'I saw it over and over': Scottie Pippen claims scorekeepers gave Michael Jordan stats he didn't actually earn



Hall of Fame basketball player Scottie Pippen said in his memoir that scorekeepers incorrectly attributed statistics to Michael Jordan, often taking away from his own statistical totals.

The 58-year-old won six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls alongside Jordan in the 1990s and was a threat on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.

In his memoir, titled "Unguarded," Pippen alluded to the idea that Jordan manipulated scorekeepers into wanting to doctor statistics in his favor.

"Michael was better at getting people to do whatever he wanted," Pippin reportedly wrote in an excerpt. "I saw it over and over, from the first training camp in 1987 to the last victory rally in 1998. Here's how it worked: Say I deflected the ball and tapped it over to him. I should get credit with the steal, right? Nope. More often than not, the steal went into his column on the stat sheet, and I could do nothing about it," Pippen claimed, according to Bounding into Sports.

'He was horrible to play with. It was all 1-on-1. He's shooting bad shots.'

Pippen recalled a time an official scorekeeper came into the locker room after a game and informed Jordan that he needn't worry and that they would "take care of" him.

"One night, a scorekeeper came into the locker room after the game to hand the stat sheets to Phil Jackson and the coaching staff. The sheet breaks down the points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, turnovers, and so on for everyone who played the game. I couldn't believe the look the guy gave Michael: 'See, MJ, we take care of you.' No wonder in the nine full seasons we played together, he averaged more steals than me in every year except two."

Jordan led the NBA in steals per game twice, in 1987-1988 and then again in the 1992-1993 season.

Pippen led the league once in 1994-1995.

Tension has grown between the former teammates over the years, with comments from Pippen becoming increasingly sour:

"He was horrible to play with. It was all 1-on-1. He's shooting bad shots," Pippen said in 2023 about the start of Jordan's career. "All of a sudden, we become a team and we start winning. Everybody forgot who he was. He was a player that, really, winning wasn't at the top of his category. It was scoring."

It was also no secret that Jordan's son, 33-year-old Marcus, dated Pippen's 49-year-old ex-wife Larsa for several years. The pair allegedly broke up in early 2024.

"What's wrong with this guy? I guess he has a book to sell," commentator Eric Butler told Blaze News. "What's weirder is that Pippen's ex-wife was dating Jordan's son. The whole relationship between the two is strange, right down to Pippen claiming Michael wasn't as good as everyone thinks, which is obviously not true," Butler added.

Pippen was a seven-time NBA All-Star and had his number 33 retired by the Chicago Bulls in 2005.

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Greg Couch: Aaron Rodgers’ last chance with the Packers proves he’s no Michael Jordan



Aaron Rodgers thinks he's Michael Jordan starring in "The Last Dance," the wildly popular documentary that chronicled the Chicago Bulls superstar's sixth and final NBA championship.

The truth is, Rodgers is actually starring in "Last Chance," a reality show documenting his final, desperate attempt to surpass Bart Starr and Brett Favre as the greatest Green Bay Packer.

According to reports, after an off-season of foot-stomping and breath-holding, Rodgers has decided to come back and play this season for the Packers after all. Whatever his problems were with the Packers organization, he never made them clear. Instead, he apparently leaked veiled threats of retirement to the NFL media-industrial complex. Now, the word is the Packers and Rodgers have reached an agreement that will make this Rodgers' final season in Green Bay.

Friday, Rodgers and his star receiver Davante Adams celebrated the QB's return from off-season purgatory by tweeting pictures of Jordan and Scottie Pippen fist-bumping. The pics were a nod to "The Last Dance" and a window into how Rodgers views his 17th NFL season.

He's Michael Jordan. Adams is Scottie Pippen. Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst is Jerry Krause, the Bulls executive Jordan and Pippen treated as their personal punching bag.

Rodgers has a Jordan obsession that appears to have created a delusion. The two-time NFL MVP and one-time Super Bowl winner fancies himself as having Tom Brady's seven-Super Bowl resume, which would qualify Rodgers as football's Michael Jordan. Rodgers isn't qualified. He's obsessed. He told reporters last summer how much he enjoyed watching "The Last Dance." He explained how he idolized Jordan as a kid and even made sure to attend Jordan's last regular-season game.

He's a Jordan superfan, not a Jordan impersonator.

Jordan was known for making last-second, game-winning, gut-wrenching shots. Rodgers couldn't punch it in on first and goal from the 8 in last season's NFC Championship Game.

Jordan bullied and cajoled his teammates to meet his standard of performance. His teammates feared letting him down. Jordan was a mafia boss. He made offers Pippen, Toni Kukoc, Dennis Rodman, Steve Kerr, and Horace Grant couldn't refuse. Jordan never made vague pleas for understanding. He was never that weak. He ridiculed Krause openly, mocked him for trying to take credit. The message was clear and strong. The championship banners were his statements.

Rodgers is an aloof enigma. His leadership style is unknown and undefined. He's more of a serial killer than mafia don.

What drove Rodgers' summer of discontent?

Maybe he wanted to try to pressure Krause, I mean Gutekunst, and management to build a championship team around him. Or maybe he was still just throwing a little temper tantrum over the Packers taking his replacement, Jordan Love, in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft.

Whatever it was, Rodgers' obsession with Jordan and the Bulls and the ESPN docu-series "The Last Dance" left him playing from the wrong playbook for months. Rodgers came off as a cross between a 4-year-old not getting what he wanted and a diva. Jordan never lost a PR battle.

Six championships buy you a lot of patience from fans. One Super Bowl from one of the great quarterbacks of all time constitutes a failed dynasty, no matter what Rodgers and Adams think they have going.

Rodgers spent the off-season parading around, letting everyone know that he didn't need the Packers as much as they needed him. He appeared as the host of "Jeopardy," did his commercials with Jake from State Farm, made his wedding plans, danced and played guitar in Hawaii, showed up as a celebrity sighting at the Kentucky Derby.

His Derby appearance set off Twitter because he was wearing a button that said "Turd Ferguson." Turd Ferguson was the name Norm Macdonald wrote years ago on "Saturday Night Live," when he was playing the part of Burt Reynolds on "Celebrity Jeopardy."

Rodgers was having so much fun, and even more, he wanted to make sure everyone knew it. At one point, NFL legend Terry Bradshaw called Rodgers "weak" and "dumber than a box of rocks."

And the NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported that a "death knell" of Rodgers' relationship with Packers management came when they cut receiver Jake Kumerow.

Whoever Jake Kumerow is.

When public sentiment started turning on Rodgers, he went to his friend and ESPN personality Kenny Mayne.

"It's just kind of about a philosophy and maybe forgetting that it is about the people that make things go," Rodgers told Mayne during a "SportsCenter" interview. "It's about character, it's about culture, it's about doing things the right way …

"I think sometimes people forget what really makes an organization. History is important — legacy of so many people who've come before you. But the people, that's the important thing. People make an organization, people make a business. And sometimes that gets forgotten."

It would have seemed like a strange rant to go off on if you didn't know about Rodgers' Jordan obsession. Years ago, when Jordan was feuding publicly with Bulls management, Krause said that organizations win championships, not people.

"Culture is built brick by brick," Rodgers said on ESPN, channeling his inner Michael Jordan. "The foundation of it by the people — not by the organization, not by the building, not by the corporation. It's built by the people."

The only thing left now for Rodgers is to come to practice this week, tail between his legs, and try to mend things with his teammates and fans. What will he say? I have a pretty good guess. When Jordan returned after his first retirement from the Bulls, he did it with just a two-word statement:

"I'm back."