Finally, one of the Chicago Bulls‘ former stars have responded to Kenny Smith. During a radio appearance, Smith stated his belief that even if Michael Jordan wasn’t out of the league in 1994, the Houston Rockets were better than Chicago. Houston won a title in 1994 by beating the New York Knicks in the Finals in seven games.
It was a bold statement for Smith to make, as Chicago was coming off of a three-peat and was still really good even though Jordan was out of the league. The Bulls went 55-27 and were led by Scottie Pippen, who was fantastic – 22 points, 8.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 2.9 steals per game.
Fortunately for hoops fans, Pippen got the chance to respond to this assertions on The Jump on Tuesday. What follows is a clip of Scottie Pippen basically calling out Kenny Smith. He points at the camera and everything. It rules.
From #TheJump: We ❤️ @TheJetonTNT, but @ScottiePippen doesn't agree with him: "He forgot what my role was, I cut the heads off of snakes.” pic.twitter.com/uexGbe3Sze
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) May 23, 2017
“He forgot what my role was,” Pippen says. “I cut the head off of snakes. And I’m calling him the snake of that team.”
Pippen made it a point to clarify that he loves Smith and that “snake” in this context means more “point guard” than, you know, what people usually mean when they call someone a snake.
Pippen’s larger point was that the Rockets’ success hinged on getting the ball to Hakeem Olajuwon – who was in his prime at this time and may have been the best player in the league with Jordan on his baseball sabbatical – and that his ability to shut people down would have made it difficult for Smith to do this. To take things a step further, Pippen said if they were still getting the ball into Olajuwon, he might have needed to guard the big man.
Further complication matters, Jordan was just as good as Pippen was at completely shutting people down on defense when he was locked in, which could have made life hell on the Rockets’ backcourt.
This is a legitimately fascinating debate. The fact that one team was able to take advantage of Jordan’s sabbatical in the form of two championships means the Rockets could make the argument that they would have beaten the Bulls with Jordan. We’ll never know what would have happened, obviously, but this is a “What If?” that would have been answered if only the best basketball player of all-time never decided to play baseball.
