(670 The Score) While emphasizing he’s keeping an open mind, former Bulls center Will Perdue views Hall of Fame forward Scottie Pippen’s assertion that former coach Phil Jackson was racist as a “PR media stunt” that comes as Pippen has a new book and a new bourbon coming out. Beyond that, Perdue called upon Pippen to speak at greater length about his experiences with Jackson if he’s going to make such a claim.
On Monday, Pippen insinuated Jackson was a racist for drawing up a game-winning play for teammate Toni Kukoc in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals in 1994, a season in which Pippen was the Bulls’ star as Michael Jordan had retired and embarked on his baseball journey.
None of it adds up to Perdue, who believes Pippen’s comments may be driven by other individuals and influences and said he’s “still scratching my head” after listening to Pippen’s comments 30 times.
“He’s got the Digits bourbon, he’s got the book coming out,” Perdue said on the Bernstein & Rahimi Show on 670 The Score on Tuesday. “Is some of this being misled by another individual? Now, I don’t know the answer to that. The timing just seems a little odd, that’s all.”
Stressing that his experiences as a white man are different from those of Blacks and other minorities in life, Perdue left open the possibility that Pippen’s comments were genuine – but he called upon Pippen to do more than just make the racial accusation in passing on the Dan Patrick Show on Monday, a belief Pippen had also previously expressed in an interview with GQ without going into great detail.
“If he feels like it truly was … racially motivated, then he needs to do something more about it than just briefly answer a question from Dan Patrick or answer a question in GQ,” Perdue said. “He also, in my opinion, needs to gives specific examples. He needs to have somebody back him up. He needs to have other teammates step up and say, ‘I experienced the same thing.’ I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘No, this didn’t happen.’ Because I can’t sit here and give you a 100% certainty answer that this did not happen. I can say that I didn’t experience it, but then at the same time, I’m white and I’m answering these questions. I can only fathom what Scottie had to deal with growing up, what any other African-American had to deal with growing up, stuff that I just can’t fathom, that’s mind-boggling.
“I understand why it’s so important to talk about it now, but if that’s the case and because of our society, the way that it is, it’s not just something that you can briefly mention. It’s something that I feel like, you need to take it farther and you need to make it a cause and you need to do something about it. I’m not saying this is what he’s trying to accomplish, but it does come across as this is kind of a PR media stunt. Whether it is or not, that’s just how it comes across and that’s unfortunate.”
Perdue and Pippen were Bulls teammates from 1988 to 1995. Perdue has reached out to some former teammates in the last 24 hours, and he described their reaction as “a lot of shoulder shrugging” as they don’t seem to understand Pippen’s mindset either.
“I have yet to see anybody step up and agree with his statements as of yet,” Perdue said. “I could be mistaken.
“At the end of the day, we need more proof, we need more evidence, we need more specific examples so that we have something that we can back this up with. Because anybody can just say anything they want and the court of public opinion can take sides.”