Scottie Pippen wants to know if fans are interested in hearing his side of the story.
The former Chicago Bulls star, who played alongside Michael Jordan from 1987 to 1998, took to his Instagram page earlier this month announcing his forthcoming book, the tell-all memoir “UNGUARDED.” In the caption, the former athlete revealed that he would give his take on his “teammates and coaches, the locker room, and the rings.”
The book’s description read as a “raw, unvarnished look into the life of six-time NBA champion Scottie Pippen and his role on one of the greatest teams of all time,” seemingly taking a jab at his former teammate and the series “The Last Dance” which was released in April 2020.
Pippen’s book comes more than a year following the release of “The Last Dance,” which chronicled Jordan’s career and the 1999 to 1998 season of the Bulls. The small forward has publicly expressed his displeasure with how he was portrayed as the sidekick in the ten-part docuseries and is now going to detail what it was actually like working with Jordan on a day-to-day. The book’s description goes on to say, “Simply put, without Pippen, there are no championship banners — let alone six — hanging from the United Center rafters. There’s no ‘The Last Dance’ documentary.” It added, “There’s no ‘Michael Jordan’ as we know him. The 1990s Chicago Bulls teams would not exist as we know them.”
It also described how Pippen felt he should have “received more respect from the Bulls’ management and the media.” The docuseries mainly focused on the Bulls’ final championship season, the ’97-’98 campaign, highlighting Jordan as the driving force behind those efforts.
Pippen felt it was inaccurate, telling The Guardian last December: “[I]n terms of really defining what was accomplished in one of the greatest eras of basketball, but also by two of the greatest players — and one could even put that aside and say the greatest team of all time … I didn’t think those things stood out in the documentary. I thought it was more about Michael trying to uplift himself and to be glorified. I think it also backfired to some degree in that people got a chance to see what kind of personality Michael had.”
Jordan allegedly is aware of those feelings. Pippen told the outlet, “He accepted it. He said, ‘Hey, you’re right’ That was pretty much it.” Scottie Pippen’s “UNGUARDED” memoir is scheduled to hit stands on Nov. 16 but is available for pre-order now.
