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It's no secret that for the better part of 11 seasons, selfless Scottie Pippen set the table for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
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| Scottie Pippen is averaging 11.0 points, 4.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game.(AP) |
Sunday afternoon, Jordan had Pippen riveted to the television, not only by his 39 points in 43 minutes during a nationally televised one-point loss at New York, but his condemning statements regarding the approach his young teammates take to the game. In the twilight of their careers, it is becoming increasingly frustrating for veteran superstars to deal with a lackluster approach by so many young players to a profession that has given them so much.
It's even more apparent to Pippen in Portland, with a Trail Blazers team that routinely has had players suspended this season for issues on and off the court. In fact, young Bonzi Wells was suspended for Tuesday night's game after coach Maurice Cheeks threw him out of Monday's practice.
"Listening to Michael on Sunday, it's amazing that a 40-year-old is more motivated to go out and have more drive to win than guys who are 27, 28 years old," Pippen said. "It stuck with me. I see a lot of it myself here. As an older player, I spend more time preparing myself for games and you see it all over the league. Look at how the Jazz are still competing for the playoffs, and that's because of the way (John) Stockton and (Karl) Malone prepare for the games.
"What are we doing now as a league, paying young players to take the drive out of them to succeed? Only the very best young players seem to have that mindset. Too many others just don't bring it every night. The passion for the game that the fans want to see isn't there as much as it should be."
No doubt the passion is still there for Pippen, who will be 38 this fall but feels physically and emotionally better about the game than he has in years. Still filling up a box score with 11.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.7 steals a game, Pippen remains eminently capable of taking over a game or series of games.
Named All-NBA eight times and first team All-Defense eight seasons in a row, he has bounced back dramatically after missing a career-high 19 games last year with enough aches and pains that made it seem inevitable that he would retire once his contract expires after this season.
But offseason surgery that cleaned out bone chips gave him a summer to heal, he didn't participate in training camp or preseason games, and he has gradually improved. Last month, he had a three-game spurt against Orlando, Miami and San Antonio averaging 23.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 3.3 steals.
"He's enjoying the game a lot more and obviously his health has a lot to do with it," Blazers coach Maurice Cheeks said. "I don't know if his game has changed that much really. He's an older player, so obviously you lose something physically, make up for it mentally, and I'm trying to monitor his minutes. The way he plays defense is very, very strong. He runs the ballclub and can rebound the ball. He still does so many things and a lot of what he does doesn't show up on the stat sheet."
There is no question on this wacky group loaded with talent that Pippen is the maestro. Most of the time, he'll curb his anger with the likes of Wells, Rasheed Wallace and Ruben Patterson when they lose it on the court. But after a defeat earlier in the season, when the players were whooping it up about a game on TV in the locker room, he came out of the shower and turned it off because he found the behavior inappropriate after a loss.
His teammates may not always agree with his thoughts and actions, but he and Antonio Daniels (1999 with San Antonio) are the only ones with championship rings.
"He's an extremely mature player," Daniels said. "I learn so much just by watching the way he handles himself on the court. I had the luxury of playing with veterans on the Spurs like Avery Johnson, Steve Kerr and Mario Elie, who had been around for a long time, but Scottie's the one with all the championship experience. He settles us down, and we need that because there are so many guys who tend to get irate about little things. Even in practice, I learn little tricks from him on defense and with the ball. It's just an education being on the same team as him."
And then there's Derek Anderson. One of the guys on the team who's never a problem, Anderson admittedly tends to be too blasé. Anderson needs Pippen to raise his mindset and level of play from game to game.
"On the court, Scottie and Gary Payton are the two best defensive players I've ever seen," Anderson said. "The way he defends and handles the ball at 6-8 is what makes him so special. But what amazes me is how he gets himself ready every night. I'm one of those guys who is laid back, and then when the game starts, I'm ready. He brings enthusiasm to the locker room, and he's always ready to work. It helps me. It helps our team. You can tell how special he is by the way he's playing, and he's going to be 38.
"Right now, he looks like young Mr. P."
Young he's not. Playing with a focus and determination to spur the currently fourth-seeded Blazers back to the conference finals after a three-year absence, absolutely. They blew a 16-point lead in the closing seconds of the third quarter in Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals, and it changed the face of the game. The Los Angeles Lakers won the first of three consecutive titles.
For Pippen, as depressing as it was to concede that series and lose to the Lakers in the first round of the next two seasons as well, it beat the heck out of his one season in Houston. After years of being underpaid on a long-term contract with the Bulls, he signed a five-year $86 million deal with the Rockets to play with Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley for the 1998-99 season.
"It was a bad thing from the start," Pippen said. "I just wasn't a good fit. They ran everything inside out through Hakeem and Charles and everybody else stood out on the perimeter shooting 3s. That's not me. Then Charles threw fuel on the fire about me, and it just got worse. We had a good relationship before, and I think we still do now. But that was horrible.
"Losing to the Lakers in the first year in Portland was bad, but it felt good just to get back to the point after what I went through the year before in Houston. I have to admit I got a little spoiled (in Chicago)."
That's understandable: They won six titles in his last eight seasons there. But it isn't as if the Rockets weren't in the playoffs -- they just happened to be eliminated in four games.
With the Rockets desperate to move Pippen and the escalating contract, Blazers president Bob Whitsitt was more than happy to deal six players for a player of Pippen's quality. He was convinced they would be good enough to win the West and obviously should have the way they blew Game 7.
"It was a combination of things that attracted me to him," Whitsitt said. "He's got leadership ability, knows how to win, plays hard and practices hard. When you have a superstar with that kind of work ethic, it gives the young players on your team a great role model to learn from."
Nevertheless, all indications are this is Pippen's last season with the Blazers. His contract has topped out at an astronomical $19.7 million, and they will renounce him after the season to get him off a salary cap that has been in the upper stratosphere the past four years. Even more likely is Pippen rejoining his former coach with the Bulls, Phil Jackson, who is seeking his fourth straight title with the Lakers, which would make him the only coach in NBA history with 10.
After reaping the benefit of the huge contract, Pippen could easily accept the mid-level exception of at least $4.5 million for a year or two, or possibly less money just to get another ring and return to playing for Jackson. He takes exception to those who believe Jackson's success has been solely predicated on having superstars to carry the team -- Jordan and Pippen with the Bulls and Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant with the Lakers.
"Well, we'll see about that next year," Pippen said, breaking into a chuckle. "It's too early to tell. I want to get through this year and help us win in the playoffs. But Phil meant a great deal to me. He was a mentor to me in so many ways in how to play the game the right way. His previous experience as a player and the way he coached taught me a lot about what it takes to win. There are a lot of great players in this league, but great players are only able to achieve championships when a coach takes them there. You can't directly blame the coach for not taking you there, but the coach who gives you the tools to win does deserve the credit for directing you there."
And so does the experience of being the partner with Michael Jordan's greatest successes. Pippen never won a title without Jordan, and Jordan never won without Pippen. Their preseason workouts were legendary, and their ability to defend the floor and make plays to win on the offensive end generally peerless.
There were times Jordan flared about Pippen and vice versa. They were, in the greatest sense, brothers who occasionally grew petty with each other over 11 years. It was the success. It was the impact of being under the non-stop blinding lights of the media, and the incessant tinkering and questions of Bulls president Jerry Krause.
"We both needed each other to win, that's obvious," Pippen said. "I learned so much from him, and I know he got a lot from me. Neither one of us have won since then, so it would be true to say we needed each other to keep the driving force going. In this game, one individual can't dominate enough to win a title. But if you get two good players like we were together, you can build a team around that and win."
Soon, his 16th season in the NBA will be over, as will his 16th trip to the playoffs. He just passed Bob McAdoo to become the 41st leading scorer in NBA history. But that's just the gravy, along with the clutch shots and distributing the ball. His legacy has been built on dominating defense with an attitude to go along with those extraordinarily long arms and pickpocket-quick hands.
"He's certainly one of the great defensive players of all time," said Cheeks, who is one of the top defensive point guards ever himself. "He can do things that I did at 6-1, and he's 6-8, so it makes him even tougher. Especially with the way the defensive rules are now, he can cover so much ground and sit in a certain area and just disrupt an offense by himself."
Pippen says he wants history to say he was a great player on both ends of the floor, which already is set in stone: He was named one of the NBA's 50 greatest players during the league's 50-year anniversary in 1997, and was a charter member of the 1992 Olympics "Dream Team."
It would be fair to say all of that will carry him to the Hall of Fame.
"I wouldn't want to rank him," Whitsitt said. "but when I look at the great ones, I work backwards. Do their teams win? Did they make other guys better? Did they bring it every night? The answer to all these questions is yes when it comes to Scottie."