12 People who turned their backs on the Bulls

1. Scottie Pippen

Scottie Pippen is easily regarded as the second-best Bulls players in the history of their franchise. And he'd be first, if the Bulls didn't have arguably the greatest player in the history of the league.

Pippen is a legend, simple and plain. He's one of the few second options in the history of the league who is viewed as one of the game's all-time greats.

But he struggled to accept that he wasn't better than Michael Jordan. Hell, we're still hearing about it all these years later, as he's bashed Jordan to the point of no return.

Pippen joined Stacey King's Gimme the Hot Sauce podcast and said the following about Jordan.

"I've seen Michael Jordan play before I came to the Bulls. You guys have seen him play. He was a horrible player...He was horrible to play with. It was all 1-on-1, shooting bad shots."

Pippen didn't stop there.

"All of a sudden, we become a team and we start winning, everybody forgot who he was. He was a player that, really, winning wasn't at the top of his category. It was scoring. He was going after scoring titles. It wasn't until Phil Jackson showed up that kind of changed the menu a little bit."

Pippen had his opportunity to run the show during Jordan's retirement and he proved just how much he (and the Bulls) needed Jordan. Sure, the Bulls won 55 games and he was named First-Team All-NBA, but his poor attitude was on display without Jordan to keep him in line.

In the Bulls' postseason series against the New York Knicks in 1994, Pippen turned his back on his own team by intentionally subbing himself out of the game with 1.8 ticks remaining. Bulls coach Phil Jackson decided to throw the defense off and have Pippen make the inbounds pass, with Toni Kukoc getting the final shot.

Pippen wasn't mature enough to see pass the fact that he wasn't going to be the hero for that specific situation, as he explained on ESPN's The Last Dance.

“I felt like it was an insult coming from Phil. I was the most dangerous guy on our team. Why are you asking me to take the ball out?”

Kukoc made the shot anyway, further proving Jackson right about the call.