In July, when people thought Scottie Pippen might object to his portrayal in the ESPN docuseries “The Last Dance,” the former Chicago Bulls star wondered aloud, “Why would I be offended by anything that happened 30 years ago?”
Apparently, adding another five months changes things.
“I don’t think it was that accurate in terms of really defining what was accomplished in one of the greatest eras of basketball, but also by two of the greatest players—and one could even put that aside and say the greatest team of all time,” Pippen told The Guardian. “I didn’t think those things stood out in the documentary. I thought it was more about Michael trying to uplift himself and to be glorified. I think it also backfired to some degree in that people got a chance to see what kind of personality Michael had.”
Well, then. So Pippen, 54, was not happy with “The Last Dance,” which showed Jordan calling Pippen “selfish” for delaying an ankle surgery until the start of the 1997-98 season and chronicled how Pippen refused to enter a 1994 Eastern Conference semifinal playoff game in the final seconds.
So does Jordan know how he feels?
“Yeah, I told him I wasn’t too pleased with it,” Pippen told The Guardian. “He accepted it. He said, ‘Hey, you’re right.’ That was pretty much it.”
The wildly popular five-part series aired during the sports hiatus and lifted Jordan because of his stature as the greatest player ever to many and because it was co-produced by his Jump 23 company.
Pippen said he “let all that stuff go to the past” (we see that) and that he was not interviewed because he “didn’t feel I needed to bring back things that happened 20 years ago” (yes, we see that).
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