Scottie Pippen Didn’t Enjoy Playing With Clyde Drexler On ‘The Dream Team’: ‘His Energy Was Terrible, He Always Had His Head Down’

NBA legend Scottie Pippen didn’t enjoy playing with Clyde Drexler on “The Dream Team.”

“The Dream Team” was the 1992 United States basketball team. The roster featured Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Pippen, David Robinson, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Christian Laettner and John Stockton.

“Occasionally, certain individuals tried to do too much,” Pippen wrote in his book. “The person who comes to mind is Clyde Drexler. Clyde, still hurting from losing to the Bulls in the Finals, was out to prove he belonged on the same level as Michael. As if the six games the teams had just played hadn’t proven the exact opposite.

“Here is what someone should have told him: ‘Clyde, you should feel fortunate. You are one of the best basketball players in the world. You’re just not Michael Jordan and that’s no crime. No one is.’

“His energy was terrible. He always had his head down and acted as if Michael and I were his adversaries, not his teammates. Clyde didn’t fit in with the whole team, and it was a shame.”

Drexler and the Portland Trail Blazers lost to Jordan, Pippen and the Chicago Bulls in the 1992 NBA Finals in six games. Jordan averaged 35.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 1.7 steals and 0.3 blocks and won Finals MVP for the second consecutive year.

Drexler put up 24.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.0 blocks per game against the Bulls in the 1992 NBA Finals. However, he only shot 40.7% from the field.

Meanwhile, Jordan — who wasn’t happy that pundits compared Drexler to him — shot 52.6% overall. 

“Clyde was a threat,” Jordan said in The Last Dance documentary. “I’m not saying he wasn’t a threat. But me being compared to him, I took offense to that. Based on the way I was playing at that time, it wasn’t even close. So I attacked him every night.”

“The Dream Team” went undefeated in the 1992 Olympics. USA beat Croatia in the gold medal game. 

Every player from “The Dream Team” is in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame except for Laettner, who didn’t become a superstar in the NBA after being a dominant force in college at Duke.

Jordan and Pippen won six rings on the Bulls, while Drexler won his lone championship in 1995 as a member of the Houston Rockets.