"I think there needs to be clarification about a lot of things that happened" - Scottie Pippen on the need to continue calling out Michael Jordan originally appeared on Basketball Network .
When "The Last Dance" aired in the spring of 2020, the world was handed a 10-part celebration of Michael Jordan's towering legacy, 10 hours of cutthroat basketball nostalgia wrapped in slow-motion montages and unfiltered competitiveness.
It was sleek, powerful and addictive.
But for Scottie Pippen , it wasn't a celebration but a selective retelling. The docuseries may have chronicled the dynastic Chicago Bulls era, but its perspective was unmistakably Jordan's. Pippen stands by his words that the portrayal missed the mark.
Even years later, the seven-time NBA All-Star hasn't walked away from that discomfort. He is more resigned now, measured with the clarity of someone who's had time to rewatch the legacy take shape without his full story in the frame.
"I'm not angry at all," Pippen said, reflecting on his criticism of The Last Dance. "Yes, I've had a great career, a wonderful time in Chicago. It is what it is, but I think there needs to be clarification about a lot of things that happened whether it was in the documentary or through the GQ ad that I spoke on."
For years, Pippen played the ultimate second fiddle, even as he became the first option in every sense when Jordan walked away from the game in October 1993. He led the Bulls in scoring 22.0 points per game in 1993–94, rebounding, assists and steals that season. He finished third in MVP voting and carried the franchise to 55 wins, just two shy of the previous season with Jordan.
And yet, in The Last Dance, those months without Jordan were reduced to a few beats in a larger symphony centered on his mythology. Pippen's frustration isn't just about screen time but ownership.
Across the years, Pippen's role in the dynasty has been mythologized and minimized in alternating waves. Seven NBA All-Star appearances. 10-time All-Defensive team selections. Olympic gold medals. He guarded the best players, ran the offense and often bailed the team out when games got muddy.
Even Jordan, in quieter moments, acknowledged Pippen as essential. But documentaries, with all their cinematic tension and archival flair, can freeze a narrative in time.
That '94 postseason was the lone year Jordan was fully removed from the franchise and in that vacuum, Pippen stepped into a leadership role with complexity. He wasn't flawless — and the Kukoc decision left a scar . But he also hit a game-winner earlier in that series and the Bulls nearly knocked off a New York Knicks team that would go on to the NBA Finals.
The documentary, produced in part by Jordan's company, filtered every storyline through a single lens. So when it came time to chronicle the tension of Game 3 against the Knicks — the now-infamous moment where Pippen sat out the final 1.8 seconds after Phil Jackson drew the game-winning play for Toni Kukoc — it was shown without the nuance of fatigue, sacrifice, or internal locker-room politics.
"I think my biggest thing with the documentary was that Michael, who didn't play in '94, who was selling a video based on The Last Dance, was something that he sort of tried to pull out to show that our winning was all about me and this is what everybody else did when I wasn't around," Pippen said.
In the docuseries, that season became a sidebar, and for Pippen, that feels like a deliberate framing. And so his comments today are less about digging up old drama than they are about refusing to let one version of the past be written in stone.
He isn't waging war against Jordan; he's guarding his place in history.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 25, 2025, where it first appeared.
