Scottie Pippen enjoyed glittering success alongside Michael Jordan, but he believes Kobe Bryant was a better basketball player than his former Chicago Bulls team-mate.
Scottie Pippen believes Kobe Bryant was a better basketball player than former Chicago Bulls team-mate Michael Jordan.
Pippen and Jordan formed one of the most iconic partnerships in NBA history, inspiring the Bulls to six championships from 1991-98.
Yet it is Jordan, star of the hit ESPN/Netflix docuseries ‘The Last Dance’, who many regard as the greatest basketball player of all time.
One of the former shooting guard’s closest competitors in the GOAT debate was LA Lakers legend Bryant – who tragically lost his life in a helicopter crash back in January.
And in an interview with Thuzio Live & Unfiltered last month, Pippen sparked controversy by claiming Bryant was a better player than his old team-mate.
“Kobe would call me and pick my brains and it was amazing to know that he did that to a lot of players,” the 54-year-old said.
“He did it to people in all walks of life, whether it was a movie producer, the best-selling author, whatever.
“Kobe was a very intelligent guy and he believed in striving to be the best.
“You know, I hate that we didn’t tell him how great he really was, because he strived so hard to be Michael Jordan.
“When I go back and I look at his videos and I say to myself, ‘Damn, he was better than Michael Jordan’, because he worked so hard, he put it in.
“This kid came out of high school. He didn’t go play for North Carolina under a Dean Smith.”
Reports suggest Pippen is one of several former NBA stars left seething with The Last Dance, which is already ESPN’s most-viewed documentary of all time.
The Hall of Fame small forward is said to be “beyond livid” with Jordan over his portrayal in the series, insisting it made him look “selfish”
ESPN 1000 Radio’s David Kaplan said on the Kap and Co show: “He is so angry at Michael and how he was portrayed, called selfish, called this, called that, that he’s furious that he participated and did not realize what he was getting himself into.
“He felt like up until the last few minutes of Game 6 against the Jazz [in the 1998 NBA finals, during the series’ last episode], it was just ‘bash Scottie, bash Scottie, bash Scottie’.”
