Rockets’ Scottie Pippen upset over portrayal in The Last Dance

Although former Houston Rockets forward Scottie Pippen isn’t happy with his depiction in the ESPN docu-series The Last Dance, he has himself to blame.

ESPN’s docu-series The Last Dance was always meant to make Michael Jordan look like a hero, which is to be expected considering that he had a hand to play in the production of the film. For this reason, we weren’t going to see any trace of the Houston Rockets‘ consecutive championships, because it would’ve made Jordan look humanly and it would’ve discussed the problems the Bulls had against Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets.

Like all films, this film had it’s villain, which was certainly former Bulls GM Jerry Krause. Jordan and Scottie Pippen publicly berated and disrespected Krause as told by firsthand witnesses, which is something that made many viewers of the film unhappy.

After all, Krause isn’t here to share his side of the story, which does seem a bit unfair. Former Rockets coach Kevin McHale came to Krause’s defense, stating that Krause was being inaccurately portrayed in the docu-series.

Despite Krause being the obvious slight in the film, Scottie Pippen was also upset with how he was portrayed, as those close to him have described him as feeling wounded and disappointed with his depiction. On the surface, it appears that Pippen has a legitimate bone to pick, as there were several incidents that did in fact make him look selfish.

The first incident was involving his frustration over his contract that made him the 122nd highest paid player in the NBA during the 1997-98 season. Pippen had an injury that could have been addressed after the 1996-97 season, but he openly stated that he didn’t want to have surgery in the offseason because he didn’t want to ruin his summer by rehabbing from the surgery.

In addition, Pippen refused to enter Game 3 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Semifinals during the waning seconds of the game, because he didn’t like the fact that the play was designed for him to make the inbounds pass, as opposed to taking the final shot. This was arguably the worst moment of the documentary for the former Houston Rockets forward because he stated that he would repeat the same behaviors if he could do it all over again, which certainly makes it seem as if he hasn’t learned his lesson after all these years.

Pippen didn’t take accountability in either of those incidents, which is why he can’t complain about his portrayal in the docu-series.  After all, it’s not like Pippen was forced into saying these things, so frankly he has himself to blame for how he looks. It’s not like this was a movie in which his character was being acted out by someone else, these were after all his recounts of these events.

The reality is that he’s been catching backlash for how he carried himself at the time and he’s realized how bad he looks because of the criticism he’s been getting. But again, he has himself to blame because not only was he the one who was doing these things, he also doesn’t exactly come off as remorseful and apologetic.

And this has been in production since December of 2018, so it’s not like he didn’t know what was going to be in the film either. He did the interviews and his words weren’t summarized or paraphrased, so the reality is that he has himself to blame for his portrayal.