More than a year has passed since the premiere of the documentary “The Last Dance” about the legendary Michael Jordan and the decline of the Chicago Bulls dynasty. And this story, of course, could not do without Michael’s no less stellar teammate Scotty Pippen. After the premiere of the film, he, to put it mildly, was not thrilled and is now preparing his answer to Jordan.
In November of this year, Pippen’s autobiographical book “Unguarded” will be published, in which he is going to tell the whole truth about what happened at the Bulls, and tell stories about which, according to him, he was silent for many years.
The hype around Pippen’s autobiography rose immediately after its announcement earlier this month. The main theses mentioned in the abstract sound too loud.
“Without Pippen, there would be no six championship banners hanging over the Chicago Arena. There would be no documentary “The Last Dance”, there would be no Michael Jordan, whom we know. Without him, the Chicago Bulls would not have existed. Pippen finally opened up to express his point of view about Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Isaah Thomas and others. He describes in detail how he lamented the fact that he was labeled Jordan’s henchman, and discusses how he could (and should have) gained more respect from the Bulls management and the media.”
“Jordan is presented as a person who led the Bulls to success and defeated all rivals. This is not true. It wasn’t Jordan who beat the opponents, Chicago beat the opponents. I didn’t communicate with Jordan after the release of “The Last Dance”. Each of us lives his own life. All the most interesting things with our joint participation happened more than twenty years ago. We have nothing to talk about. I mean, we can talk about our lives and our families, about golf or something else, but we will not remember the past and clarify what happened in the 90s, ” Pippen said.”
At the same time, Michael Jordan himself spoke about Pippen in the documentary as follows: “Whenever they talk about Michael Jordan, they should talk about Scotty Pippen. Everyone says that I won titles for the team. But I wouldn’t have done it without Scotty Pippen. That’s why I consider him my greatest teammate of all time.”
It can already be said that the relationship with Jordan will become one of the key topics in Pippen’s autobiographical book. A loud scandal is breaking out in the United States. Pippen openly went against his legendary partner Michael Jordan. And judging by what Scotty has been saying about his former teammate lately, we are waiting for something even more interesting in the book.
Although Pippen has stated that he has no conflict with Jordan, his critical statements allow us to draw certain conclusions. If Scotty doesn’t try to exalt himself over Jordan, then he will definitely try to win back for the “Last Dance”. And what he is ready to tell about after many years is a big intrigue. After all, Jordan, despite his status as the greatest basketball player in history, has his own skeletons in the closet. And while Pippen continues to fuel interest in his creation, basketball fans and fans of the “old school” NBA can only wait for the premiere of the book, scheduled for November.