Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen has thrown shade at his longtime Chicago Bulls teammate Michael Jordan, widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time, since the 2020 debut of the Jordan-centric docuseries “The Last Dance.” Now, Pippen is directing his criticism toward the player widely known as football’s greatest of all time.
In an interview with GQ Sports, Pippen said it’s “hard” to anoint Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady the NFL‘s best player ever because football is a team sport.
“It’s hard to place Tom Brady at the top of the NFL,” Pippen said. “Even though he’s won a lot of championships. There are almost 70 players on each team, so is he playing on every side of the football? Is he on kickoff? Is he on the punt returns? Because if he ain’t playing all them roles, then he got to give credit to his team.”
While Brady won’t be lining up as a gunner or kick returner any time soon, his impact on the Buccaneers and New England Patriots has been immeasurable.
Brady has won seven Super Bowls over his 21 NFL seasons, accounting for a third of the league’s Lombardi Trophies since his arrival in 2000. Individually, the 44-year-old has three MVPs, five All-Pro selections, 14 Pro Bowl appearances and made the 2000s and 2010s All-Decade teams.
Pippen’s cause for hesitation with Brady and Jordan are similar. In his recently-released memoir “Unguarded,” Pippen claimed the Bulls won six championships during the Jordan era because they played “team basketball.” Pippen even described himself as a “much better teammate” than Jordan, who he called “wrong” for berating the rest of the squad.
“We didn’t win six championships because he got on guys,” Pippen wrote. “We won in spite of his getting on guys. We won because we played team basketball, which hadn’t been the case my first two seasons, when Doug Collins was our coach. That’s what was special about playing for the Bulls: the camaraderie we established with one another, not that we felt blessed to be on the same team with the immortal Michael Jordan.”
Pippen wasn’t mincing words before his memoir’s release, and he hasn’t stopped since.
