Sometimes we keep things to ourselves to avoid confrontation, and some other times, out of pride, we avoid saying things that could cause a good reaction on other people so we don’t feel small. Something like this happened to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.
Back at the beginnings of the 1992-93 season, these two did not have the best teammate relationship. The ego of both made it super hard to put differences aside but it is true that they still managed to maintain enough respect to not brake the dressing-room environment.
Love and respect in the shadows
They knew how great the other was, but their pride always stood in the middle. Once, Micheal Jordan told Phil Jackson that Scottie “was the best all-around player” on the Chicago Bulls. Jackson then decided to be the one to tell Pippen, as he said in his book:
“Something else happened on the way toward the United States capturing the gold medal in Barcelona,” Pippen wrote in his book. “I gained respect from a place where it had been absent for the longest time. From Michael Jordan. He concluded that I was the best all-around player on the team – and on occasion even outplayed him. He never told me that himself. That wouldn’t be like him. He told Phil at training in the fall of 1992, and I didn’t hear about it until many years later. Either way, that is high praise from someone with three MVPs, and to this day, it means a lot to me.“
While sharing the stage, Chicago won six championships and three-peated twice while going undefeated in the NBA Finals. Jordan had an average of 31.5 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.5 steals and 0.8 blocks alongside Pippen, while Pippen averaged 17.1 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks next to Jordan.
In his ‘Last Dance Docuseries‘ Michel Jordan mentioned how he rated Pippen and how lucky he felt by playing side to side with him, considering him “the best teammate of all time“:
“I would never be able to find a tandem, another support system, another partner in the game of basketball like Scottie Pippen,” Jordan said in Episode 2 of The Last Dance docuseries. “He was a pleasure to play with. He helped me so much in the way that I approached the game, the way I played the game. Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen. Everybody says well I won all these championships, but I didn’t win without Scottie Pippen. And that’s why I consider him my best teammate of all time.”
The moral of the story is to never put your pride and your ego before anything. Be smart and make the right choices, which are te ones that will benefit you in a long-term proposition.
