Michael Jordan’s No. 2: Why Scottie Pippen was NBA’s best (and most underpaid) sidekick
One takeaway from the early episodes of the Chicago Bulls documentary, “The Last Dance,” was how Scottie Pippen didn’t get the respect he deserved while playing sidekick to Michael Jordan during both three-peat championships.
The 10-part documentary, which premiered Sunday and continues through May 17, highlighted in the first two episodes Pippen’s seven-year, $18 million contract signed in 1991. By 1997-98 – the last title season for the Bulls – Pippen was the 122nd-highest-paid player in the NBA. He was also the sixth-highest-paid player on the Bulls roster.
“Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen,” Jordan said in the documentary. “Everybody says I won all these championships. But I didn’t win without Scottie Pippen. That’s why I consider him my greatest teammate of all-time.”
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That level of respect that Jordan had didn’t fully carry over to then-Bulls general manager Jerry Krause, who was aiming to trade Pippen for a younger player like Tracy McGrady in the summer of 1997 because he knew the Bulls wouldn’t be able to pay the superstar top dollar and a rebuild was eventually necessary. (That trade was nixed by owner Jerry Reinsdorf but not before Pippen heard about it).
