Click-a-Bull (Scottie Pippen: Hall of Fame)

Slow summer here at BBS, this is why. But now that we're back and improved with new writers, wanted to get a quick Pippen HOF Tribute up.




MEMORIES OF SCOTTIE PIPPEN

I enjoyed watching Scottie Pippen play basketball as much as I enjoyed watching Michael Jordan play basketball. I watched them both for 11 years, from 1988-1999, as I covered the Chicago Bulls for the Daily Herald newspaper in Arlington Heights. I saw Jordan mature into the greatest basketball player of all time and I watched Pippen grow into a future Hall of Famer.

While Jordan was a marvel of physical ability and competitive drive, Pippen was the athlete I would want my kids to be, someone who transformed himself into a great player. Greatness was not thrust upon Pippen, it was something that he earned through hard work and determination.

I bristle at the continued use of Batman and Robin to describe the relationship between Jordan and Pippen. Giving it exactly 10 seconds of thought, I prefer Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Jordan as Robert Redford's Kid and Pippen as Paul Newman's Cassidy.

Pippen was the best defensive player I ever saw. With his incredible wingspan and quick reflexes, Pippen was able to stymie the best players in the game. In fact, by the time his career was over, I believe Pippen was more highly regarded as a defensive player than Jordan was.

Offensively, Pippen was adept at taking advantage of situations, but he never overstepped the bounds of basketball decorum by trying to score when he did not have the advantage. He employed his teammates and gave them scoring opportunities never offered to them by Jordan, who would just as soon score himself.

While Jordan brought many basketball highlights to the game, and did things that younger players tried to emulate frequently, Pippen brought back the bank shot to professional basketball. Remember how great he was at that? The 15-foot bank from the right side was his specialty, and brought to mind the thousands of bank shots I attempted under my father's watchful eye as I was growing up. I never tried to stuff a basketball.

No one tougher than Scottie Pippen

There are players who have won more in basketball’s Hall of Fame, though not many more than Scottie Pippen with his six championships playing for the Bulls. There certainly are players who have scored more, shot better, jumped higher, run faster and been more popular.

But there may be no one tougher than Scottie Pippen, who will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Friday in Springfield, Mass.

Not physically tougher, for fellow inductee Karl Malone certainly was sturdier. And perhaps not mentally tougher in the way we generally define it in sports, as most everyone would point to Pippen’s former teammate and Hall of Famer Michael Jordan as the portrait of sporting tenacity.

Ironically, it was Pippen who was long cursed with the ugly label of being soft for his famous migraine headache in the 1990 conference finals, being openly taunted by Xavier McDaniel in the 1992 playoffs and the verbal and physical abuse he endured in the Bulls/Pistons wars of the late 1980s.

But that, really, was part of his great strength, sort of Scottie Pippen as Buddha.


Likely no one in the history of the NBA has endured as much, from hardscrabble upbringing, which is not uncommon among pro athletes, to raging controversies that rank among the highlights in the history of the game. Just mention the number 1.8 and everyone knows the reference. Mention migraine. Mention the gun arrest before they were fashionable and the wonderful tradition of feuds with management, though Pippen took it to the greatest lengths by once announcing his retirement during a championship season while he was on the injured list.

It all made him one of the most polarizing athletes Chicago ever has known, if also once of its most successful and acclaimed.

"Sometimes I wonder why people get so upset," Pippen once told me. "It's just basketball. People come to watch us play. But it's like our job has to always be performed right, perfect, always analyzed, that there can't be a letdown. You want to ask them sometimes, 'Did you ever have a bad day?'”

It’s going to be a great day Friday for Pippen, and let’s get this straight: He’s a bona fide Hall of Famer and not because of Michael Jordan.

Pippen may have been the greatest individual defender in the history of the NBA.

I Loved Watching Scottie Pippen Play Basketball

Scottie Pippen will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday, and quite simply, I loved watching that man play basketball.

To me, Scottie Pippen was the ultimate embodiment of team basketball, on both ends of the floor, and played with a physical grace that made him at least as aesthetically pleasing to watch as any player of his era, including his most famous teammate.

I consider Pippen to be greatest individual perimeter defender of all time, outstanding on the ball and even better as a help defender. And I can't lie, how you feel about Scottie Pippen is a referendum on how I feel about you as a basketball fan. If you don't think Pip was one of the 25 or so best players of all time, I don't think I want you in my life as a basketball fan.

That I even have to write those last couple sentences is a reflection that Pippen's legacy can be strangely polarizing to many fans, and that the particular moments and perceptions which stick in fans' heads can be unpredictable, and powerful forces in shaping their memories of players as a whole.

A complication for Pippen in memory is that the signature moments of his career which have stuck with many people are negative - the infamous 1.8-second sitdown in the 1994 Playoffs, and the migraine headache which rendered him utterly ineffective for Game 7 of the 1990 Eastern Conference Finals - and skew the perception of his career as a whole, in my opinion.

[VIDEO] - SCOTTIE PIPPEN - ULTIMATE DEFENDER



I literally got tears in my eyes watching that video. Pippen was almost unfair - he guards Barkley, Ewing, Magic ... incredible.








Scottie Pippen is a Hall of Famer

Here's my five, and we're going to beat you.

I'm running Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan in the backcourt, Bill Walton in the pivot, and Bill Russell with Larry Bird at the forwards. There are better players at possibly four of the positions I've stocked around Jordan, but I don't care. This is my five, and we will beat yours.

And Scottie Pippen starts. Hell, Scottie Pippen brings the ball across half court. And Scottie Pippen is going to be the guy that holds it all together, on his way toward beating whatever hypothetical starting five you want to throw at this lot.

If this column gets too personal, well, this is something you're just going to have to tolerate. Because I've spent a lifetime watching this man play basketball, and I can't imagine another person I'd rather play ball alongside. Ask his teammates, far and wide. They hated life without him.

The awards, the rings, the statistics? They don't matter, with a guy like Scottie Pippen. The 1.8-second sit-out? That's part of the package when you do everything right for little payoff for so long. Kind of like those Amish kids who are allowed a fortnight to go inhale narcotics and chase down women with unnecessary vowels in their first names before submitting to a lifetime of quiet obedience to their respective makers.

Pippen's personal maker was this game, the game that I've chosen to cover and obsess over, and the one that brought him out of crippling poverty in rural Arkansas. His personal upbringing and formative years allowed him to see the game from all angles -- scrub to superstar, unheralded game-changer to too-precious franchise saver -- and nobody, I'm convinced, sees this game better than Scottie Pippen.

23 Michael Jordan HOF Links

-1-
Bulls.com MJ HOF Index ...

-2- Contains this new info -

Bulls legend Michael Jordan, basketball’s greatest player ever, is among a class of five named for enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The Class of 2009 will be inducted during festivities in Springfield, MA September 10-12, 2009. Coverage

Chicago, IL (August 31, 2009) – Comcast SportsNet, the television home of the Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs and White Sox, will provide viewers with a two-day celebration of Michael Jordan’s induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame with complete game telecasts of five of his greatest games in a Bulls uniform, along with a pair of original, half-hour Comcast SportsNet specials chronicling his unsurpassed basketball career. This comprehensive, two-day programming event entitled 23 Hours of MJ: A Hall of Fame Celebration begins Thursday, September 10 at 5:30 PM with a Jordan-focused edition of Chicago Tribune Live hosted by David Kaplan and concludes on Friday, September 11, also with Chicago Tribune Live at 5:30 PM, featuring SportsNite’s Mark Schanowski reporting live from the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Springfield, MA.

Set your DVRs!




Also liked these links from bulls.com ...

-3- Paxson on MJ -

Paxson also pointed out that Jordan has never been given enough credit for how intelligent of a basketball player he was, constantly aware of game and clock situations. His leadership was highly evident even when play was stopped, as he was always the most vocal player during timeouts. In addition, the communication that existed between Jordan and Pippen on the floor allowed them to talk through a lot of game situations.

Not only was it Jordan’s ability and talent that made him the best of the best, it was his desire to put it all on the line when it mattered most.

“He always wanted to take the big shot and he was never afraid of failing,” said Paxson. “If you could get into the minds of a lot of players in this league, whether they are playing now or used to play, to take on the pressure of making the big plays that count with that amount of consistency just didn’t happen very often. He just accepted it.”

-4- Phil on MJ -

Jackson, for the most part, stays away from the Kobe versus Michael debate. But the coach with an NBA-record ten championships was clear about his opinion on Jordan’s contributions.

“I don’t think anybody will ever really touch what Michael has done for the game,” he said when asked if Kobe or LeBron James could ever vie for Jordan’s “best-ever” title. “They may be able to break a record he had or maybe win more championships. Michael was 28 when he won his first championship, and LeBron could win one before he reaches that age and have a chance at winning more than six. But Michael’s image as a player will always stand and his greatness will never be superseded.”

For Jackson, Jordan’s defining moment came during the team’s first championship run in 1991. After losing the series opener in Chicago, the Bulls won four straight games to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers, 4-1, in the Finals. During the fifth and deciding game, the Bulls faced a resilient Lakers team on their homecourt.

“We got stalled,” he recalled. “The Lakers were damn sure that Michael wasn’t going to beat them and stacked their defense against him. When I called a timeout, we talked a little bit about it on the bench. I asked him to tell me who was open because of how they were crowding him. He said Paxson. He knew it. I said, ‘OK,’ and that’s all I had to say.”

Jordan promptly fed Paxson for several jump shots, who connected on four-of-five down the stretch and finished with 20 points in 33 minutes.

-5-
Reisndorf on MJ -

It was his will to win that Reinsdorf saw in Jordan, a trait that Reinsdorf believes drove Jordan to be the best of the best.

“There probably have been players with similar skills to his, although I doubt there has ever been a player as good offensively and defensively as Michael,” Reinsdorf said from his U.S. Cellular Field office. “The thing that separated him from all the other athletes I’ve ever seen was his desire to win.”

-6-
ESPN HOF Index ...
Includes a -7- ZOOM photo gallery.

Already bought -8- this magazine, and it's worth the $10 -

When is the last time you bought a Beckett magazine? As a matter of fact, do you even know what Beckett is? If you collected sports cards growing up and wanted to stay up to date with the value of your cards, Beckett was the go-to book.

A number of magazines are paying homage to Michael Jordan’s induction into the Hall of Fame by placing MJ on the cover of their September ‘09 issue. The image above gives you a peak at the Air Jordan section that was done by SoleCollector. SC put together a feature which they priced out every colorway of each original Air Jordan, based on market value, rarity, nostalgia and completed auction prices.

-9-
MJ HOF Gatorade bottle -

As we all know, Michael Jordan will officially be inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame on September 11th, 2009. Recently, we have seen everything from magazine covers, sneaker packs, look books and other things that are associated with the induction. In the same manner, we have now spotted a one-of-a-kind collectible Michael Jordan Hall of Fame Gatorade bottle on eBay.

Similar to the Michael Jordan Gatorade Cooler Set that surfaced in July, this bottle features MJ’s signature along with a photo of him. This time, the photo is of Jordan shooting the ‘Last Shot’ against the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals (Byron Russell is nowhere to be found in the picture). There is still two days left on this collectible, so head on over to eBay to bid now

-10- Top 10 MJ dunks - (click to watch video).

Should MJ be inducted ALONE?! -
-11- Scoop Jackson says YES -

"Why me?"

That has to be what all of them are thinking. David Robinson. John Stockton. Cynthia Cooper. Don Nelson. The Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2009 will be announced Monday, and all the other candidates must be thinking: "Why do I have to share what should be the greatest day in my career with him?" None of them will ever say it out loud, but they'd be something other than human if they weren't feeling that way.

MJ certainly isn't your ordinary Hall of Famer.

That "him" is special, though. In fact, he's more than special; he's beyond that. What that "him" has done is something no one else has done, before or since. He eclipsed damn near everything that everyone else has accomplished in the game. That old saying, "No one remembers who comes in second"? Well, no one remembers anything anyone else did if he or she played or coached during the Era of Jordan.

And that's just a fact we all have to live with. A fact the other players and coaches who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame alongside Michael Jordan in September have to live with. The same fact they've had to live with for most of their careers.

At this point, hasn't it become a little unfair? Unfair to them? Unfair to the game?

It's like, "Damn, can we please catch a break?"

Which is why the Hall of Fame -- if it really cares about players and being true to transcendence of the game -- should induct Jordan alone.

Solo. By himself. With no one else.

-12- MJ Moments from ESPN -




Last week I posted -13- "The Michael Jordan Collection, Part 1" ... The 'limited-edition-collectibles and cards' side of my collection will be dropping next Tuesday in "Part 2".



-14- An oral history of MJ -

The first time I saw him, the summer before his freshman year, we were playing pickup games on campus. We all knew about him, but I'm from New York, and he looked like a scrawny country bumpkin from North Carolina.
-- Sam Perkins, Jordan's UNC teammate

When people ask me if I knew Michael would become a Hall of Fame player when I recruited him to play at North Carolina, I laugh and say, "Who did?" He was an exceptionally quick athlete who improved every year ... Of course, he made the game-winner against Georgetown as a freshman to help us win the national championship, but he didn't become a confident shooter until years later after he worked so hard on that part of his game. To be sure, one of the things that made him such a great player is his competitive fire.
-- Dean Smith, UNC coach

-15- SI Bulls/MJ covers.


Also already ordered -16- this collector's edition SLAM -

Yesterday we reported on the Beckett Michael Jordan Hall of Fame tribute issue, and today we shed light on the SLAM magazine issue. SLAM presents Jordan (A Hall of Fame Tribute) hits newsstands next week, but is now available online. The issue is 100% Mike with exclusive interviews, rare photos, greatest dunks, the UNC years, taking over Chicago, Air Jordans 1-XX3, and more. You’ll definitely want to add this issue to your magazine collection.

Read more about the issue ...

-17- Jesus of Madison Street -

In two weeks Michael Jeffrey Jordan will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as the G.O.A.T. It’s a fitting acknowledgment and the crowning achievement in the career of the best basketball player to ever play this game of ours.

SLAM has always acknowledged his dopeness, so as the NKOTB whMichael Jordano also happened to grow up in Chicago during the Jordan Era, I figured it would be cool to share a few fond memories I have of the man during his ascent to the title as one of the best to ever do it.

There are two types of Jordan fans; those who are from Chicago, and those who aren’t. Being a member of the former, it’s impossible to explain in words what it meant to grow up in this city during Jordan’s reign. His influence and his presence were everywhere. For me, it was more akin to a religious experience than anything having to do with basketball. The best way to describe it, or better yet, the closest thing to it would have to be when Jesus walked the Earth. After Jesus of Nazareth and before Jesus of Coney Island, there was Jesus of Madison Street.

-18- ESPN pays homage -

ESPN Pays Homage to Michael Jordan

Whether you're a native of Chicago, or simply one of the millions of basketball fans worldwide who got swept up in the mania that was Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls, ESPN has a special edition magazine on newsstands now that you'll want to check out. In what is called a "Hall Of Fame Collector's Issue," ESPN has put together an entire book together to celebrate the life and career of the man they call "The Best Ever."

-19- MJ reflects on his career - (click to watch the video).


-20- Air Jordan masks -

He has meticulously re-stitched the shoes into 23 (like the basketball legend’s number) ceremonial masks. Even Michael Jordan owns one of the masks.

(The above link only has that picture, couldn't find the full set - but there's a few more MJ masks -21- here.)


-22- Street art tribute to MJ -

The best link of all ...
Phenomenal Air Jordan shoe tribute from Nike -
-23- History of Flight.

"Be Like Mike"

Gatorade Commercial -

Downloads: Views: 543792

D-Rose and TT

Memphis penalty too harsh? Dick Vitale thinks so -

I've had a chance to reflect on the penalties doled out to the University of Memphis basketball program.

A big part of the punishment came over Derrick Rose having someone take the SAT in his place.

I have a big problem with this whole situation.

Here is a simple question: Which Division I coach would keep Rose out of the lineup after the NCAA declared him eligible to play? There is an NCAA clearinghouse that determines player eligibility and they told Memphis that Rose could play.

I don't believe there is a coach in America who wouldn't play him after the clearinghouse declared him eligible.

Why shouldn't they play the No. 1 point guard when the governing body, on two occasions, declared him eligible.

Most influential in basketball -

40 - Derrick Rose, Player, Chicago Bulls: Derrick Rose will enter the NBA season with a new distinction as one of the top four pitchmen in the league. Rose's everyday persona, demeanor and life-like size have made him an instant hit in the shoe world and his success as a rookie on the court is fueling an up swell that could turn Rose into one of the more marketed NBA players this season. adidas is responding with a lot of support behind Rose and in Chicago's urban-centric market Rose has been a hit. If he can help power the Bulls into serious playoff consideration his stock and influence could be on the rise.

D-Rose and TT in top10 blocks -


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And here's a link that should be clicked pretty much daily ...
BULLS.com has an MJ HOF series going on for the next few weeks.

Jordan in HOF

MJ is a finalist to make the Hall of Fame (was this ever a question?) - 

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announces its 2009 class Monday morning, and Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a finalist.

His chances for induction, it is said, are pretty good.

It's nearly impossible to capture the impact and essence of Jordan in words, so consider the following as words meant to invoke images. That's how Jordan perhaps is remembered best—by closing the eyes, remembering the roar, savoring the scintillating.

His wondrous gifts made the spectacular almost commonplace, but what wonderful memories indeed. Here is one attempt at ranking the 10 greatest images from Jordan's, ahem, Hall of Fame career.

June 14, 1998: Jordan caps a 45-point game — and his Bulls career — by sinking the game-winning shot over Utah's Bryon Russell. The shot comes after Jordan displayed the other dominant aspect of his game — defense — and stole the ball fromKarl Malone at the other end. Jordan holds the follow-through to put an exclamation point on NBAchampionship No. 6.

May 7, 1989: Jordan hangs in the air for seemingly forever and makes a double-pump jumper from the foul line over Cleveland's Craig Ehlo, who jumps after and descends earlier than Jordan. The buzzer-beater steals Game 5 and the first-round playoff series from the Cavaliers, who had gone 6-0 against the Bulls during the regular season. It also sends late announcer Johnny "Red" Kerr into celebratory convulsions.

April 20, 1986: This is more of a game than an image, although Jordan dribbling between his legs repeatedly before making a quick jumper over Larry Bird has lived in highlight films forever. Jordan scores an NBA-playoff-record 63 points against the Celtics, prompting Bird to say he's "God disguised as Michael Jordan." God, er, Jordan had missed most of the regular season with a broken foot, and this marked the first of 37 career 50-point games, including playoffs.

June 12, 1991: John Paxson drained most of the clutch fourth-quarter baskets, several set up by Jordan's passing. But the image that remains from the Bulls' first championship is Jordan, after his seventh season, bathing the championship trophy in tears as he clutched it in the Lakers' visiting locker room, his father, James, by his side.

March 28, 1995: In only his fifth game back after a 17-month experiment with minor-league baseball, Jordan drops a double nickel on the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. His 55 points marked a then-Knicks opponent record. Jordan also dished to Bill Wennington for the game-winning basket in the 113-111 triumph, leaving the image he would do whatever it took to win.

June 3, 1992: Following one of his six first-half three-pointers in Game 1 of the 1992 Finals, Jordan turns to the Chicago Stadium crowd and shrugs, palms upturned, coy smile on face. It seemed his 35 first-half points amazed even him.

Feb. 7, 1988: With a sold-out Stadium crowd rocking, Jordan leaps from just inside the free-throw line to outduel Dominique Wilkins in the slam-dunk championship, creating a poster that surely remains on bedroom walls. He then caps his homestyle-flavored All-Star weekend by winning the game's MVP award after scoring 40 points, including 16 in the final six minutes.

June 11, 1997: Jordan collapses into Scottie Pippen's arms after pushing his flu-ridden and dehydrated body into scoring 38 points, including a clutch late three-pointer. The Game 5 Finals victory gives the Bulls a 3-2 series lead over Utah en route to title No. 5, easing the pain of Jordan's bad pizza experience.

June 5, 1991: Jordan rises up on the right side of the basket with the ball in his right hand, shifts the ball to his left and kisses a layup off the glass on the other side during Game 2 of the 1991 Finals. The jaw-dropping play highlights a bounce-back victory after the Bulls dropped Game 1 at home, and they win their first championship in five games.

June 14, 1992: Jordan leads his teammates back onto the Stadium floor — and eventually atop the scorer's table — to celebrate championship No. 2 over the Trail Blazers. Jordan's face positively glowed as he held two fingers aloft and repeatedly screamed, "Two of them!"

And that's how it ends. These images don't even mention Jordan's career-high 69-point game against Cleveland in 1990, his buzzer-beater in Game 1 of the 1997 Finals to beat Utah, his buzzer-beater fadeaway to sweep Cleveland out of the 1993 conference semifinals or his 11 triple-doubles in 14 games in March 1989.

But the final one perhaps best captures Jordan's essence — a smiling champion.

MJ in pictures.

MJ was ridiculous in every way.  I cannot imagine what he would do in the league with the current rules - maybe average 45ppg?  I would have to really think about my Top 10 MJ games, but this is a pretty great list.  This is a personal favorite (loved the move, and really hated those Knicks!).

Downloads: 0 Views: 368894

Better angle of the same dunk ...

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Here's highlights from a decent game of young MJ.