Stan Van Gundy Wonders: Was Scottie Pippen Truly a Superstar?

Here’s the thing: Pippen was as good as he was because he was taught how to play by Jordan, and his ability to constantly improve drove Jordan to be even better, so that his protege wouldn’t best him in practice. they made each other better than either of them ever would have been alone. So we can’t accurately say how good Pip would have been in a vacuum. Maybe he would have developed all the skills he did without Jordan but also develop more of an alpha-dog mentality. But that was sort of his game: he always ran the offense, sometimes to a fault, which is why in the season without Jordan he had a pretty low shooting percentage: he was running the triangle until the last 3 seconds of the shot clock when his teammmates, unable to score, would toss him the ball and he had to throw up a bad shot.

yeah chris andersen won this… but yes pippen is a superstar..in every sense of the word. w/o mj that’s a different story maybe.. but we’re not talking about that.

I remember how scottie brought his team to the playoffs without jordan by playing some of the best all around basketball.
This makes you a superstar. Especially if you let Pat Ewing look helpless defending a dunk.
http://community.mtv.com/Photo/Scottie-Pippen-dunking-on-Patrick-Ewing/0D3FCFFFF01C4702B000700CC6706

who cares what Scottie learned from Mj, the man was a hell of a player. If yall gonna penalize him for a situation he had no control over, might as well say kobe would not be the five time champion and being recognized as a top ten player he is with out shaq and Magic would never be what he is without kareem.

These WHAT IF’S is stupid! What if Magic played in a half court offense or Bird didn’t have Mchale, DJ and the Chief, or barkley had KJ his whole career or A.I had a great player or stockton and malone never played together. Pippen was a superstar. Top 5 player in his day, greatest on ball and team defender ever(without a zone). Remember this, offense gets fans in the seats, defense wins championships.

This got off-topic a long time ago, but without speaking for anyone else, the “with or without MJ what-if’s” for Scottie were brought up for one reason – Pip was a product of Jordan more than Magic was from his team, or Bird was a product of having the Celtics vets, or Barkley was a beneficiary of the 76′s vets, or Malone from Stockton, which was a partnership from the start. They came in starting for their teams, were forced into the spotlight and were in the running for ROTY respectively. Pip came off the bench with something like 7ppg – those are Deshawn Stevenson numbers people. MJ even tried to get him traded early on. Did any of the other players you mentioned get the same treatment from their stars? My point was just to say that Pip didn’t come into the league a defensive dynamo combo player that could put up buckets like his famous team captain. I digress…Pip’s a superstar, Chris Anderson won, bla bla. I never disagreed, I was pointing out that it’s not a clear cut case of “Scottie was the ish the moment he came in and helped lead the Bulls.” He was little bro who came to learn, worked hard to become one of the best complementary players in the L before becoming a superstar and it worked out for both him and MJ in the end to the tune of 6 rings. @MirChilly and slick Ric the players you mentioned had completely different careers, Kobe was good enough to be drafted from HS, Pip was lucky to play in college…Beef if you want. I probably agree with you anyways.

Kobe was good enough to be drafted from HS, Pip was lucky to play in college
Damn, I had forgotten all about that.
Pippen was like the freakin’ equipment manager or waterboy or something for (then) NAIA Central Arkansas, and then caught a break and walked-on with the team.
To go from that to Hall of Famer is freakin’ amazing.

^ lol yeah. He also grew 6 inches during that time though. He was 6’1 as a freshman; by the time he was drafted he was 6’7. Pretty wild (and insanely lucky) growth spurt, but he had the skills to back it up too.

Here’s one thing I’m NOT liking:
People keep saying “Pippen was only as good because he got trained by jordan! What if he stayed in Seattle?”
Newsflash: He DIDN’T stay in Seattle. He WAS trained by Jordan. At the end of his career, he WAS a do it all score-pass-rebound-defend SF who is an all-time top-5 SF talent. I get the “take away the rings, is he a superstar” talk… but not the “Take away how good he got playing with Jordan” because he DID train with Jordan, and Jordan DID makehim into a guy who I consider a superstar.
The end.

So by this logic, here’s a list of guys who aren’t “superstars”:
Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Kevin Mchale, Kevin Garnett, Gary Payton…
I get mad when people say stupid things, which makes my fondness for Eboy inexplicable.

I dont get all this train by jordan comment. Train is only applicable if u mean trying to kick team b in the a55 during practice. Does anybody see anything other jordan trying to show up pippen in terms of making him a better player? Jordan is more bird than magic when it comes to helping teammates develop, theyd sooner chew u out before giving u a pat in the a55.

Great argumemt abt why lebron is struggling when wade is dominating, makes more sense than the hogwash lebron isnt clutch garbage writers are trying to feed us.

To give Jordan all the credit for Pippen’s development is not really fair to Pippen’s hard work to be honest. Jordan could only take Pippen so far. It was up to Pippen to have the ambition to want to get better and improve his skill set. Otherwise he may have just become another Lamar Odom which is not a bad thing but not a superstar either.

Pippen wasn’t the complete player playing with MJ during the first 3peat…very good but not great and definitely not complete. Pippen made that transition from from star to superstar when Jordan left to play baseball. Instead of sitting on his 3 rings and not getting any better Pippen hit the weights and got bigger which aided in him guarding multiple positions 1-4. His defense and IQ went to another level. He added the pull-up three to his offensive arsenal. He worked on his low/high post game and footwork adding the jumphook, the turnaround bankshot on the block, the drop step on the baseline, up and unders, etc. He had none of this in his arsenal during the first 3peat and Jordan had nothing to do with that kind of development to his game. That was all Pippen from ’94 thru ’95. Even Jordan took notice of the change in Pippen’s game when he came back from retirement.

One more thing, does anybody here think Pippen was the only teammate that Jordan tried to make better? Of course not. But where are those chumps now? Not in the HOF, that’s for sure.

Some of you guys posting these earlier comments are dumb. The Bulls never went to the ECF while Jordan was playing baseball. Do a little bit of research before you just go shooting off at the mouth.

Pippen was a superstar, he guarded the best player on the opposing teams. Was the best defensive player on the team, ask MJ, what Pippen did to Magic Johnson in 91 Finals. I believe Pippen helped MJ focus more on defense. I would take Pippen over alot of players now, including Lebron. Pippen was a great player and in 1994 should have played Rockets for ring. Pippen did state something stupid and you would have thought Lebron would try to back him up with play, but instead has flamed out. Pippen was a defensive juggernaut and point forward for the Bulls team and MJ never won without Pippen. BOOK IT!!

Scottie was one of the best players to ever play to game. His stats
don’t tell the whole story about his game and his impact on the court.
Let’s face facts he played with the biggest glory hog of all time.
And for all of you idiots who believe Jordan made Pippen, how come
he did not make some more Pippen’s? That is the ultimate insult
to all of the hard work that I am sure that Scottie put in to
become a great player.

Scottie Pippen is one of the greatest players to ever lace em up. Jordan made him a better player but if you think for 1 moment he didn’t help make Jordan better you’re as foolish as SVG comments. I remember Kobe’s initial comparisons being made to Scottie. Then he transformed his game to MJ 2.0. LeBron is definitely more Pippen than Jordan. I see LeBron as Pippen+Kidd. If Scottie is foolish for thinking that someone with so much talent can some day be the greatest then I guess I’m a damn fool myself. LeBron is equipped to be the best from a natural talent stand point and if he had Scotties drive and determination he would be right up there in the “GOAT” conversation.

How many other players did Mike coach up to Pip’s level. If his coaching skills are/were so great why wasn’t BJ, Myers, Kukoc et.al. turned into superstars? Also, both Pip and MJ needed Grant and Rodman as much as they needed each other. And yes, they were the greatest of the dynamic duos.
Pip earned his entry into the NBA because of HIS hard work. He sure wasn’t a known quantity, except among NBA scouts, coming out of Central Arkansas. His story is truly the American dream. MJ was singleminded in his pursuit of championships. IMO, that was the lesson taught Pip. I remember when Pip called in sick during a playoff series, migraine or something of the sort, after getting his azz kicked by Rodman and the Pistons. MJ took him under his wing and worked on his toughness.
Finally, Pip should understand by now that Mike is part of David Stern’s Mob. He should be very careful or he will pay the price for intemperate remarks about MJ, Majic, Bird, etc. See Isaiah Thomas and SVG’s brother for examples of what crossing the gangster Stern will do to your career.
SVG is a pawn trying to get back in Stern’s good graces.