Sorry pimp, we know you’re a legend and all that good ish, but you are also the saltiest old man we’ve ever seen!!
It’s a tricky situation, navigating all this barroom hypothetical arguments about who’s done what and who was the best at whatever. But there are some things people are missing, when it comes to Scottie Pippen’s continued annihilation of the 2010-11 Chicago Bulls, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s patronizing tsk-tsk’ing of Pippen after the former Bull dared compare LeBron James’(notes) potential legacy to that of Michael Jordan’s.
As you no doubt know, last week Pippen called his former teammate Michael Jordan “the greatest scorer to ever play the game,” before going on to point out that LeBron James “may be the greatest player to ever play the game.” Not, “LeBron James has already caught up to and/or passed Michael Jordan in terms of accomplishments,” but that he may someday be the greatest ever. Pippen’s right. No player with James’ skills and athleticism has ever graced the NBA. If he doesn’t retire as the best, then something will have gone wrong.
And though endless people took horrified offense at the thought of James and the sainted Jordan being referred to in the same breath, Kareem took umbrage at the first part of Pippen’s statement in an open letter to his Hall of Fame counterpart. That he was the greatest scorer ever when, how dare you, Kareem scored more points than anyone in NBA history.
Kareem couches this personal offense with one buried mention (signing his open letter to Pippen with “Affectionately, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA’s All-Time Leading Scorer”; Jordan holds the NBA’s best per-game scoring average) after several paragraphs spent building up the accomplishments of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Kareem wants to know why Jordan never averaged 50 in a season, nor dropped a hundred in a game, like Wilt did. He wants to know why Jordan never managed 11 rings, as Russell did.
It’s crazy how the comments of a jealous sidekick about his benefactors’ career has the old-timers blood pressure boiling. Gotta watch your mouth when you speak about 23, sh*t gets real, real fast.
Do you believe Scottie was out of pocket for speaking out against Jordan? Was Kareem even MORE wrong for speaking out against Pippen???
Peep the following page if you want to read the letter in its entirety.
