Once the closest of teammates and friends, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen currently are not on the best terms.
Jordan and Pippen, 58 and 56, respectively, of course, won six titles together on the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, but apparently, they may never speak again. That’s coming from fellow NBA legend Charles Oakley during a recent appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast.
“No, I think [Jordan and Pippen’s relationship] is over … It wasn’t great from the get-go,” the 58-year-old Knicks legend said.
Oakley and Jordan played together for three seasons in Chicago and remain close friends. The former was traded to the Knicks in 1988 and also was teammates with Pippen for a season.
“I think [Pippen] feels like they didn’t present him more in The Last Dance,” Oakley said. “I think they did Dennis Rodman more than Scottie and Steve Kerr.
“But my thing to that is, Kerr did way more off the court than Scottie. Dennis probably has, too. But on that court, Scottie did a lot more than both of them, but Scottie felt like he was left out of there. And he felt like Jordan wouldn’t have six rings if it wasn’t for him.”
Pippen’s animosity for The Last Dance documentary is well-documented; he felt the documentary—a 10-part docuseries chronicling the 1990s Chicago Bulls—made him come off as “underpaid and frustrated.”
“I don’t think it was that accurate in terms of really defining what was accomplished in one of the greatest eras of basketball, but also by two of the greatest players – and one could even put that aside and say the greatest team of all time,” Pippen is on record as saying of the doc. “I didn’t think those things stood out in the documentary.
“I thought it was more about Michael trying to uplift himself and to be glorified [the series was co-produced by Jordan’s Jump 23 company]. I think it also backfired to some degree in that people got a chance to see what kind of personality Michael had.”
