Chicago Bulls: 15 best scorers in franchise history
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Scottie Pippen. 3. player. 24. . Small forward. 1997-98/2003-04
Despite playing next to arguably the greatest player the NBA has ever seen, Scottie Pippen still found ways to produce on the offensive end.
An über-athletic forward with long arms, Scottie was an enormous threat in transition, able to glide through the air for layups or simply go through and jam on whoever was in his way.
As more of a point forward, a lot of Pippen’s points came out of pick-and-roll sets, either stopping on a dime at the elbow or taking it all the way to the bucket for layups or free throws.
Early on in his career, Pippen was not a good outside shooter. Towards the latter half of his time with the Bulls he improved tremendously. He converted on 35.1 percent of his looks from 3-point land over his last four seasons in Chicago, which really opened up the rest of the floor and created more space for what he did best.
In 12 seasons donning the red and white, Pippen averaged 17.7 points per game, a solid number, but even better when considering most of the shot totals went to Michael Jordan. During MJ’s year and a half hiatus from basketball, Pippen showed what he could do, upping his scoring average to 21.7 a night. This was an indicator that Air Jordan may have held him back some in that sense.
When thinking about Pippen, most people tend to remember his defensive prowess or his Robin to Jordan’s Batman, but he was an underrated lethal scoring threat. It certainly would’ve been an interesting sight to see what how he would’ve handled more of the scoring load from the beginning of his career on rather than only a sliver of his prime.