As revealed on the thrilling 10-part ESPN documentary “The Last Dance”, Scottie Pippen was severely underpaid while paying for the Bulls.
In Chicago’s final championship run, Pippen was the sixth-highest paid Bull behind the likes of Toni Kukoc and Luc Longley, overall he was the 122nd highest-paid NBA player.
The Scottie Pippen contract is wild. Made substantially more money playing away from Chicago. #TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/iyIV4V9xfG
— Stephen Florival (@StephenFlorival) April 20, 2020
Entering the final year on his contract in 1997, Pippen was nearly traded by Bulls general manager Jerry Krause and scheduled to make just under $3 million. That total is crushed when juxtaposed to Michael Jordan’s salary that season of $33,140,000. After nearly a decade of underwhelming paychecks, Pippen opted to hold off on surgery during the summer instead of “f*cking up” his summer. People have to realize that Jordan had a similar long term deal like Scottie and never took a day off.
At the time, Chicago was in the midst of trying to repeat for the second time in a decade. In Jordan’s eyes, while he understood Pippen’s frustrations, winning and the team mattered most. Warriors forward Draymond Green saw no harm in Pip rehabbing on company time and called out MJ for not having his teammates back.
During that time Jordan had his back, but now he can tell the truth.
Flip the pages to see what Draymond said.