Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan enjoyed tremendous success together as teammates on the Chicago Bulls. But ever since “The Last Dance” documentary was aired, Pippen has not played nicely with MJ in comments to the media. Pippen’s criticism of MJ has increased due to his memoir, “Unguarded,” which hits shelves on November 9.
In the new book, Pippen escalates his war of words with Jordan, calling the NBA legend “selfish” after Jordan levied those very same claims against Pippen during the 2020 ESPN documentary.
“You want to know what selfish is? Selfish is retiring right before the start of training camp when it is too late for the organization to sign free agents,” Pippen wrote about Jordan, via the New York Times.
Pippen was talking about Jordan retiring just before the 1993-1994 season to go play pro baseball. Jordan’s father had unexpected passed away, and the future Hall of Famer decided to call it quits for the first time.
Pipped also called Jordan “hypocritical and insensitive” over the way MJ talked about teammates in the documentary. Pippen took aim at the six-time NBA champion for how he treated his teammates.
“Seeing again how poorly Michael treated his teammates, I cringed, as I did back then,” Pippen wrote. “Michael and I aren’t close and never have been.”
All of that comes over the first dozen or so pages in Pippen’s new book, so one can imagine what else is contained within. A separate excerpt has already been released “wherein Pippen calls Jordan condescending.”
“Even in the second episode, which focused for a while on my difficult upbringing and unlikely path to the NBA, the narrative returned to MJ and his determination to win,” Pippen wrote. “I was nothing more than a prop. His ‘best teammate of all time,’ he called me. He couldn’t have been more condescending if he tried.”
In addition to the criticism of Jordan, Pippen also takes shots at Charles Barkley, Phil Jackson and Isiah Thomas, among others.
Pippen isn’t the only former Bulls player chapped with Jordan over the way they were portrayed in the documentary. Another former teammate had an even bigger gripe.
MJ’s documentary may have been successful in teaching a new generation of fans about Jordan’s greatness. But the documentary was apparently unsuccessful in highlighting the great contributions Jordan’s Bulls teammates had to the team’s success.
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