Scottie Pippen has been the topic of conversation lately on most sports shows after his candid interview with GQ, where he was dropping names like the neighborhood snitch.
Pip chopped it up with GQ about his book, “Unguarded,” due to be released this fall, his NBA career, and the 2021 NBA playoffs.
He held no punches during the interview, and a few of the people that Pip was talking about took time out of their day to respond to his statements.
Scoop the quotes and some of the responses below:
Pip played with Charles Barkley in 1999, and they never really hit it off. After Pip left the team, that same year, he called Barkley “fat,” and Barkley said he would “get arrested for murder” if Pip didn’t apologize. This is Pip’s response to that incident:
I wish he woulda went through with it. I never apologized to him, but I’ll tell you what: He only got arrested for throwing some little white guys out of a window. I ain’t never seen him fight a Black man unless there were referees around. He plays his role like he’s tough. I don’t know nobody he done whooped. Go back and check his record. Did I apologize to him? I told him to get me the hell out of there. That’s what I recall.
On Kevin Durant’s playoff performance:
And this is no knock to KD, but they asked me, “Has he surpassed LeBron James?” And my answer was: LeBron James knows team basketball better than KD.
KD can score better than LeBron, probably always have been able to. But has he surpassed LeBron? Naw. He tried to beat the Milwaukee Bucks instead of utilizing his team. You see what I’m saying? LeBron James would’ve figured out how to beat them and he wouldn’t have been exhausted and he may not have taken the last shot. But LeBron ain’t KD, and KD ain’t LeBron. KD is a shooter, a scorer. But he doesn’t have what LeBron has.
KD has some time on his hands now that he is no longer in the playoffs so he took to Twitter to respond to Pip’s judgement of him.
On Steve Nash’s coaching during the playoffs:
Steve Nash is an inexperienced coach. So, he gotta know. He wore KD down. How are the f**k are you gonna win? He played the whole f**king game. How you wake up the next day and say you shoulda won?
On taking himself out of Game 3 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the NY Knicks with 1.8 seconds left because coach Phil Jackson ran a play for Toni Kukoc instead of him:
I felt like it was an opportunity to give Kukoc]a rise. It was a racial move to give him a rise. After all I’ve been through with this organization, now you’re gonna tell me to take the ball out and throw it to Toni Kukoc? You’re insulting me. That’s how I felt.
On Ben Simmons skill set and coach Doc Rivers setting Ben Simmons up for failure:
Okay. Understood. You guys have been looking at Ben Simmons for five years now? And you can say this to Stephen A. Smith, too: Y’all know he can’t shoot. Y’all know he don’t look to shoot in the fourth quarter. You know he’s afraid to go to the foul line, he don’t wanna be humiliated, so what are you asking me? I’m not against Ben Simmons. But I think he is who he is.
This kid been this way the whole time and Doc brought him in and set him up for failure. He been like this! And you guys know he been like this. And Doc kept putting him in the game, he kept letting that team do fouls on him. Take him out the game! The Lakers did it with Shaq, and he’s bigger and more dominant and probably more fearless than Ben Simmons. Doc made him be a failure.
Comparing Ben Simmons and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s skill sets:
He’s still a good basketball player. That’s his weakness: shooting the basketball. If you take that away from Ben Simmons, he got no weakness. That’s Giannis’ weakness, too. But, Giannis don’t mind being humiliated. That’s the difference between him and Ben Simmons.
Pip was sipping on some sauce, his own brand of Bourbon called Digits, during the interview so I guess you can factor that into him speaking his mind openly and freely.
Recently, hot off reactions from his GQ interview, Pip continued to share some of his thoughts and opinions on Twitter, and Stephen A. decided to respond to some of the shenanigans.
I think Scottie Pippen did a great job of promoting his book, Unguarded, and his truth serum Bourbon, Digits, during the interview.
Your thoughts?
