Scottie Pippen has been quite critical of Michael Jordan as of late, and it all has to do with The Last Dance which came out last April. In the documentary, MJ was made to look like a god while players like Pippen were disses for not having as much heart. Since that time, Pippen has made a lot of comments concerning Jordan and he has even called him “selfish.” While MJ refuses to acknowledge the feud, there is no denying it exists.
In a recent piece from CBS Sports, some excerpts from Pippen’s new book Unguarded were brought to the surface. One such passage in the book sees Pippen rip into MJ, claiming that the Bulls won titles “in spite of” his devious tactics to motivate teammates. Pippen also went on to say that if you were to ask anyone on the Bulls, they would say Scottie was the better teammate.
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Per Pippen:
“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 the NBA’s more physical teams. Seeing again how poorly Michael treated his teammates, I cringed, as I did back then.
“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.”
Many have questioned what’s wrong with Pippen as they believe his recent comments are uncharacteristic of him. Some have also suggested that he just wants to sell copies of his book. Whatever the reason is, there is no doubt that Pippen no longer has a friendly relationship with Michael Jordan.
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[Via]