NBA Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen confirms in his own words what many sports fans had already surmised: He remains livid at how he was portrayed in Michael Jordan’s record-breaking docu-series “The Last Dance” that aired on ESPN in the summer of 2020.
Pippen is still steaming at the fact that Jordan produced a documentary that, in his opinion, lent itself to the same narrative that existed back during the Chicago Bulls’ dynastic days in the 1990s: that the team was comprised of Jordan and his supp0rting cast, a condescension that has always rankled Pippen to his core.
In an excerpt from Pippen’s explosive memoir Unguarded that was obtained by GQ magazine, Pippen unloads on his former megastar teammate in ways that reveal just how much resentment he has harbored over the decades against Jordan.
Pippen believes the “The Last Dance,” which traces the final season of the Bulls dynasty in 1997-98, went too far to exalt Jordan while simultaneously devaluing the importance of Pippen and his teammates to their six championship titles.
Pippen had this to say about Jordan in his memoir Unguarded:
“The final two episodes aired on May 17. Similar to the previous eight, they glorified Michael Jordan while not giving nearly enough praise to me and my proud teammates. Michael deserved a large portion of the blame. The producers had granted him editorial control of the final product. The doc couldn’t have been released otherwise,” Pippen writes in his book. “He was the leading man and the director. … Except Michael was determined to prove to the current generation of fans that he was larger-than-life during his day—and still larger than LeBron James, the player many consider his equal, if not superior.”
Flip the page to read more of Pippen’s scorching comments against Jordan.
