OT:The Last Dance
Thoughts?
-Did you guys see the guy in the France games pull off MJs arm band? Crazy
-oak bullying pippen..lol
-I know Jerry is dead but he let his need for recognition get in the way.
-Pippen should have been paid. The way the organization treated pippen and Jordan still haunts the organization today.
-They punk Jerry on camera a few times. Toxic.
-all the new footage is amazing. Great to see new stuff.
-practice stuff had me wanting to suit up.
April 20th, 2020 at 12:51 AM ^
Agreed -- I know he has passed, but Jerry Krause is about to get absolutely destroyed by people over the next month.
Looks like he was great early on. Brought in Phil Jackson, drafted Pippen and Grant, and traded Oakley for Cartwright - who ended up becoming their Ewing stopper and physical center to go up against physical teams in the east. Also brought in shooters like Hodges and Armstrong to help spread the floor for their uber athletic team.
Seems his influence dissipated in the later years, particularly in the second three-peat where Phil, Jordan and Pippen knew exactly what was needed to win, and he started to grow resentful and felt forgotten.
Krause was really good at his job, but unfortunately had little man complex and believed he was as important to the franchise as the greatest basketball player ever, another top 5 player in the league, and a coach who made it all work. The documentary did well to describe him best as a guy that couldn't get out of his own way.
I grew up in Chicago in the 90s so obviously was a gigantic Bulls fan.
Re-watching the doc brought back so many great memories, but I was a kid/teen so I didn't remember the Pippen drama or a trade request that if he made it in 2018, would've meant the end of his Bulls career that instant.
It's sort of astonishing that Krause spent 12 years running the Bulls at that point and still didn't know how to manage people. Telling Phil he's fired even if he goes 82-0. Badmouthing Scottie to the press. You can still handle that business, but not like that.
i always thought pippen was a mediocre NBA player who got drug along by jordan. his attitude, at least on the court, didn't help either. he always looked like an annoyed poodle. i won't say he was 'garbage' or anything like that, but his numbers over the years were no big deal, 16pts/game, not a great shooter (not horrible, either), FT % was ~ 70%. a serviceable NBA player that if he'd never played with jordan you most likely would've never heard of him unless he played on your fav NBA team.
Thing is, he was probably the best defensive wing of the 1990s, and was really versitile due to his size and ball handling ability. Honestly (and I've never thought of this before so I'm spit balling here), I think he's James Worthy except a way better athlete and defender.
Does basketball have a stats page that gives "most comparable players" like baseball does?
April 20th, 2020 at 10:13 AM ^
I think Pip would never have been at the level of James Worthy w/o Michael pushing him. But people forget he was a #5 pick, so it wasn't all Michael. Michael killing him, day by day, for years, to get better made Pip a truly great player in his own right. Top 20 all time, by himself, but never would have gotten there without Mike.
Why would that be a negative? Every single person who's gotten somewhere you could say, "never would have been that good without [other person variable].
April 20th, 2020 at 10:13 AM ^
So many awesome lines.
"The Cubs have been rebuilding for 42 years"
LOL
April 20th, 2020 at 11:03 AM ^
How's the transition from from college to NBA? "Actually it's been pretty easy" fuckin balls..haha.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:22 AM ^
I'm not sure James Worthy would have risen to the James Worthy level without Magic, Kareem, Kurt, and Pat pushing him either.
Agreed. He was a really good player and a critical cog on six championship teams.
And yes, basketball-reference.com does similarity scores, by looking at Win Shares from best to worst over the course of a player's career. Pippen's top comparisons are mostly HOF-level. In order, starting with most similar: Shawn Marion, John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Paul Pierce, Elton Brand, Adrian Dantley, Detlef Schrempf, Kevin McHale, Bailey Howell, Pau Gasol.
Even as a lifelong Pistons fan that can’t stand the Bulls, I’d say mediocre is a bit harsh.
That being said, his immediate decline the moment he left the Bulls is strong evidence in favor of your general point.
When MJ went to baseball, we all watched Pippen not rise to the moment, culminating in the hissy fit versus the Knicks.
and i mean 'mediocre' in its true fashion, not as a disparaging term but as a total 'middle of the road' player. had some skills, but like i said, if he'd played for anybody else you would never have remembered him and any hall of fame talk would've drawn a 'who?' comment.
and to the other comment about worthy (post above yours), i have to disagree again. worthy was a better shooter, rebounder, FT shooter and, candidly, was way more of a team player and guy with some heart. no poodle attitude.
Pippen had some flaws, none worse than those infamous last couple seconds in Game 3 against New York. But medicore? (Definition: "of moderate or low quality, value, ability.")
I'm not a hoops stats expert, but he is 24th all time VORP, 35th all time Plus/Minus, 41st in all time win shares, 6th all time in steals, and 33rd all time in assists. There have been over 4300 players in the history of the NBA.
Your "poodle attitude" argument can hold more weight, but not enough to make the guy mediocre. Maybe you mean a "mediocre all-star"? I would still disagree with that, but it would at least be an argument.
For those saying "look what he did after the Bulls," remember that he had a chronic back injury, and had put a ton of miles on his body in his 10 years with the Bulls, which included a heavy playoff run in all of them plus '92 and '96 Olympics. And he still nearly got Portland to the promised land. (They failed to heed the need to feed the 'Sheed and blew it vs the Lakers in 00.) The better "absence of Jordan" comparison is obviously that he got a team that started Pete Meyers, B.J. Armstrong, and a decrepit Bill Cartwright within a blown call of the Eastern Conference finals.
Also:
This. Pippen is widely considered one of the top 50 players of all time.
I think the best way to compare NBA players is through their 5-7 year peak since career length can vary widely and really water down the career averages.
For people that argue he couldn't do it as the #1 option. He did, in the year when Jordan retired. When he left the bulls he was 33 years old, which is very old by NBA standards. This year, there were 37 players that were on an active roster at some point out of a possible 514 players (7% of all players). By that time he was well past his prime (and still pretty good).
Well I mean the VORP ranking is absolutely incredible, NANU NANU ranking is where it's at though. Beam me up Scottie!
April 20th, 2020 at 10:36 AM ^
For some reason, I'm guessing your dog(s) aren't---and never will be---poodle(s).
If I had to guess, a good hunting or herding dog is much more likely to be found on the XM farm. Springer Spaniel, Labrador Retriever, or Border Collie maybe?
April 20th, 2020 at 12:18 PM ^
any animal at the farm has to have a job. i cannot imagine a job for a poodle, with one caveat: in their original breeding they were larger, pointing hunting dogs and that could work. but for most of america, that's not what they have in terms of poodles.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:27 AM ^
I'm guessing you were/are a Pistons fan?
I don't agree with any of that about Pippen, except that there is some truth to the comment about attitude. He didn't get the "Sitting Bull" moniker for nothing. However, Pippen is a HOF player by any measure. For from pedestrian.
I'll say he was better than "mediocre", but yeah - I generally agree with you. As a Pistons fan watching that rivalry real-time, I had always thought that Pippen was the perfect #2 guy to MJ. He could do everything on the court he needed to do - and do it well - to draw the defense away from MJ. But he never had the panache' to threaten MJ as the floor leader - he was the clear #2, and everybody knew it.
When he did get his chance as #1 later in his career... Okay, yeah, mediocre is a good word here.
Nonetheless, I'm not sure any of the era's Pistons would have been better in his role than he was for Chicago. Nor do I think he would have been as good playing for the Pistons. Those were two very different teams in style, roster makeup, and attitude. Regarding both teams rosters, I'd take Rodman at wing over Pippen any day for the Pistons, but Rodman would have NEVER been a good teammate to MJ. LMAO at the thought of that!
but Rodman would have NEVER been a good teammate to MJ. LMAO at the thought of that!
Um, did you forget that Dennis Rodman won 3 straight NBA titles with Jordan and the bulls from 96-98?
LOL!!! Yes. Yes I did...
In self-defense, I stopped watching the NBA when the Pistons started sucking ass in the '90s. Yes, I know - bandwagon. It's true!! I haven't been a fan of the NBA since then, and only peripherally pay attention to the league. So yeah, I completely forgot that Rodman was on those Bulls teams... (I down voted myself accordingly. But I still wouldn't trade early '90s Pistons Rodman for early '90s Bulls Pippen!!)
Didn't Rodman start to go off the rails in the late '90s, though (after his Bulls stint)? I know, at some point, his craziness caught up to him...
Oh he was fully in denial that there was any such thing as rails by the time he was a Bull.
Don't you remember him being found sleeping outside the Palace with a rifle in his car? He was still a Piston then.
I met the dude in '87 at Tel-Twelve Mall in Southfield. He lived right around the corner from there, and used to hang out all the time in the arcade back then (early part of his career) playing video games non-stop. It was odd behavior (if far from the self-destructive stuff he did later) for a 25 year old (remember that he started very late in the NBA).
April 20th, 2020 at 11:29 AM ^
Keep digging...
April 20th, 2020 at 12:44 PM ^
Perspective is interesting. When Rodman played for the Pistons, I thought he was the dirtiest player ever to hit the court. Then when he joined the Bulls, I laughed at all the stuff he did to get under the opponents' skin.
But Rodman was the perfect person for that Bulls team. He played tough D, didn't demand the ball and fed Jordan. But perhaps more importantly, he grabbed all the media attention, which left Pippen out of the spotlight (where he struggled with his immaturity), to just play basketball, which is what Pippen did very well.
As far as Krause, he reminds me a lot of Dave Brandon - much of their job was to make the enterprise profitable or grow revenue. Both Krause and Brandon lost sight of the product they were selling, and the people involved, in order to get the last possible dollar of profit/revenue. Hence their ultimate failure in many people's eyes.
Nowhere is "Perception is reality" more true than in sports. The opposition believed they had to devote significant attention to Pippen-so his value was elevated...rightfully so or not. This is not an unusual happening-people believing the exception is the rule.
He probably should have won the MVP in 1994(came in 2nd or 3rd) he avg 22.0 ppg and 8.7 and lead the NBA in steals.. and was one historically bad call from getting the Bulls to the ECF without Jordan. He started for the dream team, he was on 7 all NBA teams and made 10 all NBA defensive teams. Mediocre? Not even close.
but without jordan...not much, especially if you use the same cutting 'never won a championship' knife you use on our football coach. with jordan, who was a diety among men, scottie never got doubled, never got covered by the other team's best defender, and was left to do his thing. his numbers are artificially inflated because of that. heck, most of us could've averaged 5-10 pts a game if the other team had to cover jordan and close down on his drives. (i kid, i kid).
not a bad player, but nothing special. he was good when other teams had to cover the best player on the planet, and that player wasn't pippen.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:28 AM ^
The hill you are dying on of "they had to worry about Jordan" holds zero water. So if Pippen wasn't there so does Horace Grant become a Hall of famer and all NBA for 10 seasons? Or BJ Armstrong?correct it's answer is No because Pippen was great. Bulls didn't win a ring until pippen developed. You can have two great players on a team... It's happened a few times.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:31 AM ^
His best season was the year (94) that Jordan left the NBA because of shady gambling connections.
Sure, Pippen sucked…
6 × NBA champion (1991-1993, 1996-1998)
7 × NBA All-Star (1990, 1992-1997)
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1994)
3 × All-NBA First Team (1994-1996)
2 × All-NBA Second Team (1992, 1997)
2 × All-NBA Third Team (1993, 1998)
8 × NBA All-Defensive First Team (1992-1999)
2 × NBA All-Defensive Second Team (1991, 2000)
NBA steals leader (1995)
NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team
Olympic Gold Medal - 1992 Barcelona
Olympic Gold medal - 1996 Atlanta
i haven't seen a single comment that said pippen sucked. where did you find that straw man?
and as nice as the list you compiled is, the vast majority are during years with jordan on his team, and with at least one year toward the end of his career ('97-98) when he barely played half the season - not earning those.
Should have won? Over Hakeem?? Not that year, my man. Olajuwon was phenomenal.
Pippen came in 3rd ... a distant 3rd, well behind The Admiral.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:33 AM ^
I can't say Hakeem wasn't great that year. Robinson and the Spurs didn't even get out of the first round. Bulls overachieved that year and imo he should have been a easy second in that voting.
Scottie Pippen was a great player. Not mediocre at all. He had 7 seasons where he averaged 18ppg, 6rpg and 5apg. That's a swiss army knife player and translates to today's NBA.
His similarity scores - and I can't say I know enough about their formula or process to say it's credible - are all other Hall of Famers. I can't say what he would or wouldn't have been if he played for a different team, but saying he's mediocre is way off IMO
Pippen was really, really good man. He was one of the 3 best players in the league the year Jordan “retired.”
Calling Scottie Pippen overated is always a great way to let the other person know your basketball opinion is not to be taken seriously.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
Insightful detailed analysis....
April 20th, 2020 at 10:39 AM ^
I mean it doesn’t really need explanation. He’s Paul George at worst. One of the greatest on ball defenders in league history. Took a less than average team without Jordan to 55 wins finishing 3rd in MVP and losing to eventual eastern conference champs Knicks in 7. A Knicks team that took the Rockets 7 themselves in the Finals ( not making some argument the Knicks were great but a very good team).
You don’t win 6 titles by yourself. You don’t win 72 and 69 games in back to back seasons by yourself. Pippen is an all time great and anyone who actually knows the game is well aware of this
April 20th, 2020 at 12:52 PM ^
Chicago didn't lose to the Knicks, I don't care what the final score said. They got robbed, and I'm still upset.
That was not a less than average team. In addition to the here-debated Pippen, they had Horace Grant in his prime (an all-star that year and a top 20 PER player in the league), a solid BJ Armstrong, some very experienced veteran pieces (Longley, Cartwright, Kerr) and a 25 year old rookie Toni Kukoc. Let's not pretend that in the context of the Eastern Conference's mediocrity at the time they were comparative dog poo.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:01 AM ^
I would put Pippen somewhere between "mediocre" and "top 50 of all time." He was the 2nd best player on teams that went 6-0 in the Finals.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:29 AM ^
Pippen was anything but mediocre. How he became one of the top players in the league (Jordan, Phil, etc) is irrelevant. Guy was arguably the best perimeter defender in the history of the league, and could guard positions 1-4 at an elite level. His size, length and speed were ridiculous - Go back and watch how he completely shut down Magic Johnson in the 91 finals.
When MJ left, Pippen was arguably the second best player in the league after Olajuwon. The Bulls were a blown Hue Hollins call away from beating the Knicks, who needed 7 games to beat Chicago and go to the finals.
Offensively, Pippen is probably the 4th best point-forward in history after Magic, Lebron and Oscar Robertson. Again, he was a better defender than all of them. The lights were shining so brightly on Jordan (deservedly so - we'd never seen anything like him) that Pippen was left in the shadows.
For the 2 years Jordan was gone, Pippen averaged 22 points, 8.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game. For comparison, Larry Bird averaged 24 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists per game for his career.
Pippen also was happened to be a 10 time all defensive player.
April 20th, 2020 at 12:10 PM ^
You may be someone like me who as a young person watched the game almost completely through an offensive lens, but go back and watch again; guy was frickin' awesome.
Krause is going to get the Carole Baskins treatment by the internet
Crazy to see how good he was early on. I was a bit too young to pay attention until about 1990, but he was so good the 1st 3 years, then took it to another level from 88-90, then again in the triangle from 91-93.
amazing to see how Bird, Magic and Isiah knew he was a better player than any of them from such an early time.
Reflecting on your comment of you (and others like you) not remembering his first few years, I don't think it's any coincidence that the release of this documentary finally gained Jordan's approval (after sitting around for 20 years!) roughly around the time a good number of credible sports media voices were saying LBJ might have surpassed MJ as the best ever. Looks a lot like MJ picking his time to throw his gauntlet down on that debate.
(I am an LBJ fan ... and a Bulls hater ... and the answer is still the same: MJ is the best there ever was)
April 20th, 2020 at 11:52 AM ^
The answer was always simple to me. There's no way in hell I could physically put money down to bet against Jordan in any must win situation.
One thing that always stuck with me as a life long Cavs fan is I could never trust LeBron to hit a must make free throw. Granted that doesn't mean that he can't (2nd free throw to ice Game 7 against Golden State). I'm just saying anytime he was at the line with free throws that we needed I never had faith that he was going to make them.
April 20th, 2020 at 12:52 PM ^
Lebron is a force of nature, Jordan was a force from the heavens.
Lebron can never be the greatest, as anyone who watched the Heat-Mavs Finals in 2011 would conclude. Lebron was the 3rd leading scorer for the series - on his own team - and shrunk in any big moment. Lebron has learned to be greater and embrace the moment over the years. Jordan was simply born and brought up to lead and win.
“That wasn’t Michael Jordan out there; it was God disguised as Michael Jordan” - Larry Bird
Great quote!
I haven't seen it yet. Is it good?