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.

What have you done

I've been a NBA fan for more than 15 years. I've senn tons of young teams get built and eventually broken for whatever reason. Do you remember the old Clippers? The Elton Brand-Lamar Odom-Corey Maggete-Darius Miles-headband fisting Clippers? That was a promising team and one had the feeling that if that core sticks together, they’d be hell of a team. Remember Shaq and Penny? That Magic team had dynasty wrote all over. Zo and Larry Johnson had they chance in Charlotte, Vincesanity and TMac were going to be the next MJ and Scottie (although now you’ll wonder who was who ). The examples go on and on and every team got broken apart for different reasons but I feel a Basketball’s God true heart ache when I think that upper management could have done something different to change the destiny of this kind of teams.

The current Chicago Bulls team is actually playing better this days than last week but an idea keep playing around on my head: had this core of players give everything they, as a group, had to give? Did John Paxon miss the opportunity of building an eventual champion? I’m not only thinking this because of the current position on the standings let’s look back at the building of some of the past champions (I must get something out of the way; I’m not saying that this is a blue print to build a champion they are just examples to make my point).

• Back in 1988 the Bulls had a nice young team featuring on the best rebounders in the league, Charles Oakley. They traded him to get a defensive oriented center that was also a veteran voice in the locker room. Michael Jordan and Bill Cartwright won 3 titles together in the next 5 years.

• In 1999 the L.A. Lakers, lead by Shaquille O’neal, were coming from two nice playoffs appearances were they lost to the Utah Jazz. One could say they time was about to come but Jerry West thought different as he traded their best defensive swingman and second leader scorer, Eddie Jones, to the Charlotte Hornets for Glen Rice. The following year the L.A. Lakers won the first title in 12 years.

• In 1995 the Houston Rockets were the defending champions but they weren’t playing at a “championship level”. For some people a change was imminent and that change became Clyde Drexler. He was acquire in exchange for staring power forward Otis Thorpe. The trade didn’t exactly shoot Houston to contention but helped Hakeem get his back to back title against much better teams like Utah, San Antonio and Phoenix.

• You want a more dramatic example; look at the moves Pat Riley made 3 years ago to create a championship team in Miami. I know they are crappy now and they won thank in mayor part to the”DWade Free throw Parade” but they are the ones wearing the jewelry.

In the past two seasons almost every Bulls’ players have been involve in a trade rumor to get a player from Kevin Garnett to Pau Gasol to Kobe Bryant but John Paxson never pulled the trigger, he never saw a fair trade he never bumped into a trade that, according to him, would increase the team chances to become champions. And he stuck with this team and I think he ride this team for all it could offer. This core of players have reached a point were they are not clicking anymore they are not responding to Skiles’ screaming and mind games.

Since two seasons ago until this past off-season the Bulls and the T’wolves were talking trade. New reports, and facts, points to that Chicago never had a chance to get Garnett. McHale, on all his wisdom, rejected every package Chicago offered. Let’s say this wasn’t Paxson fault. The Kobe saga still very recent so we all know why that trade hasn’t happened and probably'll never happen. Kobe wants to play in a Bulls team that also features Luol Deng and the Lakers want’s Deng in exchange for Kobe. This wasn’t Paxson fault neither.

The leaves us with the Pau Gasol scenario. January of this current year was passing by us when the talks heated up between the Grizzlies and the Bulls, The Grizzlies were asking for a package of Tyrus Thomas, the contract of PJ Brown, New York's draft pick and someone from the Deng-Gordon-Hinrich core. You can add two more contracts in each side to make numbers match. Worst case scenario Chicago'd had to give Deng as the centerpiece of the trade.You can argue he's going to be a 25 ppg scorer in the near future but if you are paying like 17 millon dollars per year to Ben Wallace for the next 4 years ( 2 of them good ) you might wanna try to win now so adquiring a actual 20/10 post presence makes sense, right?. It wasn't like the Bulls were given the entire roster for Gasol, Hinrich, Gordon, Nocioni, Wallace, they all'd have been there. I seriously think this is were Paxson lost it all.

There's also the Chandler vrs Wallace issue. I supported Paxton because of:

1. PJ Brown contract was adquired to be part of a trade package to get either Garnett or Gasol.
2. Chandler wasn't goint to develop under Skiles tenure. Someone had to go and they needed point A, besides Skiles approach was still working. I don't think Paxson is savyy enought to see this coming
   
3. I thought that the Ben Wallace signinng was a good thing. I know he's way older and I don't know how many times more expensive than Chandler but he brings experience and a championship ring to the table. This is where things get bad, Wallace hasn't been the leader on the court at least not regularly and he hasn't been that veteran voice in the locker room neither.

When the last trade deadline came and went I knew Paxson blew it. Fine, they didn't get Garnett nor Gasol but he needed to so something with PJ Brown contract. Something! Anything! As everything come out Chicago traded Chandler ( a defensive monster ) for anything and that's no way to build a champion