It seems as if the relationship between Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen is untenable, especially with new comments by Stephen A. Smith on the PBD Podcast. Smith spoke on what appears to be a breaking point in their relationship fairly recently.
Pippen has been very vocal in how he feels about Michael Jordan over the past decade. It appears as if things reached a boiling point when The Last Dance, a documentary about the makings of the Bulls dynasty centered around the 1997-1998 season, was released in 2020. Pippen and several other Bulls players didn’t like how they were portrayed in the documentary.
He addresses Jordan in several portions of his 2021 book Unguarded. In a highly circulated excerpt of the book, he gave his feelings about The Last Dance.
“Even in the second episode, which focused for a while on my difficult upbringing and unlikely path to the NBA, the narrative returned to MJ and his determination to win. I was nothing more than a prop. 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 naïve 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.” 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 5 turnovers, and he was still, in the minds of the adoring press and public, the Errorless Jordan.”
Also in the book, he spoke about deciding not to reach out to Jordan when his father James Jordan was murdered.
“The two were inseparable. When I heard the news, I should have reached out to Michael right away. Having lost my own dad three years before, I might have been able to offer Michael some comfort. To this day, he and I haven’t spoken about his father’s death.”
