Playing alongside Michael Jordan in the 1990s necessarily meant, back then, a lower profile for Scottie Pippen.
These days, the former Chicago Bulls star says what he wants — even if it sometimes leaves the rest of the basketball world asking, “Wha … ?”
In an explosive interview on Monday, Pippen, who is Black, called legendary NBA head coach Phil Jackson, who is White, a racist.
Pippen, in an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” talked about an incident during the 1994 playoffs when White player Toni Kucoc was given the opportunity to take a game-winning shot instead of Pippen.
“One year without Michael Jordan, can I get one shot?” Pippen said. “I did all the dirty work.”
Patrick brought Pippen onto his show after the six-time champion did an interview with GQ Magazine on Thursday, where he touched on refusing to go into the game when the play was drawn up for Kukoc.
“I don’t think it’s a mystery,” Pippen told GQ, “you need to read between the fine lines.”
Patrick asked Pippen about the answer he gave. That’s when he brought up the “racial” piece to the story.
“Why would Toni, who’s a rookie, get the last-second shot and you put me out of bounds,” Pippen said on Monday. “That’s what I mean racial. That was Scottie Pippen’s team. Scottie Pippen was on pace to be MVP that year, right? Why would you put him in a position not to be successful? Why wouldn’t you put him in a position to succeed?”
Patrick went deeper, asking Pippen: “By saying a racial move, you’re calling Phil a racist.”
“I don’t got a problem with that,” Pippen said.
Patrick followed up again: “Do you think Phil is, or was?”
Pippen put it bluntly: “Oh, yeah.”
The NBA Hall of Famer then brought up an example of Jackson’s book about Kobe Bryant, saying some things in the book were things that don’t leave the “circle” of the team.
Patrick pushed back against Pippen’s assessment of Jackson, who won two titles as a player and 11 as a coach of basketball legends like Jordan, Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal — all Black.
“He’s disloyal,” Patrick said. “I don’t know if that makes him a racist.”
“Well that’s your way of looking it out and I have my way,” Pippen said. “I was in the locker room with him, I was in practices with him, you’re looking from afar.”
This isn’t the first headline-grabbing quote from Pippen recently. In the same GQ interview, Pippen accused Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant of not knowing how to play “team basketball” in the playoffs.
Durant responded to Pippen’s claim in a tweet, referring to the Kukoc play.
“Didn’t the great Scottie pippen refuse to go in the game for a last second shot because he was in his feelings his coach drew up the play for a better shooter??” Durant tweeted.
After Monday’s radio interview Pippen took to Twitter addressing critics.
“I’m just answering the questions y’all asking me,” Pippen wrote. “You wanted the headlines, you got them - dig deeper to find out why I actually said what I said instead of framing your questions to get clicks. It’s all love!”
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