jamaalstar21 wrote:Joshyjess wrote:jamaalstar21 wrote:I don't care about Pippen's opinion on the NFL but I do care that you're calling Pippen a mediocre player. Being second best to arguably the greatest of all-time doesn't make you mediocre. Pippen was the second-best wing of an entire era, full stop.
He does come across bitter and unhappy though. But takes like yours make his bitterness a tiny bit more justified. Brutal, clueless assessment of Pippen as a basketball player. Pippen has bad takes but I guess he isn't alone in that.
That's funny. I grew up watching Pippen, and I never thought much about him. Sure he was a great side-kick to Jordan, but by himself - never really saw anything special. I have no doubt that you could have plugged in a ton of other players in his spot, and they would have done just as well as he did.
My opinion of Pippen is based on watching him for pretty much his whole career. Oh, I'm sure that you can probably find lots of stats and numbers justifying the esteem that many give him, but I think that most of his numbers came from his situation, and that were it not for Jordan, his numbers wouldn't be any higher than the average player in the NBA back then. Again, no Jordan - pretty much nobody would have heard of Pippen.
Again, that's just my opinion of watching him play for all those years, and others are welcome to their opinion of him.
You watched him and didn't think he was good. I think I got that part. It's fine that you don't like him.
- What players do you think you could have plugged in and have done just as well?
- what do you mean: "by himself"? when you say "never saw anything special"? This isn't tennis. No one plays by themselves.
- You do know that Jordan retired to play baseball, and in that season Pippen's numbers went up rather than down, right? The Bulls won 55 games and Scottie averaged 22-8-5, finished top 3 in MVP voting.
- Do you think Scottie was special as a defensive player?
Again I'm fine with you not liking Pippen. But your assertion that he was an average NBA player, single-handedly boosted to stardom by the presence of MJ... I don't think it's a theory you can back up with anything. MJ and Pippen played together for almost their entire careers so it can be difficult to pull them apart, I get that. But in general there aren't too many stories in the history of basketball where a player was a big star next to another player, and wasn't an above-average player in every other context.
Tell you what - I'll go ahead and rescind my statement about Pippen beind mediocre or average. I'll give him props for being a good (possibly even a really good) player. But to be honest, I really don't have the desire to go into the why I think he wasn't the great player many think he was, or who was better, etc... (too easily turns into a long, drawn out argument that has no winners / losers, and is based a lot on opinions)
I'll simply refer back to my statement that my opinion of him was based on watching him for pretty much his entire career. Again, I know that there are stats and numbers that back up the argument of him being great and all that, but I think the eye-test of having watched him for all those years is a better judge than numbers that can be manipulated by circumstances.
I've watched so many of the great players of the past 4 decades, and you can always tell which players have that special "thing" about them that seperates them from the rest, and which players just don't. Pippen never had that. I never watched Pippen and thought "Wow, there's something extra special about him". Now, many years later people try to use data and stats to elevate him to a level that I just never saw while watching him live.
Again, this is simply my opinion based on what I saw during a lont time period of watching him play.