Pippen still trying to tell his story
Why anyone in Tasmania should care about Scottie Pippen’s hurt feelings is beyond me, not to mention why anyone in greater Australia would even know who Pippen is, never mind Horace Grant and regional relic Luc Longley, all of whom once shared the same shower as Michael Jordan.
And yet the threesome has concocted a “No Bull” tour on the other side of the world, promising to tell stories no one is asking to hear how it was back before Roomba and online dating.
Nothing is sadder than yesterday’s glory longing for today’s relevance. I am aware that in Chicago such is the way of things, each generation getting its own moment to remember. Dynasties may pass and return elsewhere while here we will always have the ’85 Bears and, of course, MJ.
So enduring an image is Jordan that his self-defined “supporting cast” may yet get some use out of it, although I doubt the curiosity of folks in Hobart or Sydney is as great as their indifference.
Yet, let’s grant that Grant and Longley and especially Pippen have an obligation to “set the record straight,” that Jordan was selfish and a poor teammate and a manipulator of the true history of a team no one would care about if Jordan had not been on it.
This little talk-about in Australia seems to stem from the Netflix miniseries, “The Last Dance,” a look at Jordan’s final year with the Bulls, the emphasis on Jordan and not on Pippen or Phil Jackson or Tex Winter or even Dennis Rodman, the freak of the carnival.
According to Pippen in his autobiography, the series “glorified MJ while not giving enough praise to me and my proud teammates.”
Of course it did, otherwise there would have been no miniseries. And, while we are being honest, without Jordan there would not be a Pippen, Grant or Longley, who would all be lost to the ephemera of time and not out huckstering beyond the international date line today.
Because the TV series coincided with the beginning of the COVID quarantine, it got more notice than it ordinarily would have, the proof of which has been the apathy to a long line of sports movies about, say, the real Babe Ruth or the phony Lance Armstrong or the silliness of old ladies trying to meet Tom Brady.
Any number of inside-the-season programs exist, some of them while the season is still happening; there may not be a sports story left to be unrevealed, though Tiger Woods still awaits.
Sports stories retold need to have illness or injury or inspiration of some sort, overcoming adversity or prejudice, tragedy (and Jordan had his), underdogs preferred and there may never have been a bigger overdog than Jordan.
We still sniffle at “Brian’s Song,” or cheer “Rudy,” or recite Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech by heart, or even have a twang of sympathy for Tonya Harding and her broken skate string, but I think that is mostly due to Margot Robbie.
The pandemic and the overwhelming figure of Jordan, offered as alive and splendid as we remembered him, sent the miniseries wafting off into international notice in spite of detailing stuff from 22 years earlier.
Much had happened in that time, the rise of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, Olympic shame in Athens, the festooning of NBA rosters with migrants, Jordan embarrassing himself with an ill-advised return and Jordan’s absolute ineptness as an owner.
Pippen has sulked and whined, diminishing respect and fertilizing tedium. I have told this story before but here it is again.
After the Barcelona Olympics, my wife, Jaye, and I are driving across the Pyrenees to France. We stop in a little town called Foix for lunch. The only English speaking waiter is Rene, according to his nametag. He brings our order and asks where we’ve been. We tell him.
Oh, oh, he gets excited. “The Drim Tim,” Rene says.
What? The Dream Team?
“Oui,” he says. Don’t tell me, I say. Michael Jordan.
“Oh, yes, he is very good,” he says. “But for me, Scottie Peepen.”
Rene purses his lips and kisses his fingers and I wonder if I should eat my bouillabaisse.
Here’s the point. Pippen is telling his story on the wrong side of the world.