I think Pippen is borderline top 15 material. EASILY the best second-best player ever. And that is by no means any kind of backhanded compliment. Anyone who says "He wasn't any good without Jordan" should really take some time to study those great Bulls teams... if you do, you'll see that Pippen was as destructively versatile defensively as Michael was offensively.
As much as people love to call LeBron "capable of defending four positions" -- Pippen was the mold for that kind of player, and if you watched any sample of 2-3 Bulls games from the 90s, you will legitimately see Pippen matched up against every position from 1-4. Not just occasionally switching defensively onto a much bigger or smaller guy, but actually matched up with the guys for extended stretches. Seriously, Pippen in his prime could guard literally any player in the NBA today. From Chris Paul to Dwight Howard, Pippen could guard any of these guys. Maybe not shut every last one of them down, but he would be able to make anybody today work hard as hell to get their contributions in. And along with that, he's also going to give you 18-20ppg with 6 boards and 6 assists on 50% shooting.
Honestly, I kind of have a hard time imagining Pippen NOT being in the discussion for the best player in the league today if he was in his prime. Unless you have a thing against fantastic stat lines and all of the small things.
|