Wayback Wednesday: That Weird Second Bulls Run for Scottie Pippen

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at Scottie Pippen ending his career with a weird second run with the Bulls in 2003-2004.

While Scottie Pippen is technically still one of my all-time favourite players, I’ll admit that I’ve soured on him since he went off the deep end. Indeed, I stopped following him on social media when he started going after Michael Jordan – who has always given him credit – with some utterly ridiculous takes. As much as I can sympathise with him taking exception to certain parts of The Last Dance documentary, I’d suggest that his unhinged behaviour ironically proved that it wasn’t entirely inaccurate in its portrayal of his mercurial temperament.

Nevertheless, he is undoubtedly an all-time great, traditionally a favourite of mine, and a memorable stand-in for His Airness in so many basketball video games back in the 90s. Even though he departed the team in the wake of the second threepeat, Pip’s importance to the champion Bulls and prominence in so many highlight packages means that we hoop heads will always associate him with Chicago. However, it’s easy to forget that Scottie Pippen actually ended his career with a weird second run with the Bulls. Let’s take a look back…way back…

During the 1998 season, it was no secret that it would be the final run for Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and the Chicago Bulls. Long before the documentary was released, Phil Jackson had already called it “The Last Dance”; something that fans were well aware of, along with all the chatter about management wanting to move on. Even so, as a young fan still coming to grips with the idea of his favourite team no longer being atop the league, I held out hope that the lockout might change some minds and give the defending champions a reprieve. It wasn’t to be, and with MJ retiring, several other core players scattered to the winds, including Scottie Pippen.

I still remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I logged onto NBA.com and saw the news ticker state “Houston, we have a very Bullish deal”. Sure enough, the Bulls had agreed to trade Scottie Pippen to the Rockets for Roy Rogers and a second round pick in 2000 that became Jake Voskhul. Not only was I bummed about the breakup of the champion Bulls, but it seemed like a ridiculously low return for Scottie Pippen, banged up and aging as he was. When NBA Action showed footage of him in those Rockets pinstripe jerseys – a uniform I otherwise do quite like – it didn’t feel real. Wizards MJ was even weirder of course, but Rockets Pip was still surreal.

Because Pip only spent a year in Houston, clips of him playing for the Rockets are still a weird sight to me. Interestingly, I got used to him playing for the Portland Trail Blazers. It’s most likely a combination of his short Rockets stint being a bigger shock and thus preparing me to see him in another jersey, and his Blazers stint lasting longer and yielding slightly more success. It still doesn’t look quite right, but he doesn’t feel as out of place. Indeed, after acclimating to the sight of Pippen in Portland in real life and on the virtual hardwood alike, in a way his return to the Bulls ahead of the 2004 season actually feels almost as strange as those runs with the Rockets and Blazers!

On July 20th 2003, Scottie Pippen signed with the Bulls, officially beginning his second run with the team. His former teammate John Paxson – then Chicago’s GM – played a large role in orchestrating the reunion, but Pippen had apparently been open to a farewell tour. With that being said, the signing wasn’t just for nostalgic purposes. Both Pip and the Bulls were hoping that he could make a difference on the court in addition to providing veteran leadership on a young, rebuilding squad. To that end, the Bulls actually signed Scottie Pippen to a two-year $10 million contract, again underscoring the mutual desire for Pip to play a significant role in a transitional era.

Although this may seem like wishful thinking in hindsight, it was an understandable move in 2003. Beyond the goodwill of bringing Pip back and atoning for the rather acrimonious split in the wake of The Last Dance, he’d been solid for the Blazers the year before. Sure, 10.8 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 4.5 apg, and 1.6 spg in around 30 mpg weren’t eye-popping numbers on par with his best seasons, and at 38 he wasn’t the athlete he was in his prime. At the same time, his numbers Per 36 were about on par with his 2000 season – the year he helped the Blazers to the Western Conference Finals – and it did seem like he had something left in the tank; enough for a supporting role, anyway.

And so, as the 2004 season loomed, we were treated to the extremely weird sight of a Media Day photo in which Scottie Pippen is standing with his Bulls teammates Jalen Rose, Eddy Curry, and Tyson Chandler. Of course, we were fresh off two seasons of Michael Jordan playing for the Wizards, and Karl Malone and Gary Payton had just signed with the Los Angeles Lakers. We’d also witnessed Patrick Ewing playing for the Seattle Supersonics and Orlando Magic, and Hakeem Olajuwon suiting up for the Toronto Raptors. As such, it could be argued that we were growing accustomed to seeing future Hall of Famers in situations that we once would’ve never predicted!

Naturally, Pip’s return to Chicago was reflected on the virtual hardwood. Oddly, NBA Live 2004’s default roster listed him as a shooting guard, presumably to accommodate Jalen Rose as the team’s starting small forward. Admittedly Pip was sometimes listed as a guard/forward, and Rose did float between point guard, shooting guard, and small forward during his career, but it was still a questionable call given that Pip had been the prototypical three of the 90s. ESPN NBA Basketball kept Pip as a small forward and switched Rose to shooting guard, which was the more sensible listing. Mind you, in real life Rose was traded to the Raptors in December, ending any potential logjam.

As weird as that second Bulls run for Scottie Pippen was – especially when he donned the Bulls’ throwback script jersey that Michael Jordan once wore, but he never did – I was still happy to see it. It definitely made the Bulls far more fun to play with again, even with his decline resulting in lower ratings than he’d boasted in his prime. While trading Jalen Rose, Marcus Fizer, and Roger Mason Jr. for Kevin Garnett was the key to my NBA Live 2004 Bulls Dynasty being one of my most memorable basketball gaming experiences, it certainly didn’t hurt to have Scottie Pippen on the roster. After capturing his seventh and eighth NBA championships, I was able to retire his jersey.

Sadly, Pip’s return didn’t go so splendidly in real life. Not only did he not win another ring – let alone two – but his streak of Playoff appearances came to an end. In fact, as the Bulls were struggling to a 23-59 finish, Pip was inactive due to his persistent knee problems. He appeared in just 23 games – starting in six – and posted averages of 5.9 ppg, 3 rpg, 2.2 apg, and just under a steal per game while playing 18 minutes a night; his lowest numbers since his rookie year. His final appearance was in a loss to Seattle – the team that drafted him, as well as the Bulls’ NBA Finals opponent in 1996 – on February 2nd, 2004. He had two points, a rebound, and three assists in eight minutes.

Suffice it to say that it wasn’t the successful season or memorable farewell tour that Scottie Pippen, the team, or any of us Bulls fans were hoping for. What’s sometimes forgotten is that while Pip played his final NBA game in February 2004, his career didn’t officially come to an end until he announced his retirement in October. This meant that he was still an active Bull as the 2005 season video games were being developed and their rosters finalised. As a result, Pip can play alongside rookies Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, and Andres Nocioni using the default rosters in NBA Live 2005 and ESPN NBA 2K5. A healthy Pippen on the 2005 Bulls is an intriguing “What If”!

There are many factors that make that second Bulls run for Scottie Pippen feel rather weird. First of all, as I said, in time I grew accustomed to seeing him play elsewhere, so his return was a departure from the new normal. Second, although it isn’t unheard of for star players to return to play for their former clubs – I’ve discussed a number of examples of familiar faces back in familiar places – it’s still unusual. On top of that, Pip’s bitter departure in 1999 made a return to the Bulls seem highly unlikely – even unthinkable – until the opportunity for a reunion arose. And of course, there’s seeing him playing alongside Bulls that we don’t think of as “teammates of Scottie Pippen”.

That’s arguably the strangest part of Pip’s second run with the Bulls. After all, he was from a previous era that was now part of history; not this new era of rebuilding that led to the Baby Bulls. We picture him playing alongside Bill Cartwright, not being briefly coached by him. We naturally think of Scottie Pippen being a monster on the wings in tandem with Michael Jordan, not Jalen Rose. It’s easy to forget that thanks to this return stint, Pippen played with Jamal Crawford, Kirk Hinrich, Marcus Fizer, and Eddie Robinson in a Chicago uniform! Again, he almost played with Ben Gordon and Luol Deng, too. It doesn’t feel as though those two eras should overlap, but they do.

Surprising as it may seem, I do enjoy that such a bizarre scenario came to be. On top of giving us some weirdly fun Bulls teams to play with in video games, that second run was a welcome way for Scottie Pippen to bookend his career. Granted, between his health and a young roster with more potential than talent, it wasn’t a success by the numbers. It did allow him to retire a Bull though, and was arguably a better send-off than being traded for peanuts. As for the virtual hardwood, Pip’s return undoubtedly worked out much better there, and kept him in games as a Legend. Yes, it was weird and bittersweet, but given his sad tirades as of late, maybe it was on-brand all along.