Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan made for one of the best (if not the best) duos in NBA history as they led the Bulls to six championships in the ’90s, but there was no debate over which player was the leader of those Chicago teams, not even among the two stars. Michael Jordan was the man, and Pippen knew it and accepted it.
Even today, Pippen doesn’t try to act as though he was something other than the Robin to Jordan’s Batman, he just happened to be the best Robin there may have ever been. So, on Wednesday during an appearance on The Jump with Rachel Nichols on ESPN, when the conversation turned to “the clutch gene” and wanting the final shot in a game, Pippen wasn’t afraid to admit that he never worried about the final shot so long as Michael was around and said he doesn’t possess the “clutch gene” because of MJ.
From #TheJump: The time when Scottie Pippen said "I'm not afraid to say it, I don't have a clutch gene," and T-Mac asked him about the 1.8 😂 pic.twitter.com/XKahDdCgru
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) May 24, 2017
While McGrady waxed poetic about the desire to want the last shot, Pippen straight up said he didn’t have the clutch gene and the reason was that Jordan took all the clutch genes. It was a funny quote, but also an honest introspective look into Pippen and what kind of mentality he had to take playing alongside Michael.
McGrady even tried his best to go to bat for Pippen, explaining that it wasn’t that he shied away from the moment or was afraid, but that he simply understood that the best option was for Michael to be in those spots. The example of Kukoc in New York was pretty funny, and Pippen, Paul Pierce, and T-Mac all had a good laugh, with Pippen explaining that was further evidence that he just had all the clutch genes taken out of him.
The context for the conversation was with regards to Kyrie Irving and LeBron James, who play alongside each other but have each shown the ability to take over late and make clutch baskets. To this point, the two seem to understand that the best way to work together isn’t through a Pippen-Jordan scenario, in which LeBron always takes over late, but to go with more of a trade-off approach, with whoever has the hot hand in a particular game carrying the torch. That’s worked for the past two years, so there’s no reason to think they can’t continue to succeed with that strategy.
