Scottie Pippen has been vocal about how he and his Bulls teammates were portrayed in ESPN’s The Last Dance, the docuseries that delved deep into Chicago’s last NBA championship in 1996.
The Bulls great was critical in several interviews following the airing of the popular series, taking shots at the production for over-glorifying Michael Jordan while barely recognising the contribution of his teammates.
At the same time, the NBA legend couldn’t help but reference “The Last Dance” to promote his upcoming memoir ‘Unguarded’.
In an excerpt published in GQ, Pippen once again took aim at Jordan.
“I was nothing more than a prop,” Pippen said.
“His ‘best teammate of all time,’ he called me. He couldn’t have been more condescending if he tried.
“On second thought, I could believe my eyes. I spent a lot of time around the man. I knew what made him tick. How naive I was to expect anything else.
“Each episode was the same: Michael on a pedestal, his teammates secondary, smaller, the message no different from when he referred to us back then as his ‘supporting cast.’
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“From one season to the next, we received little or no credit whenever we won but the bulk of the criticism when we lost. Michael could shoot 6 for 24 from the field, commit five turnovers, and he was still, in the minds of the adoring press and public, the Errorless Jordan.”
Pippen also pointed to his former teammates and the way they were presented in the show.
The Bulls great said members of the team he had spoken to felt just as “disrespected” as he did.
“How dare Michael treat us that way after everything we did for him and his precious brand,” he wrote.
“Michael Jordan would never have been Michael Jordan without me, Horace Grant, Toni Kukoc, John Paxson, Steve Kerr, Dennis Rodman, Bill Cartwright, Ron Harper, B. J. Armstrong, Luc Longley, Will Perdue, and Bill Wennington.
“I’m not suggesting Michael wouldn’t have been a superstar wherever he ended up.
“He was that spectacular. Just that he relied on the success we attained as a team — six titles in eight years — to propel him to a level of fame throughout the world no other athlete, except for Muhammad Ali, has reached in modern times.
“To make things worse, Michael received $10 million ($A13.5m) for his role in the doc while my teammates and I didn’t earn a dime, another reminder of the pecking order from the old days. For an entire season, we allowed cameras into the sanctity of our locker rooms, our practices, our hotels, our huddles … our lives.”
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