Hated rivals of Chicago Bulls legend Scottie Pippen: Xavier McDaniel
Although there was only one season where Pippen was a member of the Bulls, and 6-foot-7 and 205-pound forward Xavier McDaniel was with the New York Knicks, a severe rivalry formed fast. McDaniel commonly picked on Pippen throughout the 1991-92 season, just as the Bulls were starting to form the first part of their dynasty in the 1990s.
McDaniel was a good player himself but wasn’t on the level of Pippen. And McDaniel saw the opportunity to pick on Pippen a bit in the early 1990s before the Bulls’ great was really able to defend himself at a decent level.
This problem between McDaniel and Pippen would actually boil over into something that resulted in Jordan getting involved in the 1992 playoffs. When the Bulls and Knicks were facing each other in the second round of the playoffs during the 1991-92 season. And in the midst of what would be a hard-fought seven-game series McDaniel kept trying to pick at Pippen.
Jordan would jump in and get in McDaniels’ face, something that would result in a double technical.
This is a series that the Bulls would eventually win. And that was largely thanks to a great series from both Jordan and Pippen. The two would lead the Bulls to their second of six titles during the 1990s dynasty years.
McDaniel was close with Hall-of-Fame center Patrick Ewing during his brief time with the Knicks. And he beefed with pretty much every other big star during his playing days in the NBA it seemed. That tended to include both Jordan and Pippen. He embodied some of the harder-fought rivalry games during the 1990s between the Bulls and Knicks.