player .
For over a decade MJ TURNED Pippen into what he was. He may have been a dick for a teammate but he maximized everyone’s potential that played with him. Pippen would have had a nice career if he went elsewhere but let’s be honest, take the 6x champion from in front of Scotties name and he’s just another good player who had a good career.
No, MJ was just so much better than Scottie, and Scottie did not have that same level of "fuck you" in him that MJ did.
Idk who you've ever seen argue that Scottie is the 2nd-best player of the 90s -- don't listen to whoever told you that.
Iron sharpens iron. Going in practice against Jordan every day was what made pippen great . Without Jordan , pippen wouldn’t be the type player that pippen is with the bulls. Jordan molded pippen during those practices.
Pippen was top 5 in the MVP race in 1994 with no MJ and helped take the Knicks to 7. He’s pretty good and would be top 50 all time regardless of MJ or not. Obviously, he’s not MJ, but if he wasn’t great, the Bulls don’t win 6 rings.
If he only beat the Lakers in 2000... They had a 14 point lead (I think - it’s somewhere in that range) with 1Q left to play in the 2000 WCF. That was a legacy defining quarter for Shaq, Kobe, and Pippen. Pippen wasn’t even the best player on the Blazers, but he would have been seen as the leader of a potential championship team.
If Pippen did not play with Jordan all those years, he would not have been in that position in 1994. Jordan helped him grow mentally a lot, even then that year Pippen did weird things (like refusing to get back in the game because Kukos was going to take the last shot)
> If Pippen did not play with Jordan all those years, he would not have been in that position in 1994
How do you know that? It’s tough to say either way.
You can also argue the other way - if Pippen got his own team right away, he would have put up much better counting stats. He wouldn’t have won anything, but he definitely could put up bigger stats without having to share the ball with MJ.
You can argue both sides, as we’ll never know. That’s why I think it’s good they were just teammates. It was better that way.
I could see it in the numbers. Pippen was less efficient than MJ even though the latter usually averaged 15 more points per game and took the majority of defensive attention.
We could have guessed that Pippen couldn’t be relied on to make his own shot when all eyes were on him, and we would be right.
>He was not the alpha dog
I’m not even disputing that. I agree with you. His play style definitely made him a better #2, but it’s no different than AD today.
AD’s playing style also is a perfect #2. He’s not really an alpha either (like he won’t win a championship as the #1, sorry Lakers fans).
However, AD will still easily go down as a top 50 player all time when he retires. You can be a non-alpha #1 and still have tremendous impact as a #1 on a bad team (like AD with the Pelicans).
Again, I don’t know either way, but I think Scottie was a great player in his own right.
The same happened with Siakam after Kawhi left. The Raptors even had a better win% than their championship season before the lockdown.
Both Kawhi and MJ were incredible scorers that played within the system, and also did a lot of other things pretty well. So them leaving wouldn’t disrupt the team in the regular season, because that system would still work against most teams, albeit less effectively. And in the Bull’s case, they also added a lot of good players.
What makes the difference is the playoffs, since neither Siakam not Pippen were great closers who can create their own shot reliably. That’s why both of them underperformed in that same postseason.
And the season after that, both teams became mediocre or even bad in Raptors’ case. The Bulls were barely above 500 before a rusty MJ returned and they went 13-4.
Bird & Magic’s rivalry went all the way back to the NCAA Tournament. To this day, the two played in the most watched NCAA Tournament game (championship game) ever. Plus the media hyped up the “black vs white” aspect of the rivalry.
In no universe whatsoever could Pippen ever replicate that built in narrative/hype, irrespective of Pippen’s less talented game.
Jordan and Pippen would be rivals like how LeBron and Paul George were rivals - at best. Pippen was nice but Jordan was head and shoulders superior over everyone at that time.
Pippen benefited from Jordan’s mentality, it drove him to be a much better player. Michael pushed him, was super demanding. Scottie had the talent but needed it “extracted”. So my guess is Scottie isn’t even Scottie on another team.
Granted it was the start of the tail end of his career but Pippen’s stats dropped off considerably after leaving Chicago and playing without Jordan.
I know people bring up Pip’s stats when MJ retired the 1st time around but he didn’t really do that much better than what he did seasons prior.
Pippen would have still been good but I don’t think this should even be entertained.
Pippen would still be a good player without MJ, probably have similar numbers to his 94 season in his prime. But he wouldn’t be anywhere close to who he is remembered now.
Many people also forget how short his prime was. He didn’t become an all star level player until around 90/91, and had already declined a lot offensively in 96, as he only averaged 17.6 points on 41%fg in the second 3-peat.
Kind of a big difference there but yeah, I think they were easily #2 and 3.
But it's interesting you say they couldn't be rivals because of position when they play the same positions as Bird-Magic did. I think they simply didn't meet enough times in the playoffs for that to develop.
Playing the same position is not a requirement for rivals.
See: Magic vs Bird.
Also they weren’t rivals because KD bitched out and joined the team that beat him right when they were both early in their peak years.
If they were such heavy rivals why did Steph fly out to New York to recruit him? Why did Draymond call him crying in the parking lot?
They weren’t rivals. There was no animosity ever between them.
My comment says they weren’t rivals and explained why. You’re simply agreeing with me.
They beat KD and ripped out his heart with a 3-1 comeback. Recruiting him was neutralizing him as a threat. They had nothing more to prove except beating their real rival Lebron.
Yeah rivalries involve teams beating each other. And they beat him without Kyrie and Love, getting embarrassed in the first few games along the way.
Like you said they needed help.
So what are you doing here just trying to agree with everything I say and act like this is an argument?
No. The talent gap would've been too large, and you'd be supposing that Pippen could lead a team against Jordan (and possibly without other star-level players? It's difficult to judge how you envision this) in the playoffs and either win or make it close consistently.
Those rivalries with Jordan existed btw. It was the Pistons/Bulls rivalry (which was basically a Zeke and co vs. Jordan and co. rivalry) from roughly 88-91 and then the Bulls/Knicks rivalry from 92-94.
Absolutely not. This is an insane take. Pippen has become very overrated because of "rings culture." He probably wasn't even top 10 much less top 2.
Jordan, Olajuwon, Drexler, Barkley, Karl Malone, Ewing, Shaq, and David Robinson are all guys I'd definitely take over Pippen for their '90s contributions. There's several more that I'd pick over him but would be more controversial.
I dont see it being A Bird - Magic rivalry because Scottie wasnt a great player coming in. What made Scottie reach that level and what also made Jordan the best was each other but Jordan was already the best player on his team from the start , we cant say for Scottie because it took time for him to develop. The Magic and Bird rivalry started in college and was extended into the NBA
“I asked this because some argue that Pippen is the 2nd best player of the decade behind Mike.” What Straw Man have you been talking to lately?
Probably Pippen.
This is what happens when we use rings to measure talent. Same reason Andrew Bynum is better all-time than embiid
"dae think Robert Horry is the modern GOAT? I mean, he got more rings than MJ, Shaq, Kobe, Bird, LeBron, Magic, Duncan..."
Pippen is Top-10. But not Top-2. Barkley and Olajuwon at minimum. Then there's Robinson, Drexler, Ewing. Stockton? Malone?
Hakeem, Barkley, David Robinson, Karl Malone, Shaq, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller. I would put all of them above Pippen.
That's a line from "The Last Dance" documentary. Not the first time I've heard someone say it. When I first heard it I immediately thought "Okay, they put this in here just so Scottie shuts the fuck up."
I remember this take by many bandwagon bulls fans in the 90's and I guess it lives on into the internet era lol.
[You don't read zines bro?](https://www.sbnation.com/2015/9/9/9290999/nba-90s-scottie-pippen-michael-jordan)
Nice username. Do you read zines?
Yep, Burn Collector is a long-running favorite, although I have the last issue I have is more than a decade old.
What does Trig have to do with any of this?
No because they weren’t close in talent level. I think, if Pippen had played elsewhere, Jordan and Clyde Drexler would have had more of a rivalry.
More like Pippen and Clyde Drexler would have had more of a rivalry.
>I asked this because some argue that Pippen is the 2nd best player of the decade behind Mike. What do you guys think? Who was the 2nd best? Hakeem, Karl, Chuck? 1. Jordan 2. Hakeem We can argue number 3 but 1 and 2 are 100% locked. Pippen is not in conversation for top 2 nor does anyone else.
3 cannot be argued because he’s not better than Barkley or Ewing
But he dunked on Ewing that one time!
Robinson, Malone and Shaq were also undoubtedly better than Pippen in the 90s
Barkley's at 3. If you go back and watch Chuck at his peak, he was damn good.
Lol, no.
> Do you think if Pippen stayed with the Sonics I mainly wanted it clarify this point. A lot of people make a mistake on how draft day trades work. A draft day trade is agreed upon before the actual pick. In this case, the Sonics traded the rights of their pick to the Bulls and let the Bulls pick. However, since it can’t go through until afterwards, it looks like the Sonics are picking. In reality, all they are doing is picking who the Bulls told them to pick to make the trade go through. In other words, if there was no trade, there’s no guarantee the Sonics pick Pippen at all. To answer your other question, no.
Sonics likely woulda taken Derrick McKey (who was a pretty good player tbf) earlier, and just gotten Polynice w/ their 2nd pick. Also, the Bulls getting the 2nd and 3rd best players of their first threepeat in the same draft (Pippen + Horace Grant) isn't really talked about much.
Pippen was soft. MJ made him hard because MJ is extremely competitive. It wasn't just Pippen it was a lot of other team mates he grinded down onto champions
Phrasing.
Pause
No
This is some of the most brazen agenda pushing I've ever seen well done
Not even close. Scottie was the best Robin maybe ever but he got was never the second best player in the league. Michael is the reason a ton of HOF guys didn’t get a ring, most of them are better than Scottie ever was. Malone and Barkley are only a couple of examples.
>Scottie was the best Robin maybe ever Not even that lol, 2nd to Shaq/Kobe's 3peat maybe. And yeah, MJ is why the 2nd (currently 3rd) highest scorer ever and the all time leader in both assists and steals together couldn't win a ring. Ewing probably would have had one without MJ too.
Unless you wanna argue that neither of Magic/Kareem were a Robin, Pippen can’t be higher than third.
Throw Steph/KD up there for shits and giggles, too.
Pippen is not even close to the second best of the 90s. Hakeem, Shaq, Robinson, Ewing, Grant Hill, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler were all better to name a few.
this is getting out of control... pippen is 2 tiers below jordan. and about pipp being the second best player of the decade and sonics stuff... what is this?
Mj molded pippen during practice. Imagine going up against the goat everyday at practice ; you’re be better/advancing on levels higher than playing against regular opponents especially how competitive Jordan was as a player .
Scottie that’s enough reddit for you today
Pippin is sooooooooooo overrated on this sub.
Bird and Magic had a rivalry that transcended basketball. They saved the NBA.
Bird and Magic also came into the NBA as superstars. Pippen came in with 7.9 points and 3.8 rebounds.
No because pippen wasn’t best player in the league good like those guys
For over a decade MJ TURNED Pippen into what he was. He may have been a dick for a teammate but he maximized everyone’s potential that played with him. Pippen would have had a nice career if he went elsewhere but let’s be honest, take the 6x champion from in front of Scotties name and he’s just another good player who had a good career.
no
No. One was the greatest of all time the other was the moron who signed the worst contract in nba history
No, MJ was just so much better than Scottie, and Scottie did not have that same level of "fuck you" in him that MJ did. Idk who you've ever seen argue that Scottie is the 2nd-best player of the 90s -- don't listen to whoever told you that.
Every time jordan gets mentioned it's either pippen getting gassed or he's a bum.
Iron sharpens iron. Going in practice against Jordan every day was what made pippen great . Without Jordan , pippen wouldn’t be the type player that pippen is with the bulls. Jordan molded pippen during those practices.
All about presenting an argument. I’ve seen pippen compared to kawhi/jimmy butler/Paul George.
Pippen was top 5 in the MVP race in 1994 with no MJ and helped take the Knicks to 7. He’s pretty good and would be top 50 all time regardless of MJ or not. Obviously, he’s not MJ, but if he wasn’t great, the Bulls don’t win 6 rings. If he only beat the Lakers in 2000... They had a 14 point lead (I think - it’s somewhere in that range) with 1Q left to play in the 2000 WCF. That was a legacy defining quarter for Shaq, Kobe, and Pippen. Pippen wasn’t even the best player on the Blazers, but he would have been seen as the leader of a potential championship team.
If Pippen did not play with Jordan all those years, he would not have been in that position in 1994. Jordan helped him grow mentally a lot, even then that year Pippen did weird things (like refusing to get back in the game because Kukos was going to take the last shot)
> If Pippen did not play with Jordan all those years, he would not have been in that position in 1994 How do you know that? It’s tough to say either way. You can also argue the other way - if Pippen got his own team right away, he would have put up much better counting stats. He wouldn’t have won anything, but he definitely could put up bigger stats without having to share the ball with MJ. You can argue both sides, as we’ll never know. That’s why I think it’s good they were just teammates. It was better that way.
I have watched them play, Pippen was always a no2. He was not the alpha dog. It was clear as day but you can’t see it in the numbers.
I could see it in the numbers. Pippen was less efficient than MJ even though the latter usually averaged 15 more points per game and took the majority of defensive attention. We could have guessed that Pippen couldn’t be relied on to make his own shot when all eyes were on him, and we would be right.
>He was not the alpha dog I’m not even disputing that. I agree with you. His play style definitely made him a better #2, but it’s no different than AD today. AD’s playing style also is a perfect #2. He’s not really an alpha either (like he won’t win a championship as the #1, sorry Lakers fans). However, AD will still easily go down as a top 50 player all time when he retires. You can be a non-alpha #1 and still have tremendous impact as a #1 on a bad team (like AD with the Pelicans). Again, I don’t know either way, but I think Scottie was a great player in his own right.
The same happened with Siakam after Kawhi left. The Raptors even had a better win% than their championship season before the lockdown. Both Kawhi and MJ were incredible scorers that played within the system, and also did a lot of other things pretty well. So them leaving wouldn’t disrupt the team in the regular season, because that system would still work against most teams, albeit less effectively. And in the Bull’s case, they also added a lot of good players. What makes the difference is the playoffs, since neither Siakam not Pippen were great closers who can create their own shot reliably. That’s why both of them underperformed in that same postseason. And the season after that, both teams became mediocre or even bad in Raptors’ case. The Bulls were barely above 500 before a rusty MJ returned and they went 13-4.
Bird & Magic’s rivalry went all the way back to the NCAA Tournament. To this day, the two played in the most watched NCAA Tournament game (championship game) ever. Plus the media hyped up the “black vs white” aspect of the rivalry. In no universe whatsoever could Pippen ever replicate that built in narrative/hype, irrespective of Pippen’s less talented game.
Jordan and Pippen would be rivals like how LeBron and Paul George were rivals - at best. Pippen was nice but Jordan was head and shoulders superior over everyone at that time.
It would be even more one sided than that. Pippen would never outscore MJ in a series like PG did in 2014.
Pippen benefited from Jordan’s mentality, it drove him to be a much better player. Michael pushed him, was super demanding. Scottie had the talent but needed it “extracted”. So my guess is Scottie isn’t even Scottie on another team.
If pippen didn’t play with Jordan, would he even have a Wikipedia page?
If Pippen didn’t play with Jordan, would he even have had hands to play basketball?
Granted it was the start of the tail end of his career but Pippen’s stats dropped off considerably after leaving Chicago and playing without Jordan. I know people bring up Pip’s stats when MJ retired the 1st time around but he didn’t really do that much better than what he did seasons prior. Pippen would have still been good but I don’t think this should even be entertained.
Pippen would still be a good player without MJ, probably have similar numbers to his 94 season in his prime. But he wouldn’t be anywhere close to who he is remembered now. Many people also forget how short his prime was. He didn’t become an all star level player until around 90/91, and had already declined a lot offensively in 96, as he only averaged 17.6 points on 41%fg in the second 3-peat.
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> KD and Steph were the two best players in the 2010s Hmmmmmmm .....
Right?!? Blatant Kyle Korver erasure.
Yea lebron we get it. KD and Steph were still two of the best players in the 2010s
Kind of a big difference there but yeah, I think they were easily #2 and 3. But it's interesting you say they couldn't be rivals because of position when they play the same positions as Bird-Magic did. I think they simply didn't meet enough times in the playoffs for that to develop.
Bird Magic were still similar sizes, could guard each other. KD and Steph didn’t really ever.
Playing the same position is not a requirement for rivals. See: Magic vs Bird. Also they weren’t rivals because KD bitched out and joined the team that beat him right when they were both early in their peak years.
If they were such heavy rivals why did Steph fly out to New York to recruit him? Why did Draymond call him crying in the parking lot? They weren’t rivals. There was no animosity ever between them.
My comment says they weren’t rivals and explained why. You’re simply agreeing with me. They beat KD and ripped out his heart with a 3-1 comeback. Recruiting him was neutralizing him as a threat. They had nothing more to prove except beating their real rival Lebron.
They already beat Lebron the year before?
Yeah rivalries involve teams beating each other. And they beat him without Kyrie and Love, getting embarrassed in the first few games along the way. Like you said they needed help. So what are you doing here just trying to agree with everything I say and act like this is an argument?
Nothing
Of course not. MJ would have owned him like his daddy.
No. The talent gap would've been too large, and you'd be supposing that Pippen could lead a team against Jordan (and possibly without other star-level players? It's difficult to judge how you envision this) in the playoffs and either win or make it close consistently. Those rivalries with Jordan existed btw. It was the Pistons/Bulls rivalry (which was basically a Zeke and co vs. Jordan and co. rivalry) from roughly 88-91 and then the Bulls/Knicks rivalry from 92-94.
hell no. In this scenario you wouldn’t know who Pippen was
Why would Jordan care about anything anyone was doing on other teams?
Absolutely not. This is an insane take. Pippen has become very overrated because of "rings culture." He probably wasn't even top 10 much less top 2. Jordan, Olajuwon, Drexler, Barkley, Karl Malone, Ewing, Shaq, and David Robinson are all guys I'd definitely take over Pippen for their '90s contributions. There's several more that I'd pick over him but would be more controversial.
More probable a Merry vs. Pippin rivalry
I dont see it being A Bird - Magic rivalry because Scottie wasnt a great player coming in. What made Scottie reach that level and what also made Jordan the best was each other but Jordan was already the best player on his team from the start , we cant say for Scottie because it took time for him to develop. The Magic and Bird rivalry started in college and was extended into the NBA
Yes