Scottie Pippen will join his former Chicago Bulls teammates Horace Grant and Luke Longley in a series of public appearances in Australia to discuss Michael Jordan, the club’s six NBA championships, and more The controversial ESPN documentary “The Last Dance” about these teams.
In partnership with the Australian National Basketball League, the “No Bull” tour will kick off in Tasmania on Friday before heading to Melbourne and Sydney.
The three former Bulls players recently appeared at the NBL Awards in Melbourne, which happens to be the birthplace of the 55-year-old Longley.
Pippen is a Hall of Famer and a member of all six Bulls championship teams. Grant won three championships in Chicago before moving to Orlando as a free agent in 1994, when Longley joined the Bulls and helped the club win its second three-peat in a decade.
The No Bull tour is expected to revive recent criticism of the documentary, which Pippen and other former Bulls felt was favorable to Jordan, who reportedly negotiated a “final cut” of the project.
“I would say (the documentary) is interesting, but we know as teammates that about 90 percent of it is bullshit,” Grant said on ESPN 1000’s Kap and Co podcast in 2020.
“That’s not true – because (Jordan) said a lot of things to some of his teammates, and his teammates came back to him. But all of that was taken out of the documentary, if you want to call it a documentary. .”
Grant went on to reveal that the last time he communicated with Jordan via text message was three years ago, with tensions between the two rising when Jordan accused Grant of leaking information from the infamous “Jordan Rules” book to journalist Sam Smith. Touched during the series. 1992.
The book aroused a lot of interest in Jordan at the time, arguably for the first time in his career at that stage, which is reflected less impressively in some chapters.
Pippen and Jordan have been feuding since ESPN released “The Last Dance,” the 2020 documentary about the 1997-98 Bulls, and things came to a head when Jordan’s adult son Marcus began dating Pippen’s ex-wife Larsa gets worse.
In the years after retiring, the relationship between the two has been good.
In his 2010 Hall of Fame induction speech, Pippen described Jordan in loving words: “Jordan, you touched a lot of lives, but none like mine.” Thank you for being the best teammate you can be. ; “I will always cherish this experience and I will always cherish our relationship.”
Likewise, Jordan credited Pippen for their six championships in Chicago during his induction speech a year ago.
“In all the videos, you never see me; you see Scottie Pippen,” Jordan said. “Every championship I win.”
Their collaboration is legendary.
Jordan was one of the NBA’s preeminent stars when Pippen was acquired by the Bulls in a 1987 draft-day trade. The problem is, despite Jordan’s obvious talent, he hasn’t won much at the professional level.
Enter Pippen, a 6-foot-1 guard who blossomed into a dynamic 6-foot-8 forward at little-known Central Arkansas.
Pippen’s arrival in Chicago, coupled with Phil Jackson’s promotion to Bulls head coach in 1989, served as the catalyst for transforming a poor franchise into six NBA championships.
Not only did they win six championships together, but they also remained fiercely loyal.
In fact, in 2018, Pippen told ESPN that Jordan was “the greatest player to ever put on his shoes and compete in the game.”
He even gave up comparing Jordan to James: “I’m always asked to compare him to LeBron, and I try to make the most of it. But really, the comparison shouldn’t be made.
Lately, however, Pippen’s praise for Jordan has morphed into something completely different.
Pippen’s problems began with ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary series, which aired in 2020 to critical acclaim.
The problem, from Pippen’s perspective, was that Jordan seemed to be considered the main contributor to the Bulls’ success in the 1990s, while his teammates were viewed as secondary players.
“They praised Michael Jordan but didn’t give enough credit to me and my proud teammates,” Pippen, 58, wrote in his 2021 memoir “Unguarded.” “Michael deserves a lot of responsibility. part of the responsibility.” The producers gave him editorial control over the final product. Otherwise the file cannot be released. “He’s the lead and the director.”
As a result, Pippen claimed, the documentary felt inauthentic.
“I think that’s not that accurate in terms of really defining one of basketball’s greatest eras and what two of its greatest players accomplished — one could even put that aside and say the greatest team It’s time,” Pippen told The Guardian in December 2020.
“I don’t think those things stand out in the documentary. I think it’s more of Michael trying to elevate himself and get glory. I think it’s counterproductive in a way, too, because people get a chance to see Michael’s character.”
But Pippen may have had a separate issue with “The Last Dance,” stemming from his criticism of Jordan in the documentary.
Specifically, Jordan took issue with Pippen’s reluctance to undergo necessary ankle surgery before the 1997-1998 season.
While he did eventually undergo surgery, he waited until most of the offseason had passed to do so, and as a result, played until January.
According to Jordan, Scottie’s reluctance to undergo surgery was due to a contract dispute with Bulls general manager Jerry Krause.
“Scotty was wrong in this case,” Jordan said. “He could have had the surgery right after the season and be ready for the season.
“What Scottie was trying to do was try to force management to change his contract. Jerry wasn’t going to do that. So now I knew at the start of the season that Scottie wasn’t going to be here.”
As a result, the Bulls got off to a slightly disappointing 24-11 start that season, although they still won their sixth championship together.
Complicating matters further is the romantic relationship between Pippen’s ex-wife, Larsa, 49, and Jordan’s 32-year-old son Marcus.
In 2022, after the couple was spotted out in public, a source told Us Weekly, “Marcus and Larsa are dating and have been spending more and more time together in recent weeks.” They were trying to keep a low profile because of the rift between Scotty and Michael.”
Pippen and Larsa were married for nearly 20 years, had four children, and divorced in 2021.
Larsa opened up about their relationship on an episode of The Real Housewives of Miami, saying the couple had sex four times a night for 23 years.
“I’ve been married for 23 years and I’ve always had sex four times a night,” she said. “So three times a week is nothing… I have sex four times a night, every night. I’ve never had a day off in 23 years.”