Scottie Pippen: The Most Underrated Player of All Time

When one beauty occupies the same proximity as something deemed more beautiful, it tends to go unnoticed and unappreciated. ¹Or if it does receive notice, it is primarily because it is in the same proximity as the thing deemed more beautiful. It gets recognized only because it gets included. Your run-of-the-mill attractive woman, who in most instances stands out in any crowd, will go largely unnoticed if she’s standing beside Charlize Theron.

Enter Scottie Pippen, who won six championships with the Chicago Bulls playing alongside the greatest basketball player ever according to most basketball fans and aficionados. You might have heard of Michael Jordan.

Scottie Pippen was not just a really good complementary player on great teams; he, like Jordan, was a great player whose merits can stand on there own regardless of who was in the foxhole with him. But because he happened to play with the greatest of all time, he too often gets lumped in to Jordan’s story as opposed to being valued and appreciated for his own.

During the window of the Bulls’ title runs from 91′-98′, Pippen was arguably the best small forward in the game. More than that, he may have very well been the second most valuable player on the planet and a top 5 player in the league.

Without researching a player’s past accomplishments, it’s easy to forget the accolades they received and the accomplishments they achieved, so let me bring you up to speed.

Pippen was voted to the All-NBA first team three times.

He made the All-NBA second and third team two times each.

He was an 8-time All-Defensive first teamer and 2-time second teamer. In 1995, he led the league in steals. And still hold the record for career steals by a forward. He averaged two steals a game.

Scottie Pippen was so much more than an integral part of a highly successful team. Yes, Jordan made him a better player, but the converse is also true: Pippen made Jordan a better player. That’s why the Bulls were so great. They had two great players, of whom I wholeheartedly concede that Jordan was greater, who brought out the very best in one another.

Pippen was very good offensively( he averaged 20 PPG in four seasons), both as a scorer and a playmaker ²Until LeBron James passed him this past February, Pippen had topped the list of career assists by a forward., but what set him apart was his defense. He could guard all five positions. He perpetually harassed point guards and disrupted offenses. Check out this video highlighting Pippen’s defensive prowess.

In the 91′ NBA Finals, after their game one loss to the Lakers, Pippen was tasked to guard Magic Johnson. For the remainder of the series Magic shot only 39.6 percent from the field and averaged an uncharacteristic 4.3 turnovers in those next four games-all Bulls’ wins. And in the series-clinching game 5, this was Pippen’s line: 32pts, 13rebs, 7 assists, and five steals.

Aside from his other defensive exploits, he was also a very good shot-blocking small forward, averaging .8 per game over his career. He was a good rebounder as well, averaging 6.4 per game.

So what did Pippen do while Jordan tried his hand at baseball for a year and a half? Without the greatest player of all time, Pippen led the Bulls to 55 regular season wins, only two less than the previous championship year with Michael Jordan. The Bulls lost a hard-fought conference semifinal series to the Knicks in seven games in 1994. The Knicks went on to the NBA Finals where they lost to the Hakeem Olajuwon-led Rockets in seven games. Pippen finished third in MVP voting in 94′.

For the record, Pippen was 7-4 in the playoffs without Jordan; Jordan was 1-9 without Pippen. Again, they needed each other.

In 1992, as a member of the the original Dream Team, head coach Chuck Daly said he was the second best player on the team and called him “the ultimate fill-in-the-blanks guy”.

Financially-speaking, how was he rewarded by the Bulls, specifically in the 1997-98 title run? While that was the year the Bulls paid Jordan $33 million, a yearly salary that has yet to be surpassed, even in today’s NBA, Pippen was paid the bargain-basement salary, at least in comparison to Jordan’s, of $2.75 million.

Make no mistake, Michael Jordan is not only the greatest to ever play the game, he is still the face of the NBA. He’s meant more to his sport than anyone has ever meant to any sport. He was and is deserving of everything he has and will receive.

But when talking about all-time great players, his partner in crime during those championship years, the years that made Jordan the iconic legend that he is today, was Scottie Pippen, a true legend in his own right. His retired # 33 hangs beside the retired # 23 in the rafters at the United Center-forever linked, yet hanging alone, inseparable, yet separable, each with its own shadow. There will never be another Michael Jordan, nor will there be another Scottie Pippen.

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