No Scottie, No MJ

I'm a bit late on this, but Bill Simmons had an excellent article earlier this week on the retirement of Scottie Pippen. I've been as perplexed as Simmons as to why Pippen's retirement is such a non-story. Simmons claims the man is one of the top 20 all-time players in the NBA. I'm not going to get into ranking historical players, and that does seem a bit high, but the fact is that Scottie will likely slink into the sunset without ever receiving his just desserts in terms of notoriety.

And of course we all know why. The Sports Reporters as Deifiers phenomenon guarantees it. The reporters handbook states that there shall be one god above all other gods and please brush aside the fact that this is a team game. See also Tom Brady and Joe Montana. But Simmons persuasively argues that without Pippen, MJ wouldn't have won any of those titles, and then who knows what we'd be saying about him today (worst GM ever?).

But there are a couple eyebrow-raisers in the article, too. Such as this quote:

And when the 1998 Pacers tried to snuff out the MJ era, Jordan and Pippen crashed the boards and willed themselves time and again to the foul line in Game 7, two smaller guys dominating the paint against a bigger team. They just wanted it more.

"They just wanted it more" is one of the most meaningless cliches in sport, of course, but that whole "willed themselves to the foul line" bit is the real eye-roller here. Especially coming from the same guy who, in his brilliant NBA preview (seriously--those two-part columns he does every year are something to behold) this very week, wrote about the Heat:

As an added bonus, they'll be getting every call because the NBA will be doing everything possible to facilitate a Heat-Lakers Finals, even if it includes flying Dick Bavetta around in a private jet to referee two games in the same day.

Simmons is one of the leading NBA conspiracy theorists, of course, but when it comes to making obeisance to Deity, why, "they just wanted it more."