Last Updated on August 31, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake
Michael Jordan was as good of a player as advertised. All you have to do is listen to the star players who played with him but were from the next era of basketball such as Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady and they’ll tell you how good he was.
That said, you could also say that Jordan wouldn’t have won six rings if he didn’t have Scottie Pippen. Scottie was known as the second-best player in the NBA when he won championships with the Chicago Bulls. When Scottie says he was better than Jordan, it’s not as outrageous as people think. But Scottie was in some respect, the Lebron James before Lebron James. Scottie played a different role to Jordan and it’s one that was closer to Lebron’s role before he started playing the point guard position. If Lebron had stayed a frontcourt player, his value would have been similar to Pippen’s. It’s not a perfect analogy: Pippen was notably slimmer and more agile than Lebron, and Lebron was notably stronger. But they both played a similar role on the court.
I’m glad that Pippen said that he was the best player on the Chicago Bulls championship-winning team when he played with Jordan because it helped people understand how valuable of a player he was, even if they didn’t believe what he said. Before he said that, most people didn’t think much of Scottie Pippen. After he said it, more people have paid attention to what his value really was.