Scottie Pippen did not like how he and his Chicago Bulls teammates were portrayed in last year’s ESPN docuseries “The Last Dance” and reserved his biggest ire for former teammate Michael Jordan.
In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir “Unguarded,” which he published in GQ on Tuesday, Pippen accused “The Last Dance” of propping up Jordan at the expense of Pippen and other Bulls from the ’90s.
“They glorified Michael Jordan while not giving nearly enough praise to me and my proud teammates. Michael deserved a large portion of the blame. The producers had granted him editorial control of the final product,” Pippen wrote. “Even in the second episode, which focused for a while on my difficult upbringing and unlikely path to the NBA, the narrative returned to MJ and his determination to win. I was nothing more than a prop. His ‘best teammate of all time,’ he called me. He couldn’t have been more condescending if he tried.”
“The Last Dance” chronicled the 1997-98 season for the Bulls, which ended with the team’s sixth NBA championship. The 10 episodes were interspersed with flashbacks chronicling Jordan’s tenure with the Bulls but did reserve some time for the other players, including Pippen and fellow Bulls teammate Dennis Rodman.
Jordan, who held rights to all the footage from that final season, held full editorial control.
“Each episode was the same: Michael on a pedestal, his teammates secondary, smaller, the message no different from when he referred to us back then as his ‘supporting cast,’” Pippen continued. “From one season to the next, we received little or no credit whenever we won but the bulk of the criticism when we lost. Michael could shoot 6 for 24 from the field, commit 5 turnovers, and he was still, in the minds of the adoring press and public, the Errorless Jordan.”
You can read the full excerpt here.