I get his mindset to a degree, when the team was only Jordan, Jordan never won anything. He just went out and got his. Putting Pippen and Rodman and the other various role players around Jordan made the Bulls a winning team because they became well rounded. Even still Jordan showed a disrespect to those guys contributions to winning with his "fierce competitor" personality, i.e. shaming other players that couldn't play perfectly/up to his standards.
Pippen may look bad here a bit, but I appreciate the honesty. Who wants to spend their whole life hearing about how great MJ was and having your own career that you worked your ass off to have be recast as simply a nice compliment to MJ who was doing all the actual "work." We'll never know what Pippen's career looks like without MJ, but our tiny window into that in the 2 years MJ was gone, the Bulls still went to the 2nd round of the playoffs both years. That group of guys wasn't just a bunch of losers without MJ. And as Pippen says, there were plenty of nights where they had to win in spite of MJ while he jacked 25 shots and was ice cold.
No one should ever forget MJs Hall of Fame speech where he gave us one of the most unfiltered views into his personality. He spent most of it trying to remind people of how great he was and how many people in attendance he had beaten over the years, even spending time trying to "joke" about those who doubted him, but which came off as sour grapes toward anyone who didn't worship at the altar of Jordan from the beginning of time.
Worth noting that Jordan has the all time NBA record for usage rate, and when you look at the list, you realize that Dominique is the only guy on the list in the top 20 that played during the same era as Jordan, so... I'm not going to really turn this into a Jordan is not the GOAT argument, but it certainly helps you pile stats when your usage rate is astronomical compared to anyone else in your era.
Agreed 100%, but when it comes to how we view Jordan as the GOAT, I think that usage rate does bring some context. In his era we compare his accomplishments/stats to guys with usage rates way lower than him. (Other than the winning of course)
I would never say that Jordan isn't the GOAT, but I think the margin is actually smaller than we think it is. Kobe for one makes an excellent comparison with just as much winning and comparable stats.
Jordan has been very complimentary to Pippen and pretty much all of his teammates on those championship teams over the years and even in The Last Dance. Yeah, he's a dick of a human being and was hard on his teammates in practice but it turned into 6 titles so it's hard to argue with how he handled things. Saint Kobe was the same way since he was a Jordan clone but no one says a bad word about him because he's dead. Plus he didn't have a whiny ***** of a teammate like Pip who cried to the media at every possible opportunity.
I don't know, Jordan usually says the right things when the cameras are on, because that what he's trained to do, but Scottie had to play with that a-hole for 10 years. I just think it's likely that Scottie knows better than we do what MJ is really like when he's not in corporate MJ mode.
I think it is 100% true that Jordan to this day sees the other guys on his teams as just there to help him win. And that key phrase is "help him" win, not help the team win. I've been on teams with extraordinary talent before, both professionally in the workplace, and when I used to play sports, and there is nothing worse than a guy like Jordan with that mentality that people exist just to help him reach his goals. It gets old very very fast.
When they beat Phoenix in the Finals, Jordan ran away from the team and grabbed the ball like it was all his, it's just another example of this mentality. That championship was for "him." He doesn't go celebrate with the guys, he runs away from the guys to go get the game ball. (watch at the end of the video)
And then later, after they beat the Sonics in the finals, another awkward scene where he sprints up to the player on his own team dribbling the game out and rips the ball away so he can have it and cry with it. I know the story with his dad, but it's a big "me" moment for me watching it now. Dude was always and still is always about me.
I know it's just part of Jordan "lore" now and his "great will to win", but imagine punching your teammate in practice. It's the dick move of all dick moves when you are the best player on the team. Latrell Sprewell attacked the coach in practice and no one ever let him live it down, Jordan gets celebrated for his act of violence.
There is a arrogance to excellence graph, and the world will tolerate exactly the amount of arrogance that matches up to the excellence. Jordan may very well be the most arrogant person in the world. However, he also owns it, and it matches up to his level of excellence.
Scottie Pippen is a HOFer and one of the top players of all time in the NBA.
I don't think he should be airing the dirty laundry publicly, but I also don't think he's wrong. Jordan's arrogance is absolutely sickening. Someone mentioned his HOF speech earlier. Any respect I had for the guy vanished that day. Absolutely ZERO humility. He even trash talked his high school coach for not putting him on the varsity team. Christ dude, what do you have to prove to anyone? He's just an a-hole.
Jordan was a ball hogging stat-boy for the first 3-4 years of his career. He completely ignored his teammates, somewhat understandable given who his teammates were. He wasn't awful, but he wasn't very good either.
Then for the next 6 years (really 8 because he left for 2 for gambling) he was indeed the GOAT. This timed perfectly with him being on a completely loaded team.
Then for the next 6 years he was fat and no good. So over all he played 15 season, of which 6 he was REALLY good and 9 he just shot a lot.
Is he really the GOAT or was he the GOAT for 6 years?
Jordan was a ball hogging stat-boy for the first 3-4 years of his career. He completely ignored his teammates, somewhat understandable given who his teammates were. He wasn't awful, but he wasn't very good either.
Then for the next 6 years (really 8 because he left for 2 for gambling) he was indeed the GOAT. This timed perfectly with him being on a completely loaded team.
Then for the next 6 years he was fat and no good. So over all he played 15 season, of which 6 he was REALLY good and 9 he just shot a lot.
Is he really the GOAT or was he the GOAT for 6 years?
