“Something dark falls,
The demon is raging again,
A knife is thrown into the air,
Suddenly there is a wall between the two … “
(Ehud Banai)
This was, arguably, the best court partnership in the history of basketball. Perhaps at all in the history of sports; It was hard to find two people who managed, separately and especially together, to get so much out of themselves – and to get so far. Michael Jordan andScottish Pipan Considered the “perfect couple,” the two players grew up almost together in the Chicago Bulls, making the team the best team sports lineage in history. Six championships, personal titles in every direction – and an invincible status. “You can not win until we quit,” Fem once exclaimed Jordan At one of the smoky celebrations in the locker room, and anyone who saw the Bulls – knew it was beyond an arrogant joke.
Stop. Fast forward to November 2021. Scotty Pippin publishes his autobiography, saturated with criticism and antagonism – precisely against who is considered his best friend, Michael Jordan. He mocked Mike’s Influence Game, claimed he used his teammates “like objects,” claimed that LeBron James was better than him – and increased his do when he claimed that “Michael Jordan ruined basketball.” no less. Of course there is a temptation to look at everything through the hole in the penny; Pippin wanted to sell a book, and what’s the best way to get into the headlines and sports sites, if not through criticism of the world’s greatest basketball player?
And this claim is indeed valid, but with it there is a possibility – as always – that there is a deeper reason. That only an extreme insult would have allowed a man who only last June said of Jordan he was “bigger than the game” to turn over in that way. On the weight of the song “David and Saul” by Ehud Banai, what was the knife thrown in the air? What puts the wall between the two biggest superstars in the history of basketball?
If you pay attention to the quotes that come out of Pippin’s book, the knife is called “The Last Dance.” Probably the most successful docu-sports series ever, dealing with Jordan and the Chicago Bulls who dominated the NBA throughout most of the 1990s, did a great service to number 23 – but equally created bitterness among quite a few other players. Horace Grant, for example (who played with Jordan in the Bulls between 1987 and 1994), who appears in the series claimed that Jordan lied during it, and served only himself. And the one who was most hurt by the series was, apparently, Pippin.
This, by the way, although the series certainly claims quite a bit thanks to Pippin – for example, the claim that he earned much less than he was worth on the field. Still, Pippin was angry – as can be seen in the following quote from the book: “In each episode it was the same … Michael above all, his teammates in second place, smaller. This message came from every time he called us ‘the helping team.’ One after the other, either we got a little credit or we didn’t get any credit at all, when we won – but we did get the most criticism when the team lost … “
“And here I am, in my mid – fifties, 17 years since my last game, seeing us disgraced again. It was insulting enough to experience it for the first time. In the weeks after the series, I spoke to some of my former teammates who felt offended like me. How dare Michael treat us like that “After what we did for him and for this holy brand?”
“Michael Jordan would never have been Michael Jordan without me, without Horace Grant, Tony Kokoch, John Paxson, Steve Kerr, Dennis Rodman, Bill Cartwright, Ron Harper, BJ Armstrong, Luke Longley, Will “Fredo, Bill Wenington … I do not claim that Michael was not a superstar, but he relied on the successes achieved as a team – six titles in eight years – to make him the perfect athlete.”
“And if that’s not enough, he got $ 10 million for his role in the film, while my friends and I did not earn a penny. All this after for an entire season we allowed cameras to enter locker rooms, trainings, hotels, group conventions … for our lives.” Due to the fact that most viewers of the series did not see the great Chicago face to face, it can certainly be said that it sets a narrative – tells the story from a certain angle, which serves the object of the series (and the man behind it), but ignores other angles.
And yes, in this war, Pippin did not intend to take prisoners. Nor the “myth” about the “game of influence” – the same game number five in the 1997 Finals series in Salt Lake City, to which Jordan went up with a fever, and yet gave one of his greatest games of his career. Pippin put a question mark in an interview with a radio station: “Which is harder? Playing with a broken back or with the flu? I have not seen much ‘broken back games’, but I have seen the ‘flu game’. The flu ….”. Jordan’s decision to retire in 1993, following his father’s death, is also taking fire from the small forward: “You know what selfishness is? Selfishness is to retire just before training starts, when the team is too late to sign new players.”
And alongside the honest explanations, and the fact that Pippin was probably really hurt by the series, also comes the more conspiratorial explanation: it speaks to Pippin’s simple desire to sell books, stemming from a desire to generate economic profit. And this explanation has something to rely on; He made the first accusations against Jordan to promote a new wine he launched, and Pippin has indeed come down more than once from his assets since the game’s career ended.
In an article published in May 2020 in the US (around “The Last Dance”), they detailed all the bad economic decisions that Pippin made and led to financial losses: from buying a private plane that did not work, through failed real estate investments in Chicago to – a true story – a lawsuit published by a newspaper Knowing that the basketball player went bankrupt, due to the bankruptcy of another Scottish Pippin. The basketball player lost the lawsuit.
In general, Pippin has experienced quite a few personal dramas and tragedies during his lifetime. Only last April did his eldest son Antonon die at the age of 33 for an unknown reason, even though he suffered from chronic asthma. “I’m heartbroken,” the former star mourned on social media. Earlier, in 1994, he lost his daughter Tyler just nine days after she was born. Pippin has a total of eight children from several wives, he has been married twice and also divorced twice. Not exactly the most stable life.
Around the NBA they did not really understand the new Pippin and the former player received quite a few criticisms for the harsh things he said. Chris Brusar, An American basketball commentator, attacked Pippin when he claimed: “I only have one request for Scotty: Stop! Pippin is rightly considered one of the greatest of all time, but his description makes him think he and Jordan were equally important to the team. And that’s just not the case.” Charles Barkley He said in response: “First of all, if you have something to say, say it, do not put it in a book … I think he did it to sell books. He’s not really worried about companies or relationships, he’s there to sell.”
Jordan has never publicly responded to the harsh accusations, to bites coming from his ex-boyfriend. It may also come. But here’s what this story teaches us about athletes: In the end, after retirement comes – what is left for them is just the story. Who is telling the story, from what camera angle do you come to it, who is crowned the winner and who remains in the shadows. Even during his playing career, Scotty Pippin stood in the shadow of the world’s greatest player. Most of the time he enjoyed this shade, and felt comfortable and comfortable in it. Until the moment he decided to go out into the light.
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