The Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in a rough spot right now. The team is down, 2-0, in the Eastern Conference Semifinal series against the Miami Heat, and while Game 2 ended under strange circumstances, the Heat have all the momentum. Because this is happening in 2020, takes are abound, including one from Richard Jefferson that drew the ire of a Hall of Fame inductee.
In the aftermath of Game 2, Jefferson suggested that Giannis Antetokounmpo is more Scottie Pippen than Michael Jordan. As such, Jefferson believes that Giannis needs to team up with an alpha dog who can fill the Jordan role.
Giannis might be a Pippen…. there I said it! He needs his Jordan. pic.twitter.com/L89DG9JjHD
— Richard Jefferson (@Rjeff24) September 3, 2020
Now, Pippen is one of the best players to ever live, so being Scottie Pippen should, in theory, be a compliment. That changes a bit, though, whenever it is mentioned in the same sentence as Jordan, as the implication becomes that a player is not good enough to win on their own and needs someone better to get to the promised land.
There’s also the fact that Pippen has a Twitter account, saw this, and provided both a pretty reasonable response that also took a swipe at Jefferson’s game.
I’m not Giannis—I don’t have back-to-back league MVPs (he will in a matter of days)—and he’s not me. The question is… who were you as a player? https://t.co/Ce6tGU98s3
— Scottie Pippen (@ScottiePippen) September 3, 2020
Jefferson, to his credit, took this in stride.
Scott Burrell … facts! https://t.co/LQnyDdVk4h
— Richard Jefferson (@Rjeff24) September 3, 2020
As we saw during The Last Dance, if there is one thing you could always count on with the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, it was that somehow, someway, a joke was going to be made at the expense of Scott Burrell.