Pippen won nothing without MJ. He destroyed the Rox the year he was here with his crybaby bologna attitude. He won nothing in Portland after he left here. He won nothing in Chicago when MJ retired. He is a good player, but overrated. His career deserves the same consideration that many people are giving to Yao right now in his 4th year.
Ya, I forgot how much Pippen wanted to win when he was getting arrested for drunk driving during the season, throwing away playoff games, all while bashing everyone but himself. Quitten should have quit after MJ left.
This thread is never going to be objective because Pippen is so bitter about his year here and all the fans are too. The fact of the matter is he was a fantastic player and anyone who saw the Bulls during the championship years know how integral he was to that team. As much as he rode MJ's coat tails, MJ also rode his; hence why they were such a great duo. It is a shame that things didn't work out during his year in H-town. I still remember the giddy excitement I felt when we signwed him; it wasn't until we signed Tracy that I felt the same emotion again.
Pippen was an awesome player. He could do it all. Outstanding - all NBA defensive player, ultimate ball handler. His speed was unreal - could set the flow of the offense and break. A truly gifted player. That said- We THE ROCKETS sacraficed a lot of money resources to get him here. He cried to the media diminishing our trade bargaining with other teams so that we could not salvage much and get anything for him. We got a bunch of filler fluff players who never played for the Rockets from Portland on that trade- Kelvin Cato was a bright spot. Portland dumped marginal players to get him. Pippen hurt us badly because we got nothing for him. He should now keep that mouth closed about it. He had a brilliant career, but did the Rockets dirty - should have worked a top secret deal with Les, CD, and Rudy to exit without complaining to the media.
Pippen was a great all around player, but nonetheless he was still MJ's sidekick. I'm convinced MJ would have won just as many championships if he had any other top 50 player alongside him. I don't think I can say the same for Pippen. If MJ had artest they would have won championships still. I can't say Pippen would have won as many with artest. That was just used as an example. The pippen-rockets era was a bad situation. I think it could have been better with a different coach and different system, but he was definitely whining about the situation which made me lose respect for him in my book but that doesn't blind me from the fact that he's a great player still.
WOW.. how many more times do you care to get owned in this thread? As for Quitten, is he even still working NBA games or just going from show to show acting like he's hot ****??
I am sick and tired of reading people saying pippen is nothing without MJ. Please look at the first season bulls without MJ. Pippen led the Bulls, a roster without nobody, to a 50plus win season while averaging 21pts 8rebs 5assts and 2.9stls. i strongly believe without MJ, Pippen will be able to average 20pts 7rebs 6assts 2stls kind of stats his whole career. Please dont use his stats in Houston and Portland. Any player at age of 33 will start to decline. As a rockets fan, you have the rights to hate Pippenb but as a true basketball fan you have to admit that he is the best all around player in the league history and saying he doesnt deserve a spot in the 50 greatest player just prove one is a Pippen hater. that's it!
Wait a minute, SA was the champion that year. Get your facts straight when you attempt to defend a Rocket legend like Pippen.
I love how Pippen wanted to win when he wouldn't get off the bench for the last shot in 94 because he wasn't taking it. did pippen talk about that, or how he used to be intimidated by the pistons?
LOL. Pippen is Richard Jefferson? That's just great. Nowadays, people just compare any player with those proven great players in the past, including the Yao-Dream comparison. The guy had 6 RINGS! MJ with his super ego, fought with PJ to get Pippen back, why? He wanted Pippen to be on the bandwagon? NO! He knew he wouldn't win without Pippen. I understand the beef with Pippen, maybe rightfully so, but he's Richard Jefferson? Since when RJ became HOF, complete player, first NBA, first NBA defensive? Pippen led the MJ-less Bulls team quite well. In the end of his career, he still did well with Blazers and provided leadership on and off court, considering his injury. I disagree about his don't-want-to-win comment, but I understand his unsatisfaction. When I watched the games, my feelings were that Dream wasn't happy at the time, and he wasn't himself any more, from his facial expression and lacking of excitement in the game. Maybe because he and Barkley both preferred the left block, and they clogged the lane. But anyways, although Dream made me a Rockets fan, Barkley wanted to win definitely more than Dream at that stage, because he wanted the ring so badly. Still, Pippen's shot at the organization was ungranted. But, he sucked after Bulls? It's the end of his career, he had injury, and he still contributed in key moments. Would you say Dream sucked in Toronto? It's an information age, you can find any information online easily. Before you made such groundless claim, you better find some facts to back you up. We Rockets fans are biased, but on this board, people are at least trying to be more rational and proud to be different than those ignorant ESPN boards posters. We should actually live up to that.
Ok, Dr. Ramsey. You explain to me why Pippen underperformed for a "HOF'er" every year in the league without MJ or PJ? Moreover, aside from being a superior passer, explain to me skill wise what he does better than RJ. Have you seen Richard Jefferson play? I don't think you can argue about him not being as talented as Pippen has been. Each of his first 4 and a quarter years has been on par with Pippens. The dued is almost averaging 20/10 this year, and dishes out over 4 assists per game. No, not Pippen's high 5 to 7 apg, but still solid. He plays good defense and is a fierce competitor. He is an equally bad 3 point shotoer. They are almost exactly the same height and weight. He does not play with MJ and PJ in the mid 90's - that's the difference. If you want to believe MJ wouldn't have won six rings without Pippen, that's okay. IMO, if you plug Richard Jefferson in there for Pippen, I think they still win. What's more, the year on the Bulls without MJ was the very year he pulled his sissy move and REFUSED to come in for an important end of the game play. That's got to be one of the defining things a player can do to show how much of a competitor he really is. And, in Portland, he wasn't good. He was worse statistically then he was with the Rockets, and everyone here complains about that. Not suprisingly, despite *leading* the Trailblazers to game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, he was unable to *lead* them to a win despite a enormous 4th quarter lead. I've already responded referencing Pippen's great professionalism that season. Didn't win, didn't try to win. Tried to show his stuff with MJ finally out of the picture. Look, I'm not saying he wasn't a 20pt, 7rbd, 5-6 apg type player in his prime. Nor am I not saying that those aren't solid stats for any player. I am saying there are other players in the leauge who put up similiar stats without being oh so great. RJ is a good example. Jason Richardson is similiar, without the passing. Same with Rashard Lewis. Now you've got to be joking. Best all around player in league history. Um, there was somebody on his own team who was better than him. Not to mention Magic, Bird, Oscar, Wilt, Hakeem, etc., etc., etc. Still playing you've got Kobe, T-Mac, Lebron. And I am talking about ALL-AROUND. That puts Pippen 9th to me already, just off the top of my head.
I didn't mean that specific season, I meant that Laker team which beat us was not much different from the one that would nearly sweep every series in the playoffs for their next two championships. Their team didn't change much afterwards, they still had the two great players in Shaq and Kobe as/near their primes.
Dude, what's your obsession with RJ? Are you seriously comparing the two? RJ will never have the impact on the league that Pippen had Please tell me you're bitter about the Rockets Pippen and that's what is causing you to say these ludicrous things. As a Rockets fan, I'm bitter too, but that isn't stopping me from being objective and reasonable.
Oh, yeah, I watched him play. I am a basketball fan, and I live in the East. I watched a lot of his play. He's good, but not great, according to my shallow basketball knowledge. Have you watched him play without Kidd? I guess you watched, and you also watched Amare, Q, Johnson etc played without Nash. Then imagine Malone without JS. You see how much better a great PG can make you? Pippen didn't depend on a great PG. His stats without the mighty MJ proved that he can be on his own, while your equally great RJ and other hyped names I just mentioned failed to prove.
His reasoning is ab absolute joke. He's looking at nothing more than stats and apparently didn't watch a single damn game for the Bulls during their championship runs or even during those nearly 2 seasons Pippen played without Jordan, STILL carrying the team to very respectable numbers (wins-wise, playoffs-wise). The man's logic (or lack thereof) goes like this: RJ has comparable numbers to Scottie Pippen, therefore they're about equal!!!!!!!!!!!! If there was EVER a statement that tells you a person doesn't know what the heck they're talking about ,that should be it. Using the same logic, Steve Francis is on the same level as Isiah Thomas, Mitch Richmond isn't that far off from Drexler, and Stockton is worse than Marbury as an overall player. A great player is measured by his impact on his team, not his stats. Stockton didn't score all that much, but he impacted the game in ways no PG since has (Nash is close though); Pippen scored decent and could easily have been a 20+ PPG player without Jordan, not able to win it all, but still good enough to make some noise in the playoffs (which his Bulls did in the one year Jordan didn't play). I vividly remember that year when Pippen was injured and the Bulls were struggling to hang around .500 with Michael freakin' Jordan, and every time they ask MJ he just said, "enjoy this, because once Pip comes back, we will run the table on the league". Pippen's impact on the game on both ends of the court is only matched by a select few in NBA history (just because he deferred to a greater player such as MJ doesn't mean he couldn't score more than his career 17ppg or so). His impact on the court went WAAAAY beyond his stats; he was by FAR the best one-on-one lockdown defender in league history, I have never seen anyone come even close (no, not passing lanes, I am talking old skool shutdown defense that's a rarity these days). Pippen's impact on the game was far greater than you're making it to be. The simple fact that you say "If RJ was with Jordan, why wouldn't they win all those rings they won?" is such a dumb -- but telling -- statement that it really disqualifies anything you have to say. But since you enjoy playing the "switching roles" game, answer this question: if Pippen in his prime played with Dream in his prime, how many championships would the Rockets have won? I guess objectivity is a rarity on this board. Now that I have addressed that part of his silly argument, let me go back to the part about Pippen's tenure with the Rockets... As I said: he was a bad fit on this team. Things would've been better if we hadn't acquired Pippen. We had a team of aging once-50-greatest caliber players who didn't like one another much, threw blame at one another when things didn't go well, acted like a bunch of kids, and eventually we had to break 'em apart. Pippen was not graceful at all in the way he left the team, as many have already said, and that was childish and unprofessional on his part (but not unprecedented in the NBA). That part I can't defend him, he was wrong, and Barkley was at fault too. Still, the main reason why things turned sour quickly was that those guys just didn't fit and didn't defer to one another, and egos came into play.
No, I don't. Here are a few reasons... 1. Oscar Robertson - Averaged a triple double for an entire season... 2. John Havlicek - Defense, offense, and intangibles... 3. Magic Johnson - Played every single position for his team at one point or another including filling in for Kareem at center. That is just what I could come up with in two minutes. Pippen is FAR from being the "best all around player in the league history."
The Pippen bashing on this board is suprising. Pippen was horrible as a Rocket. That is partly on him, and partly due to the system that we tried to force him to adapt to. Horry is a jump-shooting, stay behind the arc SF. Scottie Pippen is not. To compare RJ to Pippen is pretty silly IMO. When has RJ ever led a team? As someone else has already pointed out, Scottie led the Bulls without Mike to a 50 win season. He led the Bulls in most categories that season. To put that into perspective, he lost "arguably" the greatest player ever, gained a rookie Kukoc and STILL led the Bulls to a 50 win season. How many games did we lose without T-Mac again? Do you realize MJ has NEVER led the Bulls, or any team, to a 50 win season without Pip? Do you realize he didn't win jack until Pip (and Grant) arrived? Someone said MJ would have won just as much with another top 50 player? Please man up and name them. I hope you are referring to SF's in that era, because I'm sure Pip would have won titles playing next to Dream as well. If so, please be sure that he can run a complicated offense (since Scottie essentially played PG for the Bulls), a good offensive threat (in prime was putting up close to 20 on 47% and mid 30% from three), control a game or series defensively (see playoff's against Lakers, Pacers and Jazz) and be humble enough to take the backseat and not complain about it (not speaking contract wise, but "credit" wise). Additionally, during the the 8 yr span (Bulls 6 titles and our 2), please name the SF's better that Pippen, and why.
I wouldn't say that actually. It depends on how you define "all around player". If you define it as one who is good offensively and defensively, then I can't think of many better than Scottie. Dream and MJ of course. Who else. Scottie is arguably one of the best defenders EVER.
i dont see why they couldnt work things out and try to adjust during a full season,i bet we of been better, we could of gotten the stve trade, then have the dream,chuck,pip and steve. my other question is how come players like pippen,payton and so forth complin about the systems, its this discussed before they come? cant they be like "oh he runs such and such,i am not goin there" finaly couldnt we goten more for pippen?
