Pippen vs Hill's legacy, if....

[Mike Hawk]

Hill. I remember when he was being compared to Jordan and had that nestle Crunch commercial

[Real Deal]

And out of the 5 seasons you talked about where he averaged over 50% from the field, his highest average was 19ppg.. The rest? 15ppg, 14ppg, 13ppg, and 12ppg.

Sean just covered what I wanted to (haha), but to this...we're talking Grant Hill after an injury that should've put him away, Terrell Brandon style. Hill's ankle injury was said to have been one of the worst injuries not only in basketball history, but in the major sports (among all ankle fractures and complete breaks).

 

But, yet, after multiple surgeries, he comes back and re-develops his game to include an even better jumper, and much more improved off-the-ball play? His post game even improved. Less slashing, by far...but to see him change his game in that manner, with that injury, and to become an all-star once again, that tells me that he wasn't out of his prime (and hadn't even stepped into it), and that he had the potential to do that ADDING on to the already-solid game he developed in the first six years of his career, and that is scary.

 

Just for kicks, I'll tell a story. Back in 1998, I saw Grant Hill play Jordan and his Bulls. The two games were close together, actually...a month apart. Hill defended Jordan in both games, held him to 42% or less from the field in both, but was devastated by Scottie Pippen, since Scottie took the initiative to defend Hill, while Jordan took Dumars (and locked him up badly).

 

Well, the next meeting, Hill held Jordan again, but he also dumped almost 40 on Pippen, with 10 boards, three steals and five assists.

 

It was probably the best game I've seen against Scottie, one-on-one, up until Bryant dropped 33/14/12 on Pippen in 2002.

 

As Sean said, Grant Hill was the 90's LeBron, minus the freakishly-muscular body, but plus the one-on-one defensive skills and post game. Pippen is the 90's version of Ron Artest.

 

I'm pretty sure I know which one I'd take out of both groups.

[AboveLegit]

Pippen is a much better defender and has a much wider arsenal on offense than Artest. I'm not at all ignoring what Hill was capable of achieving had he not been struck with an injury, but to say he could end up better and more successful than Pip is where I'd draw the line.

 

It's hard for me personally since I'm much younger than you both, so I can't bring up any personal thoughts of Pippen and Grant, but I gave it my best shot.

[Built Ford Tough]

First off, Pippen would be able to lead the Bulls to 2-3 Championships, players tend to develop the leadership role among other intangibles as their careers' progress, it's unfair to just base his whole career off of what you saw of him in those very few years without Jordan.

 

I highly doubt it. Pippen is a very good player and there is no doubt that if he was the number one option of a team for the duration of his career that he would've experienced a lot of success and led his teams into the playoffs for the majority of his time there.

 

However, you have to take into consideration that in order to win a ring, Pippen would have to go through players/duos like Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway (later Kobe), Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson, John Stockton and Karl Malone, Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, Tim Duncan and David Robinson, Patrick Ewing and John Starks (and later Ewing and Houston/Sprewell), Reggie Miller and the depth of the Pacers, Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway, and last, but certainly not least, Michael Jordan (I am sure they would've found somebody to replace Pippen, but even then, Jordan on his own is a scary player).

 

During that era, there was a lot of great, great players at their best and some insanely talented teams. Unless Pippen had another superstar alongside him (and if that was the case would he really be considered the undisputed number one option?) he would not be able to get through the surplus of great teams that were around during the prime of his career, at least not in my mind.

 

About the leadership thing, I know what you are trying to say and I do agree with it somewhat, but I firmly believe that you are either a true leader or you are not, and I don't think that Pippen had what it took to be a true leader of a team. He had the physical tools to do it, and his skillset was enough as well (although I don't know if I would trust him down the stretch to take over a game but thats neither here nor there) but I don't think that he was mentally capable of leading a team. He would quite possibly get better at it, and that is something that we will never know, but I just don't think that he was mentally capable of being a leader on a Championship team. I could definitely be wrong though.

 

He might have led his team to 1 Championship, but that is all that I will concede to you.

 

Before Pippen hit his stride, Jordan couldn't win with Pippen on the team. Remember, it took until Pippen and Grant's fourth year for them to beat the Pistons. Third, Pippen placed 4th in MVP voting in the only year he had in his 20s without Jordan for the whole year. Fourth, the 94 Bulls won 2 less games than the 93 Bulls after replacing Jordan with Pete Myers in October... Finally, Scottie Pippen took Rasheed Wallace and a bunch of has beens, never was(s), and Jermaine O'neal BEFORE he played to a fourth quarter lead in game 7 of the 2000 WCF v. Shaq and Kobe in their physical primes. If that game is iced, Pip ends up leading a team to a ring at age 34.

 

Yeah, I am well aware of the fact that Jordan was unable to get over the hump that was the Detroit Pistons/Boston Celtics during the beginning parts of his career, but lets be honest here, would you really expect Jordan and the Bulls at that time to beat teams like that? It was basically Jordan, and a young Jordan at that, and Oakley against teams like the 80's Celtics and the Bad Boy Pistons. Jordan had absolutely no help at all during his younger years and it was a miracle that he even managed to get those teams to where he did.

 

Yeah the MVP voting is nice and all (it was actually 3rd, not 4th), but its like Brandon already said, the voting was absolutely dominated by Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson and Pippen never really came close to actually winning the award. Besides, I am not trying to deny that Pippen wasn't an elite player during his prime because he was, and if Pippen is the number one option on a team, I would expect a player of his abilities to be in the running for the MVP, especially considering he had a very good team around him.

 

Yeah the Bulls only lost two more games during Jordan's failed attempt at playing pro baseball, but they also only made it to the second round of the playoffs as well, which should be mentioned.

 

You like to bring up how good of a job that Pippen did in his first, and full year without MJ on the team, but what about the next season (94-95)? The Bulls finished with a record of 47-35, which is a solid record, but if you look deeper into it, the Bulls were only 34-31 before Jordan made his comeback and were looking like a bottom seed playoff team at best. It wasn't until Michael came back that the Bulls picked it up and finished off the season by going 13-4 in their last 17 games.

 

I know that the Bulls were a weaker team from the previous seson, but they weren't that much weaker that they would've went through such a steep drop off.

 

I don't think that you can use those Blazer teams as a case for your argument to be honest. There was no undisputed leader of that team and it was a team effort with great contributions all around from guys like Rasheed Wallace (16/7), Steve Smith (15/4), Damon Stoudemire (12.5/5), Arydias Sabonis (12/8) and Scottie Pippen (12.5/6.3). The reason why this team was so successfull was because of the contributions that they got from all of their starting lineup and their great team play.

 

Even in the playoffs, Rasheed Wallace and Steve Smith were the main offensive options, and Pippen actually struggled somewhat as he shot 41% from the field in the playoffs that year. In the most important game of the Blazers season, Pippen was basically non existent on the offensive end with his 12 points and 33% shooting. The Blazers also blew a 15 point lead in the 4th quarter to lose the game, which could be another knock on Pippen's leadership.

 

Even if the Blazers won it all that year, you can't say that Pippen led them there because it was a complete team effort and nobody was the clear cut best player of that team.

 

Put '92 Pippen on the 00 Blazers with Rasheed Wallace, who is far from Michael Jordan, and they walk with that ring. It's not even close. Kobe goes away more than he ever has in his career, more than Tayshaun Prince took him out of his game, and it's over. He was actually 34 that year. Pippen is definitely not a player who needed Michael Jordan to win a ring. Not to mention, without Hugh Hollins call, the Bulls are playing a badly overmatched Pacers team in the ECF in 94 with Pete Myers replacing Jordan.

 

I really hate statements like this. I would probably agree with you that if prime Pippen was on that team that they would've won, but if Pippen was dominating the ball and things like that, do the Blazers get as far as they do in the first place? Are players like Smith, Stoudemire and even Wallace as effective as they are?

 

See, I can spin it in the opposite direction just as easily as you can spin it in your direction.

 

Here are Michael Jordan's records without Scottie Pippen:

 

84-85 Bulls 38-44 First round loss

85-86 Bulls 40-42 First round loss

01-02 Wizards 37-45

02-03 Wizards 37-47

 

Jordan never won more than 40 games without Pippen.

 

Jordan's playoff record without Pippen? 1-9

 

Jordan's playoff record in Pippen's first 3 years? 23-25

Jordan's playoff record in year's 4-6 of Pippen's career? 45-13

 

Pippen's best record without Jordan? 55-27, placed fourth in MVP voting

Lost in seven games to the Knicks, who took the Rockets to game 7 of the NBA Finals.

 

85-86 was actually the season that Jordan missed the majority of the year and the Bulls only won 30 games or so, just thought I would point that out. They were 40-42 in 86-87.

 

Anyways a rookie Michael Jordan with a [expletive] supporting cast that only won 27 games the season before a third year Jordan that had to average 37 ppg just to get his weak [expletive] team into the playoffs and a 38 year old (eventually 39 year old) Jordan who was 3 or 4 years (can't remember which) removed from the game somehow validates your argument?

 

What these numbers show is that even the greatest player of All-Time can't get it done on his own and that he had to go through hardships early in his career to become the player that we all remember. Yeah, I completely agree that Pippen was an integral piece to those Bulls team, but just throwing out these stats doesn't tell the story, esepcially when you consider that it was Jordan, Oakley and thats basically it going up against two of the best teams in NBA history in the Bird led Cetlics and the Bad Boy Pistons.

 

These stats, while easy to throw out there, don't hold much weight as far as I am concerned.

 

Anyways, all of this talk about what Pippen did and/or could've done without Jordan doesn't change the fact that a healthy Grant Hill would have a greater legacy than a 1st option Piston. Nobody is denying that Pippen would've been a great player and did great things regardless of Jordan, but a healthy Grant Hill would've been a greater player and did greater things.

[Real Deal]

Funny that you mention that, Sean, because since Jordan was drafted up until his first championship, it was the Celtics OR the Pistons that made the Finals in the East...and no other team.

 

In fact, from Boston's championship in 1981, to Detroit's victory in 1990, there were only two years neither of those teams ended up in the NBA Finals.

 

And, well, Boston and Detroit were responsible for five championships that decade (well, plus 1990, haha).

 

Now, we saw what Boston did with Larry Bird...but here's my beef with all of this: when Jordan and the Bulls won six championships in the 90's, and there was all that mention of Scottie Pippen, where do we start bringing up Kevin McHale, who is a top five power forward of all-time? If we're going to look at Pippen in that light, we might want to do the same with McHale, and start rating him a better power forward than Charles Barkley and Karl Malone because, well, Malone didn't do anything without Stockton, and Barkley couldn't even get to the Finals without Kevin Johnson.

 

See, there's no reason to look at it that way. Phil Jackson, Tex Winter and the triangle offense turned role players into all-stars, or potential all-stars. BJ Armstrong is one of them. Odom is a borderline all-star as a starting four. Andrew Bynum will make the all-star team next season, more than likely.

 

But here's the thing: Jordan and Pippen didn't win anything without Phil Jackson. Doug Collins couldn't pull the team together, and Phil jumped in and applied the offense, started Pippen every game as the point-forward, lessened Jordan's facilitating and gave Jordan the green light to run options out of the reverse triangle, and it took just two seasons to bring home the first of three consecutive.

 

Same thing happened in Los Angeles, ironically. Kobe and Shaq, under Del Harris, struggling to find their way to the Finals, and Phil came in for the 1999-00 season, applied the triangle, ran the triangle through Shaq and Kobe, and it took just one season to bring home the first of, yep, three consecutive.

 

Fast-forward to Kobe and Gasol...but you know that story.

 

I can claim that Penny Hardaway would've been one of the greats, also, seeing that he was 38-21 in the starting five (on pace to win 54-55 games or so, pre-injury) when Shaq left Orlando, and all he had was Rony Seikaly...but if I were to do that, I'd almost have to downgrade what Shaq did in 1995, when the Magic won 57 games and got to the Finals.

 

Pippen had it made. He didn't have to take that final shot. He didn't always have to defend the best player (Jordan was arguably a better defender). He didn't always have to score 25 (and Pippen never averaged that many points, unlike Bryant did while Shaq was averaging 30). Pippen didn't have to lead. He didn't have to be the lone all-star.

 

But Grant Hill didn't have Michael Jordan to draw attention away from him. He didn't have the luxury of preserving energy when he needed to. He had to score the most points on his team. He had to play the best defense. He had to run the offense and set everyone up for their shots.

 

Yet, funny thing is, he still shot an amazing percentage from the field and was still able to pull down the boards, throw the assists, score the points and even manage to throw nearly the same amount of turnovers to worse teammates.

 

Jordan and Grant Hill would've been the duo to sweep a couple of teams in the NBA Finals, and truthfully, I really don't think Jordan would've retired in 1993 if it was Grant, and I really don't think he would've retired in 1998, either.