The Last Dance: Scottie Pippen, an all-time unsung hero

As we watch The Last Dance, ESPN’s docu-series about the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen got some much-deserved shine as an unsung hero.

Sometimes it’s hard to appropriately assess the contributions of a star. Especially when that star shines in the shadow of Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest player the NBA has ever seen. That’s evident more than perhaps anywhere else throughout league history in the case of Scottie Pippen, as we learned in The Last Dance, ESPN’s docu-series on Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.

It’s easy to regard Pippen as a classic second-fiddle to Jordan’s stardom. After all, the two three-peats came when Michael Jordan was a Chicago Bull, and no championships came when Jordan was gone. Conversely, Jordan didn’t win until Pippen was in the fold, thanks to a draft-night trade made by Bulls’ general manager Jerry Krause with the Seattle SuperSonics.

Of course, the winning didn’t start right away when Pippen was acquired, the Bulls had to pay their dues and learn everything the hard way from teams like the Bad Boys Detroit Pistons.

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While there’s no doubt Jordan was top dog in Chicago, on most other teams (not just then, but throughout NBA history), Pippen would have had that role. He wasn’t just Robin to Jordan’s Batman. He was an absolute game-changer on both ends of the floor and has been sorely underrated throughout history.

In Michael Jordan’s own words in episode two of The Last Dance, “Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen”.

More than a wingman, Pippen has had some of the best two-way seasons in NBA history. Of all players to average 20+ points, 7+ rebounds, 5+ assists and 2+ steals in a season, Pippen is one of seven players to do it and he’s one of only two players to do it twice, sharing the distinction with Russell Westbrook.

The other players on the list are an absolute murderer’s row: Jordan, Larry Bird, LeBron James, Clyde Drexler and Magic Johnson.

Pippen averaged 20.4 points, 7.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.2 steals per game between 1992-93 and 1996-97, and in the two seasons Jordan missed as he pursued a baseball career, he led the Chicago Bulls to a total of 102 wins.

In those two seasons, he averaged 21.7 points, 8.4 rebounds, 5.4 assists and he averaged 2.9 steals in both campaigns.

Scottie Pippen practically worked for the Chicago Bulls for free, relatively speaking even for the salaries of the day. He made $2.775 million in 1997-98m and he wasn’t in the top 100 paid players in the NBA.

He was sixth-highest paid player on his own team that season in spite of having five top-10 MVP finalist finishes, 15 All-NBA team accolades and seven All-Star appearances.

Comparatively speaking, Pippen was paid like Andre Roberson, who fills the same slot in the financial pecking order of today’s NBA salaries.

Of course, he did go on to make his money later on in his career, primarily with the Portland Trail Blazers, but he earned every bit of that and more with the Chicago Bulls as one of the great unsung heroes in NBA history.