Scottie Pippen is taking jabs at Michael Jordan once again, this time claiming the NBA icon was “horrible to play with.”
“I’ve seen Michael Jordan play before I came to play with the Bulls. You guys have seen him play. He was a horrible player. He was horrible to play with,” said Pippen during a recent appearance on the “Gimme the Hot Sauce” podcast with former teammate Stacey King, NBC News reports.
“It was all 1-on-1, shooting bad shots,” Pippen continued. “And all of a sudden, we become a team and we start winning. Everybody forgot who he was.”
Former players Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen of the Chicago Bulls watch a game between the Bulls and the Charlotte Bobcats at the United Center on Feb. 15, 2011, in Chicago. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Pippen, a six-time NBA champion, previously took aim at Jordan over his portrayal in ESPN’s 10-part documentary “The Last Dance,” which chronicles MJ and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls series. As theGrio reported previously, in Pippen’s 2021 memoir “Unguarded,” he said the series “glorified Michael Jordan while not giving nearly enough praise to me and my proud teammates.”
“Now here I was, in my mid-50s (years old), 17 years since my final game, watching us being demeaned once again,” Pippen wrote. “Living through it the first time was insulting enough.”
As theGrio reported previously, sports fans consider Pippen as “Robin” to Jordan’s “Batman,” but since their heyday with the Bulls, the retired athlete has long been a critic of his former teammate.
“He was a player that, really, winning wasn’t at the top of his category,” Pippen said on the “Gimme the Hot Sauce” podcast, noting that Jordan “was going after scoring titles.”
When it comes to who Pippen considers the GOAT of scoring, he said “Michael Jordan probably is one of the greatest individual scorers that we’ve ever seen, but probably not.”
“It’s probably Kareem,” Pippen added.
Elsewhere in the podcast interview, Pippen made clear that he is not interested in repairing the relationship he had with Jordan and former Bulls coach Phil Jackson.
“He just really turned sour to me his last couple of years of coaching,” Pippen said of Jackson, adding, “He became selfish.”
According to Pippen, Jordan and Jackson were the catalyst to “the breakup of our [team],” he said, NBC News reports.
“One selfish guy on the team, another selfish guy coaching the team. It was time for a divorce.”
Meanwhile, Pippen’s ex-wife and the mother of his four children, Larsa Pippen, 48, has been dating Jordan’s 32-year-old son for the past year or so, according to the New York Post.
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