Scottie Pippen

• 1. Introduction

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  Scottie Pippen grew up in Hamburg, Arkansas, the youngest of twelve children, and was not offered a single college scholarship out of high school. He walked on to the University of Central Arkansas, a school competing in the NAIA rather than the NCAA, meaning the media largely ignored him. By the time the Chicago Bulls were done with him, he had six championship rings, two Olympic gold medals, and a jersey retired at both his college and his professional home. How does someone go from a walk-on at an obscure program to being named one of the 75 greatest players in NBA history? The answer runs through a paper mill worker's family in rural Arkansas, a trade engineered before the 1987 draft, a partnership with Michael Jordan that would define basketball in the 1990s, and one genuinely controversial afternoon in May 1994 that still sparks arguments today.

• 2. Hamburg to Central Arkansas

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  Preston Pippen, a paper mill worker born in 1920, and Ethel Pippen, born in 1923, raised twelve children in Hamburg, Arkansas. Both parents stood just over six feet tall, and every one of their children inherited that height, with Scottie becoming the tallest. His father suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right side, prevented him from walking, and affected his speech. His second-oldest brother had already been paralyzed by an injury in a high school physical education class. These were the circumstances in which Pippen learned basketball at Hamburg High School, where he played point guard and led his team to the state playoffs as a senior. Yet no college recruiter came calling with a scholarship offer.

  Don Dyer, the head basketball coach at the University of Central Arkansas, discovered Pippen and brought him in as a walk-on. Pippen stood only around 6 feet 1 inch when he arrived but experienced a growth spurt during his college years. His senior season numbers told the full story of his transformation: 23.6 points per game, 10 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and nearly 60 percent shooting from the field. Those figures earned him consensus NAIA All-American honors in both 1986 and 1987 and drew the attention of NBA scouts who had been largely absent from the NAIA circuit. The University of Central Arkansas would later retire his number 33 on the 21st of January, 2010.

• 3. The Trade That Built a Dynasty

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  Before the 1987 NBA draft, the Chicago Bulls had already set their eyes on Pippen. To land him, they manufactured a trade with the Seattle SuperSonics: Seattle would select Pippen fifth overall, and Chicago would give Seattle the eighth pick, Olden Polynice, and future draft considerations in return. Pippen made his NBA debut on the 7th of November, 1987, against the Philadelphia 76ers. He scored 10 points, added four assists and two steals in 23 minutes, and the Bulls won 104-94.

  Pippen was paired on the front line with Horace Grant, the 10th pick in the same draft. Both came off the bench in their rookie seasons. Michael Jordan served as what the source describes as a motivational and instructional mentor, and the two guards frequently played one-on-one outside of team practices to sharpen each other. Pippen claimed the starting small forward job during the 1988 NBA Playoffs. By the 1989-90 season, he was posting career highs of 16.5 points, 6.7 rebounds per game, and 48.9 percent shooting from the field, while finishing third in the entire league in steals with 211. His first All-Star selection followed in 1990.

• 4. The Three-Peat and Its Shadow

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  Phil Jackson's triangle offense suited Pippen perfectly. In the 1990-91 season, he led the Bulls in blocks per game and assists per game, putting up 6.2 assists and 1.1 blocks while ranking fifth in the NBA in steals. The Bulls finished 61-21 and swept the two-time defending champion Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals before defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals, with Pippen defending Magic Johnson. Two more championships followed in consecutive years, completing the first three-peat.

  The Hall of Fame's own website describes Pippen as someone who "ran the court like a point guard, attacked the boards like a power forward, and swished the nets like a shooting guard." Jackson called him a "one-man wrecking crew" capable of guarding any position from point guard to center. Pippen is one of only three players in NBA history, alongside Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon, to record 200 steals and 100 blocks in a single season. His wingspan measured 88 inches, and it showed in everything he did: clogging passing lanes, blocking shots from behind on players who had already passed him, and making passes around defenders that most players are physically incapable of attempting. He finished his career with 6,135 assists, ranking 23rd all-time among all NBA players when he retired.

• 5. Jordan's Absence, Pippen's Moment

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  Michael Jordan retired before the 1993-94 season, and what happened next revealed something important about Pippen's standing in the game. Without Jordan, he led the Bulls in scoring, assists, and blocks. He averaged 22.0 points, 8.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.9 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game. He shot 49.1 percent from the field and a career-best 32 percent from three. He earned the All-Star Game MVP award in 1994 and finished third in MVP voting. The Bulls won 55 games, only two fewer than the season before.

  Then came the 13th of May, 1994. The Bulls trailed the New York Knicks 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. With 1.8 seconds left and the score tied at 102, coach Phil Jackson designed the final play for Toni Kukoč. Pippen, the team's undisputed leader all season, was so angered at being assigned only the inbound pass that he refused to leave the bench when the timeout ended. Kukoč hit the game-winner, a 23-foot fadeaway at the buzzer, but there was no celebration. Television cameras caught an unsmiling Jackson walking off the court. "Scottie asked out of the play," Jackson told reporters afterward.

  Game 5 of that same series produced a different kind of controversy. With 2.1 seconds left, referee Hue Hollins called a personal foul on Pippen for contact with New York's Hubert Davis on a 23-foot attempt. Television replays suggested the contact came after Davis had already released the ball. Davis made both free throws for an 87-86 Knicks win, giving New York a 3-2 series lead. Referee magazine would later describe the call as the most controversial moment of Hollins' career. Coach Jackson was fined $10,000 for publicly comparing the outcome to the gold-medal game controversy at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Garretson, the league's supervisor of officials, initially defended the call but reversed his assessment the following season, describing it to a Chicago Tribune reporter as "terrible."

  Game 6 gave Pippen the signature moment he needed. Charging toward the basket on a fast break, he took a foul from Patrick Ewing while extending the ball fully, absorbing contact, and slamming it through the hoop with Ewing's hand in his face. He landed several feet away from the basket and walked over a fallen Ewing. He then exchanged words with Ewing and with Spike Lee, who was standing courtside, earning a technical foul. The lead extended to 17; Chicago won 93-79. In Game 7, Pippen scored 20 points and grabbed 16 rebounds, but the Bulls lost 87-77, ending their run.

• 6. The Second Three-Peat

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  Jordan's return, combined with the arrival of Dennis Rodman, produced one of the most dominant seasons in professional basketball history. The Bulls posted a 72-10 regular-season record in 1995-96, the best in NBA history at the time, and won the championship against the Seattle SuperSonics. Later that year, Pippen became the first player ever to win an NBA title and an Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year twice, having first done so in 1992.

  In November 1996, Pippen set the NBA's single-month plus-minus record at 272. On the 18th of February, 1997, he scored a career high of 47 points against the Denver Nuggets, going 19-for-27 from the field in a 134-123 win, adding 4 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals in 41 minutes. During the 1997 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz, he delivered a line that has outlived the game itself. Before Karl Malone stepped to the free-throw line with 9.2 seconds remaining in Game 1, the score close and the title on the line, Pippen leaned over and told him, "Just remember, the mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays." Malone missed both free throws. Jordan rebounded, called timeout with 7.5 seconds left, and hit a 20-foot shot at the buzzer to give Chicago a 1-0 series lead.

  Game 6 of that series produced another memorable Pippen play. Trailing by two with five seconds left, after Steve Kerr's jumper cut the deficit, the Jazz looked for a tying shot. Pippen knocked away Bryon Russell's inbound pass, which had been intended for Shandon Anderson, and rolled the ball to Toni Kukoč, who dunked to seal a 90-86 lead and the Bulls' fifth championship. The following season, despite a contract dispute and a deliberately delayed surgery that kept him out well into the regular season, Pippen rejoined Jordan for a second three-peat, defeating the Jazz again in the 1998 Finals.

• 7. Life After the Bulls

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  After eleven seasons in Chicago, Pippen was traded in January 1999 to the Houston Rockets in a sign-and-trade deal for Roy Rogers and a second-round pick. His salary jumped to $11 million, nearly four times what he had earned with the Bulls the previous season. Alongside Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon, on-court chemistry problems emerged almost immediately. Pippen's scoring dropped to 14.5 points per game, his lowest since his rookie season, though he averaged 40.2 minutes per game and was named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team for the eighth consecutive time. The Rockets faced the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs; in Game 3, Pippen scored 37 points with 13 rebounds. The Lakers won the series the following game, 98-88.

  Barkley publicly criticized Pippen's desire to leave after one year. Pippen responded bluntly and directly, and made clear he wanted to play for Phil Jackson, now coaching the Lakers. He was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers on the 2nd of October, 1999, in exchange for a six-player package that included Stacey Augmon and Brian Shaw. In his first season with Portland, the Blazers went 59-23 and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced Jackson's Lakers. Portland held a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter of Game 7 before the Lakers, led by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, erased it and won 89-84. Pippen played four seasons in Portland, making the postseason each year but never advancing past the second round. On the 3rd of February, 2003, at age 37, he put up 25 points, 17 rebounds, and 7 assists against the Orlando Magic.

  Pippen signed a two-year, $10 million contract to return to Chicago on the 20th of July, 2003. Injuries limited him to 23 games in what became his final NBA season. He played his last professional game on the 2nd of February, 2004, against the Seattle SuperSonics, scoring two points in eight minutes. He announced his retirement on the 5th of October, 2004. In 2008, at age 42, he briefly returned to professional basketball in Europe, playing two games for Finnish league team Torpan Pojat and one game for Swedish league team Sundsvall Dragons.

• 8. Legacy and Recognition

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  Pippen was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame twice on the 13th of August, 2010: once for his individual career and once as a member of the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team," making him a rare simultaneous double inductee. The Bulls retired his number 33 on the 8th of December, 2005, in a ceremony that brought together Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, and Horace Grant at the United Center.

  He holds second place all-time in career playoff steals with 395, behind only LeBron James. His 10 consecutive All-Defensive Team selections and 8 consecutive All-Defensive First Team selections are one short of the NBA record. He is one of only five players to have led a team in all five major statistical categories in a single season, joining Dave Cowens in that group; Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nikola Jokic have since done the same. In 2022, The Athletic ranked him the 32nd greatest player in NBA history among their top 75.

  In March 2011, the Bulls announced a bronze statue of Pippen to be placed inside the United Center. It was unveiled on the 7th of April, 2011. When asked about it, Pippen said: "Words really can't express my feelings. It's something you dream of as a kid growing up, but you can never foresee those childhood fantasies becoming reality." The son of a paper mill worker from Hamburg, Arkansas, who had not received a single scholarship offer, now stands in bronze outside the arena where he won six championships alongside the greatest player of his generation. His son Scotty Pippen Jr. went on to play in the NBA for the Memphis Grizzlies.