NBA legend Scottie Pippen didn’t like it when Michael Jordan yelled and cursed at his Chicago Bulls teammates.
Pippen, who won six NBA championships with Jordan in the ’90s, “cringed” every time he saw Jordan mistreat his teammates.
“In the doc, Michael attempted to justify the occasions in which he berated a teammate in front of the group,” Pippen wrote in his book. “He felt these guys needed to develop the toughness to get past 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.”
Pippen added in his book that he believes he was a better teammate than Jordan, who punched Will Perdue and Steve Kerr.
“I was a much better teammate than Michael ever was,” Pippen wrote. “Ask anyone who played with the two of us. I was always there with a pat on the back or an encouraging word, especially after he put someone down for one reason or another. I helped the others to believe in and stop doubting themselves. Every player doubts himself at some point. The key is how you deal with those doubts.”
Kerr, who won three NBA championships with Jordan and Pippen, told Sam Smith for Smith’s 2014 oral history of Jordan, “There Is No Next,” that Jordan and Pippen had different ways of leading the Bulls.
“With Michael, there’s no forgiveness when you miss,” Kerr said. “That was the intimidating part. Scottie was the exact opposite. If he passed to you and you missed, he would pat you on the head and say, ‘That’s alright. I’m gonna pass it to you again next time.’ Whereas Michael would look at you like, ‘You gotta make the f—ing shot.'”
Luc Longley said in his documentary, “One Giant Leap,” that he didn’t enjoy playing with Jordan on the Bulls.
Longley and Jordan were teammates in Chicago from 1995-96 to 1997-98.
“I didn’t love MJ,” Longley said. “I thought MJ was difficult and unnecessarily harsh on his teammates and probably on himself. And I think, you know, I just didn’t enjoy being around him that much and that was cool.
“It was cool with MJ and it was cool with me. At the end of the day, we found a way to respect each other on the court and to co-exist and that was cool.”
Jordan and Pippen are arguably the greatest duo in NBA history. However, the Bulls icons are no longer on speaking terms.
