Scottie Maurice Pippen

Scottie Maurice Pippen

Scottie Maurice Pippen (born September 25, 1965) is a retired American professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is most remembered for his time with the Chicago Bulls, with whom he was instrumental to helping the Bulls win Six NBA Championships and an NBA record 72 wins during the 1996 NBA Season. Pippen played an important role in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s, along with Michael Jordan.

Some of Pippen's individual accolades and accomplishments include being named to the NBA All-Defensive Team eight times and the All-NBA First Team three times. He was also a seven-time NBA All Star and was the NBA All Star Game MVP in 1994. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History during the 1996–97 NBA season, and is one of four players to have their jerseys retired by the Chicago Bulls, the others being Jerry Sloan, Bob Love, and Michael Jordan. During his seventeen year career, he played twelve seasons with the Bulls, one with the Rockets and four with the Trail Blazers, making the post-season sixteen straight times. He has played in more post-season games than any other player except Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Robert Horry.

Pippen will be eligible for induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.



Early life

Scottie Pippen was born in Hamburg, Arkansas, and attended college at the University of Central Arkansas. At the start of his college career, the then 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) Pippen was a walk-on for the NAIA school and depended on his stipend for being the team manager and his summer job as a welder to fund his education.In those four years, however, Pippen grew to a height of 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m). He eventually reached 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) and improved enough by his senior year to be considered a viable NBA prospect.

NBA career

Early career

Pippen's performance in the pre-draft Portsmouth Invitational Tournament improved his draft stock.

He was selected fifth overall in the 1987 NBA Draft by the Seattle SuperSonics and traded eventually to the Chicago Bulls for Olden Polynice.

Pippen became part of Chicago's young forward tandem with 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) power forward Horace Grant, though both came off the bench to back up Brad Sellers and Charles Oakley, respectively, during their rookie seasons. Pippen claimed the starting small forward position during the 1988 Playoffs, helping the Michael Jordan-led Bulls reach their conference semifinals for the first time in over a decade.

The Bulls' first three-peat

Pippen continued to improve, helping the Bulls to the Conference Finals the following year as well as in 1990, when he earned his first NBA All-Star Game berth. However, in the Conference Finals versus the Detroit Pistons, Pippen suffered from severe migraines during the deciding seventh game and played abysmally as the Bulls were soundly defeated. In 1991, Pippen emerged as the Bulls' primary defensive stopper and a versatile scoring threat in Phil Jackson's Triangle offense. He helped lead the Bulls to six NBA championships (1990–91, 1991–92, 1992–93, 1995–96, 1996–97, and 1997–98 ). Pippen was selected as one of the NBA's Fifty Greatest Players when the league was celebrating its fiftieth season in 1998.
Pippen earned 10 NBA All-Defensive Team nods, including 8 on the first team. In 1992, he was named to the original Dream Team which competed in the Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.



Pippen without Jordan

Michael Jordan retired before the 1994 season, and in his absence Pippen emerged from Jordan's shadow. That year, he earned All-Star Game MVP honors and lead the Bulls in scoring, assists, and the entire league in steals, averaging 22.0 points, 8.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.9 steals, 1.9 three-pointers, and 0.8 blocks per game, while shooting 49.1% from the field and a career-best 32% fromthe three-point line. For his efforts, he earned the first of three straight All-NBA First Team nods, and finished third in the MVP voting. The Bulls finished the season with 55 wins, only two less than the year before. two less than the year before.

However, perhaps the most infamous episode of Pippen's career came in the post-season of Pippen's first year without Jordan. In the 1994 NBA Playoffs, the Eastern Conference semifinals pitted the Bulls against the New York Knicks, whom the Bulls had dispatched en route to a championship in each of the previous three seasons. On May 13, 1994, down 2-0 in the series and tied 100-100 in Game Three, Bulls coach Phil Jackson needed a big play from his team to have any chance of going on to the conference finals. With 1.8 seconds left and the score tied, Jackson designed the last play for rookie Toni Kukoč, with Pippen relegated to simply inbounding the basketball. Pippen, who had been the Bulls' leader all season long in Jordan's absence, was so angered by Jackson's decision to not let him take the potential game-winner that he refused to leave the bench and re-enter the game when the timeout was over.

Although Kukoč did hit the game-winner, a 23-foot fadeaway jumper at the buzzer, there was little celebrating to be done by the Bulls, as television cameras caught an unsmiling Phil Jackson storming out of the arena. "Scottie asked out of the play," Jackson would tell reporters moments later in the post-game interview room. Those seeking further answers found Pippen in the locker room after the game, looking shell-shocked and disoriented; when asked to confirm Jackson's statement, Pippen could only respond with "Yeah, pretty much ... We exchanged words, and I just took a seat.

Teammate Steve Kerr elaborated when recently asked to recall the event: "I don't know what got into Pippen. He is such a great teammate and maybe the pressure was getting to him and he just could not take it anymore, no one knows for sure but he is a team player." Pippen later apologized to his teammates after the incident and played superbly when the Bulls won Game 4, but the fact that he quit on a game became one of the few negative marks on his superb career.

The Bulls went on to lose the 1994 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Knicks in seven games. A second controversy occurred in the series at the end of game 5 when Pippen was called by referee Hue Hollins for a questionable touch foul on the Knicks' Hubert Davis in the waning seconds of the game, which allowed the Knicks to shoot the game-winning free throws. This helped lead the Knicks to a seven game series victory.

Trade rumors involving Pippen escalated during the 1994 offseason. Jerry Krause, the Bulls' General Manager (whom Pippen hated, not that this was unusual for Chicago players re: Krause), was reportedly looking to ship Pippen off to the Seattle SuperSonics in exchange for all-star forward Shawn Kemp, moving Toni Kukoč into Pippen's position as starting small forward with Kemp filling in the vacant starting power forward position in place of Horace Grant, a free agent who left the Bulls for the up-and-coming Orlando Magic during the off-season. However, the trade was never made and those rumors were put to rest once it was announced that Michael Jordan would be returning to the Bulls late in the 1994-95 season. The Pippen-led Bulls did not fare nearly as well in the 1994-95 season as they had in the season before -- in fact, for the first time in years they were in danger of missing the playoffs (though much of this may be attributed to a lack of interior defense and rebounding due to Grant's departure). The Bulls were just 34-31 prior to Jordan's return for the final 17 games, and MJ led them to a 13-4 record to close the regular season. Still, Pippen finished the 1994-95 season leading the Bulls in every major statistical category: assists, rebounds, points, steals, and blocks; Pippen is one of only five players in NBA history to accomplish this feat.



The Bulls' second three-peat

With the return of Jordan and a revamped roster that included Dennis Rodman and Luc Longley, the Bulls managed to post the best regular season record in NBA history (72-10) in 1996 en route to winning their fourth title against the Seattle SuperSonics. In the following season, Chicago finished a league-best 69-13 and again won the title, this time defeating the Utah Jazz. Amid speculation that the 1997-98 season would be the last in Chicago for Pippen, Jordan, and Jackson, the Bulls followed up by topping the Jazz again in the Finals to cap their second three-peat.

Later career

After playing in Chicago for 11 seasons, Pippen, the second all-time leader in points, assists, and steals in Bulls franchise history was traded to the Houston Rockets for the lockout-shortened season in 1998–99. Pippen's trade to Houston received a lot of publicity including his only solo cover of Sports Illustrated. He teamed with Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley, but there were chemistry problems especially with Barkley.On April 22, 1999, Pippen was detained under suspicion of driving while intoxicated,but the charges were later dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Following the lockout-shortened season in Houston, Pippen was traded in the offseason to the Portland Trail Blazers, whom he helped to the Western Conference finals. But once there, they lost to the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers in seven games, despite holding a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter of the final game. Pippen played on for several more seasons in Portland, but they never again advanced that far in the playoffs. After the 2002-03 season he signed once more with the Chicago Bulls, but due to injury problems he was only able to suit up for 23 games in 2003-04 and retired shortly after the season.

Pippen was a near-constant presence in the NBA postseason during his career, reaching the playoffs 16 straight years (11 with Chicago, one with Houston, four with Portland). He played in more playoff games than any NBA player except Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Robert Horry.



Retirement

After retiring, he spent some time working as a basketball analyst for the Chicago Bulls. Currently, he is a special assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. On December 25, 2005, Pippen debuted as studio analyst for the NBA on ABC. Before this he was a part-time analyst for ESPN.

The Chicago Bulls retired Pippen's jersey number on December 9, 2005 in a ceremony. The team played against the Los Angeles Lakers that night, and Pippen was reunited with Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, and Horace Grant during the ceremony. Pippen's jersey number, 33, joins Michael Jordan's 23, Jerry Sloan's 4, and Bob Love's 10 as the only four numbers retired by the Bulls.

In January 2008, Pippen made a comeback to basketball at age 42, when he made a tour of Scandinavia and played 2 games for top Finnish league team Torpan Pojat (ToPo), and top Swedish league team Sundsvall. In his first game, on January 4, Pippen scored 12 points in ToPo's 93-81 win over Porvoo. He registered 9 points and 9 rebounds in a 98-85 win over Honka on January 5. In his third game of the tour, Pippen registered 21 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and two steals in 30 minutes in a 102-74 Sundsvall Dragons win over Akropal of Rinkeby. The Dragons paid Pippen $66,000 for his appearance.



Achievements and records

Holds NBA records for:

* Career assists by a forward (6,135)
* Career steals by a forward (2,307)
* Career steals in the playoffs (395)
* 3-point field goals made in an NBA Finals game (7, shared with Kenny Smith and Ray Allen)

Achievements:

* Pippen is one of three NBA players to record 200 steals and 100 blocks in a season (1989-90 season)
Michael Jordan performed the feat back-to-back in 1986-87 and 1987-88 seasons.
Hakeem Olajuwon in 1988-89 season.
* Pippen had 17 career triple-doubles in regular-season games.
* Led NBA in steals (232) and steals per game (2.94) in 1994-95 season.
* Second-most 3-point field goals made by a Chicago Bull (664)
* His 10 NBA All-Defensive honors and 8 NBA All-Defensive First Team honors are each one shy of the NBA record.
* Was half of the 10th tandem to score 40 points in the same game
Pippen scored 40 points and Michael Jordan scored 44 points against the Indiana Pacers on February 18, 1996
* Was half of the 9th tandem (with Jordan) to record triple-doubles in the same game