In today’s edition of crazy Chicago Bulls stories resurfacing from the best era in franchise history, the Robin to Michael Jordan’s Batman is pulling up old receipts on his running mate. Written in Scottie Pippen’s best-selling book “Unguarded” in 2021, Jordan’s stat sheet was often not a true reflection of what transpired on the court. Pippen was famously disgruntled by “The Last Dance,” a 10-part documentary on the Bulls’ dynasty and Jordan’s career. An interesting debate has unfolded across all social media outlets and sports stations nationwide on whether this rekindled fire from 25 years ago is truthful or simply spite-driven comments from the former seven-time All-NBA small forward.
If anyone in the Chicago Bulls organization, in the NBA, or the media would have suggested that Jordan’s stats weren’t entirely accurate before Pippen’s 2021 book was released, this claim would have more validity. Considering the number of eyes following the walking legend that was Michael Jordan on a nightly basis, it seems unrealistic that no one would bring this to the league’s attention earlier than nearly three decades after the alleged seasons took place. His book was also released shortly after he publicly denounced the Netflix docuseries, saying that a lack of perspectives outside of Jordan’s caused the show to portray an incorrect version of the truth. Was this one way Pippen was able to sneak diss his former teammate?
There’s almost no other backing to Pippen’s recollections. There are a few recorded games on various streaming services that will show a few missed statistics here or there, which happens in all sports to this day. It’s well-documented that Jordan had a great relationship with the scorekeeper for his entire career, Bob Rosenberg. Still, Rosenberg refuted ever tainting the stat sheet in favor of any individual player, including Jordan. He did admit to trying to help “pad” Jordan’s stats by signaling him where his numbers stood in some games, including trying to relay that he was just two points shy of Wilt Chamberlain’s All-Star Game scoring record, which the former Tar Heel would end still two shy of. Questioning the integrity of a scorekeeper who says he did “probably more than 2,000 Bulls games and maybe another 2,000 with MLB games” doesn’t represent a strong argument for Pippen.
This debate will continue to run its’ course on social media with plenty of speculation and probing before it goes dormant for several more years, but for the sake of finding the truth, there’s not enough hard evidence. The guilty party in Pippen’s claims would have been one that had been doing statistics for multiple sports for over 20 years before Jordan’s arrival and continued scorekeeping for over 20 years after he was gone. Without any mention of the tainted record books coming via the league or anyone during that era, it also doesn’t bode well for Pippen’s case.
This seems much more like a few random cases sprinkled throughout their tenure together turned into an outlandish assumption made from jealousy or in retaliation to “The Last Dance,” where he wasn’t pleased with the way everything was portrayed by Jordan’s camp. It’s a great shame that the two best players in franchise history will likely never see eye-to-eye again. One of the best duos in NBA history turned into a situation where they could not be together in the same arena, most recently both declining to appear for the franchise’s inaugural Ring Of Honor ceremony where both were inducted.
