“Scottie can make your other players better. Kemp can’t” – When Michael Jordan supported a Scottie Pippen for Shawn Kemp trade originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Scottie Pippen and the Chicago Bulls weren’t on the same page in 1994. Pip grew jealous of Toni Kukoc, especially after Phil Jackson designed a game-winning play for the Croatian instead of him.
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Bulls general manager Jerry Krause had to find a way to solve this growing dilemma. Given his growing admiration for Kukoc, Krause thought of shipping Pippen to the Seattle Supersonics for Shawn Kemp, Ricky Pierce, and a first pick.
The proposal made Sonics coach George Karl salivate. In the season without Michael Jordan, Scottie led his team in all five main categories — rebounds, scoring, blocks, steals, and assists. There was nothing he couldn’t do.
GOAT defensive duo?
At that time, Karl had been coaching Kemp for four years and knew how great a person and player he was. It would be difficult to let the forward go. Still, Karl could not shake off the defensive possibilities of the Payton and Pippen duo.
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“When I tried to imagine the Sonics without Shawn, I knew I’d miss him, but I got pretty excited picturing Gary and Scottie teaming up on a trap; they’d smother opposing guards. But every trade prompts a debate. I was in favor of this one, but I wasn’t sure,” Karl wrote in his autobiography, “Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection.”
Unsure about the trade, the head coach approached Jordan, who was no longer affiliated with the Bulls and was busy playing baseball. In an interesting turn of events, MJ told Karl to lock in the trade that would send Pippen to the Sonics.
“So I called Michael,” Karl continued. “We talked about minor-league baseball, North Carolina basketball, and golf. Then we talked about the big deal on the table. Should we do this?”
“Do it,” he said. “Scottie can make your other players better. Kemp can’t.”
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A major ruckus
With Jordan’s green light, Karl reached out to the Bulls front office and said yes. His fantasies of Pippen and Payton shutting down offenses were about to come true. But word got out and spread like wildfire. It seemed that the Sonics organization was not in sync with its fans.
“News of the trade immediately leaked out and onto the KJR airwaves,” the Sonics coach wrote. “More anger from the callers, a lot more; our fans loved Shawn. Again, Ackerley listened. That afternoon, he called our draft headquarters in the Sonics locker room. It doesn’t feel right, he told Wally. Better wait. I had the unpleasant job of calling Krause, who was not happy.”
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Krause didn’t care about the ruckus. He told the Sonics he would not demand their number one pick and offered money. However, Sonics owner Barry Ackerley seemed anxious about the possible consequences of letting a fan favorite go.
“Literally minutes before the draft started, Ackerley backed us out of the deal,” Karl wrote. “When I delivered the bad news, Krause dropped f-bombs and called me names. We’d keep Kemp, they’d keep Pippen.”
The trade would’ve altered the championship landscape. After all, two years later, the two teams met in the 1996 NBA Finals. If the trade pushed through, Payton and Pippen would have been hounding Jordan all series long, which could’ve led to the Sonics’ second NBA title in franchise history.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 29, 2025, where it first appeared.