Michael Jordan wasn’t happy when Scottie Pippen requested a trade from the Chicago Bulls during the 1997-98 NBA season.
In November 1997, Pippen publicly demanded a trade from the Bulls, stating he wouldn’t come off the injured list until the team traded him.
“I felt like Scottie was being selfish,” Jordan said in The Last Dance doc. “Worrying about himself as opposed to what his word was to the organization, as well as to the team.”
Pippen postponed his foot surgery until October 1997 because he didn’t want to rehab during the summer since he knew the Bulls would be broken up after the 1997-98 season ended.
Bulls general manager Jerry Krause told Phil Jackson that the 1997-98 campaign would be Jackson’s final season in Chicago even if the team went 82-0 and won the championship.
Krause did not have a good relationship with Jackson, Jordan or Pippen.
Pippen was not pleased Jordan called him “selfish” in The Last Dance doc. The small forward wrote about that quote in his memoir, “Unguarded.”
“Even so, how dare Michael call me selfish? You want to know what selfish is? Selfish is retiring right before the start of training camp when it is too late for the organization to sign free agents,” Pippen wrote. “When Michael put the Bulls in that position in 1993, Krause was forced to bring in a journeyman, Pete Myers, who had most recently played for a team in Italy.”
The Bulls didn’t trade Pippen in 1997-98 despite the Hall of Famer requesting a trade. Pippen made his 1997-98 season debut on January 10, 1998, against the Golden State Warriors at the United Center.
With Jordan, Pippen and Dennis Rodman back in the fold together, the Bulls were once again primed to win it all despite all the turmoil behind the scenes.
The Bulls won 62 games in 1997-98 and defeated the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals to capture their sixth ring in eight years.
Jordan won his sixth Finals MVP by averaging 33.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.8 steals and 0.7 blocks in the six-game series against the Jazz.
The Bulls traded Pippen to the Houston Rockets in 1998 after Jordan and Jackson retired. As part of the sign-and-trade deal, Pippen signed a five-year, $67.2 million contract, finally receiving the money he earned.
Chicago beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals, the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1992 NBA Finals, the Phoenix Suns in the 1993 NBA Finals, the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1996 NBA Finals and the Jazz in the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals in the Jordan-Pippen era.
Jordan and Pippen are universally recognized as the best duo in NBA history.
In two stints with the Bulls, Jordan averaged 31.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.5 steals and 0.9 blocks. He won five MVPs, six Finals MVPs, one Defensive Player of the Year Award, 10 scoring titles and three steals titles and made 12 All-Star teams, nine All-Defensive teams and 11 All-NBA teams.
Pippen also had two stints with the Bulls. He averaged 17.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.1 steals and 0.9 blocks and won the 1994 All-Star Game MVP Award and made seven All-Star teams, 10 All-Defensive teams and seven All-NBA teams as a member of the Bulls.
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