I guess we know why he's trying to make that comeback. For some reason, I don't feel sorry for him. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/basketball/bulls/269688,CST-SPT-pip23.article Financial woes not finished for Pippen February 23, 2007 BY LACY J. BANKS Staff Reporter Barely one week after Scottie Pippen announced he was hoping to end his three-year retirement from the NBA and make a comeback at 41, a major creditor lined up to collect on any big bucks the former Bulls star might earn. It was reported Thursday that the Missouri Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling from last year in St. Louis County in which a judge agreed that Pippen owed U.S. Bank about $5.021 million in principal, interest and attorney fees from a dispute over a private jet and company Pippen once owned. ''That's all part of some litigation that has been on the table for some time,'' Pippen told the Sun-Times on Thursday from his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. ''I really don't have any more comment on it. My lawyer and I are still working to resolve it.'' Pippen said the charter-plane issue is one of many poor business decisions that were made primarily by a former agent, whom he blames for causing him to lose about $27 million in bad investments and questionable accounting. Pippen sued his former law firm in 2005, claiming he had been swindled, but he lost the case. In terms of the plane, court documents claimed Pippen was using charter planes so often in 2001, when he was playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, that a pilot persuaded him to consider buying his own jet. Consequently, Pippen and his wife, Larsa, borrowed $4.375 million from an aircraft finance company, JODA LLC, in the St. Louis area. U.S. Bank bought that note and filed suit against the Pippens in 2004, even though it was never clear if Pippen even got to use the Grumman Gulfstream II, a twin-engine corporate jet. Meanwhile, Pippen said he is continuing his comeback bid. It got off to a controversial start during All-Star Saturday last weekend in Las Vegas after he hit a midcourt basket to lead a trio representing the Bulls to an apparent victory in the Shooting Stars contest. But while Pippen made a victory lap, video replay showed that teammate Ben Gordon illegally shot ahead of their third teammate, the Sky's Candice Dupree, and Pippen's team was disqualified. ''That has been the only real negative since I announced I'm coming back,'' Pippen said. ''I won't give any names, but a half-dozen teams have already expressed interest, and I expect to hear from more teams as they get closer to the end of the season and start getting their playoff rosters together. ''I've changed my mind about signing any 10-day contracts. I wouldn't mind giving private workouts and practicing with teams to show them what I can do. Then they can decide for themselves whether I can help them and if they want to offer me a contract for the rest of the season. ''I'm ready to play right now, and I'll keep on working out until I accept an invitation to work out with a team, preferably a contender.'' lbanks@suntimes.com
He also spent a lot of money buying a degree when he "went back to school" to get his degree from my alma mater. He basically bought them a new basketball floor in exchange for a degree, haha. Since Pippen is the only famous athlete from my undergrad school, there are all sorts of stories about him. My favorite is the "Scottie Pippen Curriculum" which included a bunch of classes they made up for him while he was playing hoops. One semester he had 6 hours of Drivers Ed courses alone.
Agreed, he would have to play until he was 45 just to pay off that airplane debt. Does he seriously think he can play for 4 more years, the history for guys like him is a team signs them for a playoff run and drops them the next season.
Man when your rich take care of your money. Don't think oh well i have millions of dollars so i can do anything. If you spend like a millionair/life like a millionair on a daily basis you'll be broke by the end of the day. Smart people can get rich and stay rich. Dumb people can get rich, but will end up broke again .
This is what happens when the only thing you know how to do is playing basketball. Sure you can make a lot of money playing hoop. But can you keep it? And when you need some more money, the only thing you can do is to play basketball again. Sad. But like Sooner423 said, I don't feel sorry for him.
I don't understand how you could lose that much money. Even a bad investment portfolio can yeild 5% on your investment. I don't know how much money Big Nose made in his career, but if he had put $20M in said portfolio it would yield $1M per year. If you can't live on a $1M per year you got serious problems.
Was this posted? Scottie Pippen saying a coach or general manager would rather have him over Michael Jordan. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17270402/ Expert: Pippen’s comeback driven by Jordan A sure Hall of Famer, but ex-Bull seems to think he needs 7th title ASK THE NBA EXPERT By Sam Smith Updated: 12:01 a.m. CT Feb 22, 2007 Perhaps there just should be some gentle, love song background music for the NBA. Call it NBAHarmony, like the dating service. Because the tale of Scottie Pippen, the former Chicago Bulls all-NBA player headed to the Basketball Hall of Fame, though with perhaps a new delay, sounds like one of those romance fictions. Someone is always looking for what they remembered and believe what they want it to be rather than the reality. It reminds me of the old Billy Crystal movie City Slickers. The tough, crusty old cowboy character played by Jack Palance talks about this woman he loved but never met. The Crystal character wonders why and he says it would ruin the fantasy. Pippen watches the NBA after three years away, no longer sore and tired, and sees himself as he once was. And perhaps so do the Cavaliers, the Nuggets, the Lakers and the Spurs, all of whom have inquired about Pippen. He's cheap, he's available. And maybe, just maybe … Like those dating services: Fill out your requirements and there's someone who always believes they fit them. Pippen was one of the most unique players in NBA history, much unappreciated, which is another reason he's on this quixotic quest. Pippen was a remarkable defender, so good that he was as much the reason as any that the Bulls won the 1991 championship the way he thwarted Magic Johnson. Never has a player Johnson's height been able to react so quickly to him and keep Johnson from seeing over the defense. Pippen didn't make the big shots often, which is why he is as well known for that refusal to finish a game in the 1994 playoffs when he was having his best individual season — All-Star game MVP, career high scoring and rebounding averages while Michael Jordan retired for the first time — when the last play wasn't called for him. But he made plenty of shots, he defended, he ran the offense, handled the ball and, as he likes to say, has six championships and Jordan doesn't have any in the NBA without him. Pippen is driven, like many former athletes, by an inability to let go of the game that defined him and gave him so much. It's hardly unusual, and better players, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, played until an older age than Pippen, now 41. It is common among professional boxers, even the best as Muhammad Ali's condition certainly was exacerbated by continually returning to the boxing ring. Pippen gave a try to TV and it didn't work out. He talks about coaching, staying close to the game, which is no shame as basketball is heavily populated by former players who were among the best. Likewise, teams are always hoping for a boost from somewhere, a midseason deal like when Rasheed Wallace was that risky missing piece for the Pistons a few years back, when Dennis Rodman was toxic around the NBA but gold for the Bulls in 1995. Someone like Tim Thomas was for the Suns last season, maybe Eddie Jones for the Heat this season. There's little risk, a low-money, short-term deal to the end of the season, and what if he has something? I wouldn't be surprised if Pippen did. He was never the same player after his last back surgery in 1997, but still could run a half-court offense and understand the game as well as any. Players coming off the end of the bench these days can do a lot less. It seems a longshot after all this time off, but who knows? And then there's the inner torment for Scottie. It came out during All-Star weekend when Pippen was asked — what, again! — about how he felt being the supporting cast to Michael Jordan, about the lack of credit, the idea Jordan could have taken anyone to all those championships. It's why Pippen likes to say Jordan never won without him, and why that 2000 Western Conference finals loss to the Lakers with a 15-point fourth quarter lead was so painful. That was No. 7, the separator. Even when Jordan spoke at the retirement ceremony for Pippen's Bulls jersey a few years back in Chicago, the tone was of a helper, a little brother. Pippen smiled grimly through clenched teeth. Their relationship was always ambivalent, Pippen drawn to Jordan's greatness and aura and then driven away by his superiority. They were a perfect tandem, though. Pippen was the better defender, the facilitator to offset Jordan's dominance and scoring. But Pippen also had the issues: the walkout in 1994, a gun charge arrest that was dropped, feuds with management, near trades and equal demands. There was always something. It was Pippen's inner strength that steeled him. Lesser players wouldn't have been able to survive the media scrutiny and criticism. Pippen is a unique, true Hall of Famer, six championship teams, voted one of the 50 greatest, two Olympic teams, multiple all-defense and all-pro teams. But there's still that seventh ring out there somewhere and Pippen believes he could be more than a spare part. So it led to some curious comments during All-Star weekend when Pippen again was asked about being Jordan's footman. "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." They were stunning, mouth agape comments, though Pippen's point really was more generic. He doesn't always express himself perfectly, which is why he isn't on ESPN anymore even if he had interesting and strong opinions. He was trying to enhance his skills and note their importance, which is often overlooked. Pippen is a proud man, proud of what he accomplished and who he was. Now he wants one more chance to show it. He doesn’t believe he'll fall on his face. Though everyone will be watching to see if he does and say it's just the same old Scottie. Perhaps it's best to walk away. But Scottie Pippen never did what everyone expected or wanted. He was a walk-on at Central Arkansas, the team manager handing out towels as a freshman. How do you go from there to the Hall of Fame? Perhaps no one ever has come farther. Maybe he can surprise us all again.
Am I a bad person for enjoying this? This is even better than when Bill Walton was out of TV work due to the strike. Hey, Bill! Got any leftover boxes of mac & cheese? If you pour them in your briefs, you might even smuggle them to Scottie without the creditors knowing.
Over $100 million, before tax, in NBA salaries-- and some more in endorsements. But if you ware buying private jets and **** like that, you can blow an NBA contract very quickly. And I'm guessing Scottie wasn't even smart enough to make a conservative investment (say, in govenment bonds, S&P 500 index funds, etc)... what investment he made were probably in the variety of some friend's restarant, or Ron Artest's record label, and what not. He probably "earned" negative on his investments. Also, it's not like Scottie continued to make money after he retired (something which Jordan, Magic Johnson, Hakeeem, even Walton and Jon Barry, etc, have)... he had an ESPN gig, but he just wasn't articulate enough to be good TV (not to mention his face is made for radio). Anyhow... at least Scottie will have the NBA Pension, so even if he did blow ALL of his money (which I doubt he did, there's got to be a million or two hidden under his mattress or inside one of his nostrils somewhere), he'd still not starve.
Didn't he sign an 80+ million dollar contract with us back in 99? I refuse to believe he's that broke.
He lost a ton due to an investment advisor that made some bad investemnts. He sued the investment firm and has a judgement..though not sure if he'll collect...
McGrady bought a jet. I heard that he wanted to sell it, but I don't know if that's true. The only way it's worthwhile is if they rent them out.
