With a new book on the NBA’s Top 75, some old wounds were going to be pried open. Especially when it’s authored by Phil Jackson and Sam Smith, two people who were very close to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Well, mostly Jordan. The former Bulls coach and the author of the Jordan Rules can speak for him a little bit about MJ’s regrets regarding Pip. That friendship is a lot different from what it was during the Bulls dynasty. There was a deeply personal incident that even showed Jordan’s concern for Pippen.

Jackson and Smith authored a book, Masters of the Game: A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players, on the players named to the NBA’s 75th anniversary team in 2021, including Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Nowadays, Pippen’s relationship with his former coach is just as complicated, which he addressed on Dan Patrick’s show.

Jackson stated he had a lot of admiration for Scottie’s defensive skills. When Phil needed a defensive play, Pip was his go-to guy. “He was the on-court guy that I alerted all the time when defensive strategies would come: double teams, traps, etc. Whistle. ‘Hey, Scotty, it’s time,’ whatever.”

It didn’t look like it during the 1994 Game 3 against the New York Knicks. Michael Jordan had gone off to play baseball, and the Bulls had a new Jerry Krause-chosen player, Toni Kukoc. The game was tied, and there were 1.8 seconds left on the clock. Phil drew up a play… around Kukoc. Scottie was supposed to be the inbounder. For Pippen, who had defaulted to playing leader without MJ, this was a blow to his pride.

New fans relived it on The Last Dance. He refused to enter the game, shocking even his teammates. Kukoc drained that shot but the Knicks won the game. Yet Scottie Pippen’s behavior stole the headlines. Three decades later, Jackson told Dan, “It was shocking to hear the comments that he made, but he had a situation that was coming off the bench, not being able to play the last few seconds of a basketball game. That was critical, and it made a big change in his life.”

The Bulls locker room was just as tense, and Pippen’s teammates were upset with him. A lesser-known aspect about the aftermath was that Jordan didn’t reach out to Pippen, but to his former coach. “Michael called the next day from baseball and said, ‘I don’t know, Scottie, he’ll ever be able to live this down.’ And I think it’s been a hard thing to live down, you know, refusing to go in a ball game because things didn’t go your way.”

Jordan was right. In his own 2021 memoir, Pippen expressed regret over that behavior yet stood by his actions. And that’s not the only regret going around.

Michael Jordan’s true feelings about Scottie Pippen fallout

His depiction in this playoff game, the migraine game, his friction with Toni Kukoc, fight for better pay, and other incidents on The Last Dance soured Scottie Pippen’s friendship with the Netflix series’ producer, Michael Jordan. In summary, the 6x champion felt MJ displayed similar selfishness as he did during their time as teammates.

They had a public fallout where Pippen went from talking negatively about Jordan to not wanting to be put in the same conversation as him. Pip’s feelings are well known. But what about Jordan’s?

Sam Smith revealed, “When some of those things came out, and we talked about this in the book, that Phil had asked Michael about that, and Michael really expressed regret. I thought it was really poignant that Michael told Phil that he feels terrible about losing the relationship with Scotty. You know, a 20-25-year relationship that was closer than a lot of people thought. And so, you know, it struck me as really poignant that Michael felt a loss about this.”

If Mike Tirico deviated from basketball and questioned Jordan about Pippen on MJ’s Insights to Excellence, that would be a blockbuster. But this would be a shocker coming from His Airness himself.