But the moments that stick in my mind, either fairly or unfairly, that really distinguishes the two players occurred in the playoffs. In the year without Jordan, Pippen and Bulls were in the playoffs and were playing a close game against the Knicks. A timeout was called and the Bulls coach Phil Jackson draws up a play for Pippen to pass the ball to one of his teammates for the last shot. Pippen, apparently thinking he should be the one to take the shot, refused to enter the game for the last play. Compare that with Thomas who was playing in the Finals against the Lakers, sprains his ankle severly. He can hardly walk let alone run and jump. Despite that he reenters the game in the 4th quarter and plays out of his mind. He scored something like 25 points in the final quarter and gave his team a real shot to win. For me, I like the guy who sacrifices himself for the team rather than the guy who pouts about it.
I call that a failure of Phil Jackson's coaching more than a mental, moral, or skill-based failure of Pippen's. Jackson's whole shtick was that he supposedly knew how to manage the egos on his teams. He wasn't good with Xs and Os, and his triangle was some weird gibberish, but hE cOuLd gEt tHe mOsT oUt oF hIs pLaYeRs. And yet he chose to play along with Jerry Krause's Toni Kukoč fetish rather than keep his star happy and invested.
Isiah never had that kind of outburst against other Pistons, but his coaches never pushed him like that and he wasn't really that kind of player anyway. But he and some of the other veterans did freeze Jordan out of the 1985 All-Star Game just to be dicks.
Pippen obviously was one of the great players, yet I think he just wasn't a leader, and never really could be. When he tried to be that he didn't quite make it (of course when you have Jordan you aren't expected or asked to be a leader either, just the second main scorer). Why would Pippen be regarded as better than Drexler or similar forwards? (iirc Drexler was a forward?). Imo even Barclay (nominally PF) was better than Pippen and an actual leader.
Drexler had an impressive offensive peak in Portland from 1987 to 1989, but for the most part, his offensive statistics were only slightly better than Pippen's despite Pippen, y'know, being his own team's second option. And Pip's defense was
much better.
Barkley is excellent if you want a guy who can talk crap about people who outplayed him. His whole thing on TV is that 90% of the opinions he throws out are obvious trolls, and 10% are genuine insight. His wrong opinions are
legendary.
Look, I don't really take this "being a leader" stuff too seriously. We're supposed to say that Scottie Pippen was a worse player than he actually was, just because he and Michael Jordan spent a lot of time on the same team? What was he supposed to do? Somehow be better than
Michael Jordan?
Besides, there are no magic runs by Pippen. I.T. had a few, including scoring 16 points in 90 seconds (iirc the Pistons lost that game in overtime, but who else actually has done this?)
Re rings, well, in theory the Pistons could have won at least one more title (1988), and maybe also 1877, so it isn't like the difference even with a team having Jordan was anything notable.
bro three is still a lot less than six
Again, I don't count RINGZZZ, but if you do...
That said, I never liked the Bulls. They just were Jordan and (from 1991 at least) Pippen & some good "1 job" players. Of those the better ones were arguably Kukoc (who never quite adapted to the Nba anyway) and Rodman. At least the Pistons had a more fun team. I know everyone hates Laimbeer, but come on, he was at least funny and could score 3-pointers
Dumars was very good as well.
rip Horace Grant
Dumars was a pretty good guard. However, he's best known for being responsible, as a GM, for one of the funniest NBA memes of all time: workin' the phones.
