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| This photo was taken from a Bulls game I attended in 2012. |
Periodically I will write sports-themed posts, although these are intentionally few and far in between. I do so because I still occasionally catch up with friends where the sports scene is one of our regular conversations. I've had on my heart to witness to them, especially one in particular. There is no shortage of stories to provide opportunity for me to combine sports with faith. Today I have another one for the reader:
As you may already know, I grew up a Chicago Bulls fan and started following the team right during the middle of their championship era in the 1990s. As a child, I found sports to be a great diversion from the challenges of life, and the fact that the Bulls were winning championships made it that much easier to tune in and enjoy this aspect of life.
As the years went by, and as the NBA saw players of that generation retire and a new generation of players rise up, one debate that began to intensify regards the question of the greatest basketball player of all time. In this post from 2019 (copied and pasted from an email to a couple sports friends in 2017, which ended up revitalizing our group friend-ship which had gone dormant by that time), I did my own in-depth analysis of different players I thought who could be the greatest of all time, narrowed it down to three, and crowned my champion. I resisted the urge to outright declare Michael Jordan the winner because I knew I was biased. Of course MJ's the G.O.A.T.! ...Right? But in my analysis, I decided to give Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the edge. (LeBron James came in third in my rankings.)
First, an admission of a mistake: in that post I called MJ a jerk. In fact, in the original email to my friends I called him something worse and then toned down the adjective to make it more family-friendly for the blog. Then again, a lot of people (former teammates) have called him a jerk or something similar. But I admit calling Jordan this name as a mistake because at the time I didn't have the proper data on which to base my claim. I thought I did. But I didn't.
Jordan himself has long been aware of other people calling him names, especially regarding how he treated some of his teammates (and opponents). And in The Last Dance (which I've seen clips of but not the entire thing), he addresses these statements. One thing that Jordan said in response that stood out to me was that, in his challenging his teammates, even to what some may call extreme lengths, he never asked them to do anything that he wouldn't have done himself.
I need to highlight that because I respect the heck out of him for it. Admittedly, if I had been one of the Bulls players in the 90s and I was subjected to that, of course I would hate it. Of course I would be ticked off at him. But as an outsider - as a fan, even - I've come to realize that if someone were to get on my case about something, as long as it was something that they too would put themselves through, I would respect that. (Mostly because hypocrisy is one of my biggest pet peeves, if not the biggest.)
This brings me to Scottie Pippen. From my flesh, my opinion of Pippen has dropped precipitously over the last four years. From my spirit, my heart breaks for him. As I embark on this part of my post, I will say that I am late to the party on chiming in. The recent No Bull Tour, although apparently it has turned out to be a lot better and nicer than originally perceived, still didn't sit right with me.
It didn't sit right with me because of all the slander Pippen has thrown at Jordan over the last four years, since the The Last Dance documentary came out. It first became evident when Pippen's book, Unguarded, was released, containing what apparently are his true thoughts, opinions, emotions toward his co-star both now and apparently also when they played together. In his book, and in subsequent interviews, Pippen has referred to Jordan as a "horrible player" (obviously untrue for anyone who knows the game of basketball), saying, "It was all 1-on-1, shooting bad shots, and all of a sudden, we become a team and we start winning. Everybody forgot who he was." (TheGrio Staff, Yahoo! News, May 31, 2023)
It's safe to say that, in my flesh, I've lost a lot of respect for Pippen. This was a guy who wound up in a stupid spat with Shaquille O'neal back in 2015, and I took Pippen's side because I thought O'neal was being a bully! (He kinda was...) But, looking at both men now, while O'neal is busy with a successful second career on the sports show "Inside The NBA" and being a philanthropist otherwise, Pippen is still stewing, harboring bitterness. Although I remain a Bulls fan and would put the 1990s Bulls above O'neal's teams anytime (as a fan), I have a much higher respect for O'neal as a person by comparison.
In my spirit, I'm praying for Pippen to stop the bitterness. Other commentators have also noted that his tirade over the last several years is rooted in jealousy, which I also agree with. His relationship with Jordan is already permanently damaged, due to an admission that he intentionally didn't offer condolences to his teammate after his father was brutally murdered. (I think Jordan had long assumed it was an oversight and brushed off any possible issue he might've taken from it.)
The other thing about it is that Jordan was intentional from the beginning about trying to patch things up with Pippen once he got word of his co-star's unhappiness. Every potential issue that Pippen could have had with how Jordan portrayed him in The Last Dance was dealt with in a private conversation (presumably over the phone).
By contrast, Pippen appears to be intentional about trying to hurt his former teammate. Maybe he always felt this way. Still, I've had spats with teammates myself (in my own world) and have also had to learn about intentionality and taking the necessary steps to own my part if there's anything amiss in the relationship. I've had people in my life where I felt a certain way toward them, perhaps not too differently from how Pippen felt toward MJ.
I could go on, but the bottom line is, they're both lost without Jesus. The Bible makes it clear that bitterness and unforgiveness are sins.
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. Ephesians 4:31, NKJV
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6:14-15, NKJV
Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18, NKJV
Hell is still real, unfortunately. It's where you'll end up if you don't repent of your unforgiveness, bitterness, pride, wrath, etc. But Jesus still loves you:
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Matthew 9:13, NKJV
Even today, Jesus's invitation is still open, His invitation to forgive you your sins and welcome you into the kingdom of heaven. So what's Scottie Pippen waiting for? And you, the reader, what are you waiting for?
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