“What’s up dude? I’m getting word that you’re upset with me” – Scottie Pippen said Michael Jordan tried to clear the air over their shattered relationship originally appeared on Basketball Network.
On May 19, 2020, Scottie Pippen looked down at his phone after hearing a ring. He received a text message from Michael Jordan.
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It was short and polite, written without much fanfare. The two men had known each other for decades, had won six championships together and had built one of the most successful dynasties in NBA history.
But in that moment, the relationship between them had started to slip.
“May 19, 2020, 6:31 pm. The text was from Michael. He didn’t reach out very often,” Pippen wrote in his memoir “Unguarded.” “What’s up dude? I’m getting word that you’re upset with me. Love to talk about it if you have time.”
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The text came just two days after ESPN aired the final episodes of “The Last Dance,” the 10-part documentary series chronicling the 1997–98 Chicago Bulls. The project had drawn massive attention during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, with tens of millions of viewers tuning in around the world.
On the surface, it was presented as a behind-the-scenes look at the Bulls’ final championship run, but for Pippen, it felt like something else entirely.
“Michael was right. I was upset with him,” Pippen wrote. “It was because of The Last Dance, the ten-part ESPN documentary about the Chicago Bulls’ final championship season (1997–98), which millions of people watched during the early weeks of the pandemic.”
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He felt the story left out key voices
Pippen wasn’t only bothered by how he came across in one or two moments. His frustration went deeper than that. Across 10 hours of footage, he felt that the series leaned heavily into the greatness of Michael Jordan and offered little balance when it came to the rest of the team.
Pippen knew what those years had cost him. He had played through injuries, taken less money to keep the roster together and done the quiet, unglamorous work that helped the Bulls win games. In his view, that part of the story didn’t get told.
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“The final two episodes aired on May 17. Similar to the previous eight, they glorified Michael Jordan while not giving nearly enough praise to me and my proud teammates,” Pippen wrote. “Michael deserved a large portion of the blame. The producers had granted him editorial control of the final product. The doc couldn’t have been released otherwise.”
The documentary used hours of behind-the-scenes footage that had been filmed during the Bulls’ final run.
But the footage had remained sealed for years, and according to multiple reports, it only moved forward after Jordan gave his approval. That decision gave him leverage over how the story would be shaped. Pippen believed that influence was felt in every episode.
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From the way moments were framed to the interviews that made the final cut, the spotlight rarely drifted far from Jordan’s side of the story.
Friendship shaped by highs — and tension
Pippen’s reaction wasn’t loud or public at first. The message from Jordan shows that even he had heard the frustration was there, but it hadn’t been addressed directly.
The relationship between them was complicated. They had shared historic highs, locker room battles, championship pressure and years of media attention. But they were also different people with different priorities. And when The Last Dance arrived with Jordan’s fingerprints all over it, those differences started to show in a new way.
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Even now, years after the series aired, the tension between Pippen and Jordan still draws attention.
Fans remember the glory years, but the dynamic behind them was always complicated. There was respect, but also moments of resentment. There was trust on the court, but not always off of it. And once the cameras started rolling on a documentary that claimed to tell the full story, Pippen felt the truth got filtered through the wrong lens.
Jordan’s text simply asked if there was an issue and offered to talk. Pippen didn’t want to talk about it right away. But he made it clear in his book how he felt.
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The documentary might have brought back memories for a lot of fans, but for him, it brought back a reminder of how easily history can be written from just one seat at the table.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared.