Scottie Pippen

In the last month or two a lot had happened with Scottie Pippen. Since last year there's had been rumors about Pippen been short of cash, sort of speak. Pretty hard to believe somebody that, according to basketball-reference.com made around 62 millions the last 5 years of his basketball career, is broke. Pippen is a family man he's no MC Hammer. If you ask me the issue here is that Scottie has nothing else to do. He tried writting a blog, it didn't work. He worked for ESPN for a little while but he hasn't returned to the broadcasters lineup over there. He obviously is not a savyy business man. All Pippen has it's basketball.

Last year he tried to play in the NBA but nobody gave him a shot. This year he went oversears to Finland and Swedden where he pretty much schooled everybody there and left a great impression . Pippen is not trying to return to the game for the love of it or for being an greedy bastard looking for more money, he's doing it for the sake of doing something with his life. Maybe a middle age crisis. Maybe not.

I should notice, just for my inner peace, that I loved Scottie Pippen's game. Back in the 90's it was really a joy for me to watch Bulls games, Sure, there was MJ putting 30 to 35 points a game with grace, style, a marketing smile and a killer instinct that would even affect his own teammates. But the guy in the background that made all that happened was Scottie. It wasn't just the overall game and the lock down defense, things that made Scottie Pippen so "social valuable" (A note here, you always hear over and over again in the press about a certain part of a player game, ignoring to a point other facets of his game which are as important as the others inside the system he plays. Example, Tim Duncan and his fundamentals and defense, you don't hear about his passing that creates space for himselft and other Spurs. Allen Iverson, he leaves everything on the court and creates shots for others. What about his ability at reading passing lines?. Those very publized skills are what made a player "social valuable"). Scottie did all the small things for those teams specially getting other players not named Jordan involved in the offense and orchestrating team defense. For me was a thing of beauty seeing this guy play as he generated offense and defense without generating numbers.

Said that I don't see Pippen as a skilled individual when it comes to comunicate with others. He also might be a little egocentric and a very proud individual who's very confident of this basketball IQ, and he should be. The problems for him arise when he tries to comunicate that wisdom. When Scott Skiles was let go by the Bulls on Christmas Eve Scottie saw an oportunity to be the head coach of the Chicago Bulls. He made a pitch for it not before ripping the entire team including players who he played with like Kirk Hinrich. Why would somebody looking for a job critized the people he or she has to work with? Not only he'd had to work with them his job pretty much would depend on their performance. Maybe it was just the Scottie way of letting them know that he knows them, knows his shortcomings and that he could find ways to fix them.


Everything came out wrong. He couldn't get his point through.


This is exactly why I don't think Scottie can coach.First he needs to learn some comunication skills. He has a better feel of the game than Byron Scott, Sam Mitchell, Phil Jackson or Pat Riley. He can't reach the players like those guys can. It's like a crazy scientist that becomes a bad teacher, he has all the knowledge of the subject and the experience to back it up. If he isn't able to convert all the stuff he has in his head into words that rationalizes and explains that mess we all could thoughts then he's useless as a teacher. That's Pippen as a coach.


Then there's is the Michael Jordan shadow

"I think people love me just as much as they love Michael," Pippen said. "The fans who understand the game, the GMs and coaches. I think they'd rather have a Scottie than a Michael. Because I'm an all-around player. Coaches would rather have a Scottie-type player than a Michael. I was an all-around player. I made people around me better."

-- Scottie Pippen



In some way Pippen is still trying to win something without Jordan. As Sam Smith wrote that's why the Blazers' collapse in game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals were so painful. He needed that seventh ring. He needs to prove himself and the rest of the world that he's more than a "sidekick". As proud as he is that must be as important as any type of money he could earn in the process.




Scottie knows he's as responsable to Michael sucess as Michael's to his. He only wants the recognition. He only wants to be a part of the game again.



I said he deserves both.