tekdragon
02-27-2007, 05:33 PM
Sheridan: Which teams are interested in Pippen? (http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?id=2781201&sport=nba&ft=ss)
Chris Sheridan, ESPN.com
Scottie Pippen was on a golf course in South Florida making the turn after the front nine when I reached him on his cell phone Monday to ask a few questions regarding his mysterious and still pending comeback.
Setting a tone, Pippen was vague about his exact location -- and he wasn't exactly spilling his guts, either, when I asked him to divulge a few specifics about whether he's really planning to return to the NBA, and what conditioning he's doing to get ready.
A sample:
Are you running much? Like five miles a day?
Pippen: "No, I wouldn't say that. I'm not really a distance runner, but I'm riding my bike a lot, doing substantial distances."
Which teams exactly are interested?
Pippen: "I'm not saying."
Pippen says it'll be another week or two before he decides whether to go through with a comeback at age 41 -- an idea that has been ridiculed by some of Pippen's peers who aren't afraid to say they've come to grips with the fact their careers peaked in the 1990s.
Conceding that he hasn't played any five-on-five basketball in months, Pippen said he still believes he's close to getting his conditioning where he believes it needs to be to endure the rigors of back-to-back games. He remains determined to go through with what should be the NBA's most compelling comeback since Michael Jordan came back from his second Bulls retirement and donned a blue-and-black Wizards jersey for the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons.
"I'm not quite feeling ready to get on the court. There are some physical things I want to do to make sure I can get over some obstacles," Pippen said.
Pippen said in an ideal situation, he would be playing 12-18 minutes a night for a championship contender, filling in at either guard spot or at the small forward position. He said he is not concerned about tarnishing his legacy, one that includes six championships as Jordan's sidekick in Chicago.
"There shouldn't be any 'what-ifs' at the end of the day," Pippen said.
Still, there are a lot of "What's up?" questions, so let's try to answer them, team by team.
Here are the teams that have expressed interest or might be interested in signing Pippen:
LOS ANGELES LAKERS If you're looking for an odds-on favorite to be Pippen's landing zone, look no further than the club running the same triangle offense that Pippen can execute in his sleep.
"I'll probably [contact Pippen] when I get back after this weekend," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said Sunday. "I'm sure there are other people out there that have needs like ours with their injuries and they know his experience. I know that he's looking to help a team that's a winning team. He didn't mention us but mentioned some teams that were poised to make a playoff run. I haven't heard from him."
The sense of urgency with which the Lakers emerged from the All-Star break has been tempered by a three-game winning streak, but Luke Walton's lingering ankle injury and Vladimir Radmanovic's snowboarding mishap have combined to leave the Lakers weaker in depth than they already were. Jackson knows as well as anyone that there are limits to how long any team can continue to rely on Maurice Evans as its third option.
It should also be noted that Pippen worked as a tutor/freelance coach with the Lakers during training camp, and his closeness and familiarity with Jackson leaves us believing that by the time March rolls into April, Pippen will be wearing yellow and purple.
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS I've learned that Cleveland is one of the two teams that contacted Pippen's former agent to find out how to reach him.
General manager Danny Ferry is still recovering from the hangover caused by his 72-hour binge session right before the trading deadline in which he tried and tried to find ways to make Drew Gooden's base-year compensation status workable in a multiteam deal that would have landed him Mike Bibby.
"We'll do our due diligence, sort through where we are as a team and go from there," Ferry told me Monday, throwing out the term "due diligence" for the umpteenth time since I saw him outside the competition committee meeting and first broached the subject of whether he'd be interested in playing Pippen alongside LeBron James.
"We're not diving into this deeply," Ferry maintained.
Weather might be a factor, considering that Pippen is hanging out in South Florida right now, and that wouldn't work in the Cavs' favor.
SAN ANTONIO SPURS San Antonio also reached out to Pippen's former agent.
When I reached Spurs general manager R.C. Buford by phone to reveal that I knew this, he was quiet and wishy-washy.
"We're always looking at improving our roster, but we would not speak specifically about trades or free agents," Buford said on Monday, before watching his Spurs disassemble the Raptors by 16.
You can go back a couple of preseasons to San Antonio's unsuccessful attempt to lure Karl Malone out of retirement for further evidence that no geezer is too old to keep the Spurs from making a run at him.
With another of those graybeards, Michael Finley, having only one 20-point effort over the season's first 57 games, you can begin to understand why San Antonio is wondering whether it might be worth a shot to bring in someone with 208 career playoff games under his belt.
Exactly what is motivating Pippen's comeback has been a matter of speculation since he announced his intentions during All-Star Weekend, with one of the legitimate questions being whether he's doing it because he needs the money. This in spite of the fact that he earned well over $120 million from his player contracts and shoe deals over a 17-year career that included seven All-Star appearances.
This much is known: Pippen recently lost a $5.021 million lawsuit in St. Louis over a dispute regarding a private jet Pippen once owned, and he blames a former adviser for an astounding $27 million in investment losses. Perhaps Pippen knew our conversation was leading to that issue, because he cut things off by admonishing me for keeping him on the line longer than expected, preventing him from teeing up on No. 10 and deciding whether to press his bets from the front nine.
So there was no opportunity to press him on the financial issue, or ask what other teams might be interested, or whether he'll be negotiating his own contract or working through an agent.
But Pippen has claimed in recent days that a half-dozen teams have expressed interest, so we'll look beyond the Lakers, Spurs and Cavs and handicap the rest of the field:
DALLAS MAVERICKS A roster spot opened when they traded Anthony Johnson to Atlanta Thursday, but it's a safer bet that the NBA's best team will look to add a center or power forward over the season's final eight weeks.
"Our focus is more on the frontcourt right now. We're certainly not counting anything out, but I'd say the chances of us doing something up front are greater than in the backcourt at this point," general manager Donnie Nelson told ESPN.com.
PHOENIX SUNS You never count out a team that was willing to take fliers on Jalen Rose and Eric Piatkowski, especially with their low level of confidence in backup point guard Marcus Banks.
MIAMI HEAT As Pat Riley has noted, the defending champs are somewhat overloaded with wing players.
That said, they did make a strong run at Chucky Atkins prior to the trade deadline. And with elder statesmen such as Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning and Eddie Jones on the team bus, Pippen would fit right in.
The proximity to Pippen's home is a plus.
CHICAGO BULLS They weren't all that pleased with Pippen a couple of years ago after he signed for two seasons but played only 23 games before hanging it up because of lingering knee and back injuries.
Besides, they are loaded with wing players already and would be looking for a low-post scorer if they were inclined to add someone.
LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS They might not have been in the picture 24 hours ago, but then Shaun Livingston went down in a heap Monday night with a dislocated left knee cap, and suddenly there's now a glaring need for another player who can handle the ball, defend a little and spell Sam Cassell at the point as they try to take sole possession of the eighth spot in the Western Conference.
"I'm looking for a competitive team that has championship capabilities," Pippen said before hanging up, "and I'm thinking in the next week or two, I should be ready to play in the top level of competition. I'm probably there right now."
And with that, he was off for nine more holes.
I'll believe it when I see it, but Pippen -- who said he was even open to the idea of signing a 10-day contract -- sure sounded serious about going through with this. The next two weeks will tell whether it'll truly happen.
Chris Sheridan, ESPN.com
Scottie Pippen was on a golf course in South Florida making the turn after the front nine when I reached him on his cell phone Monday to ask a few questions regarding his mysterious and still pending comeback.
Setting a tone, Pippen was vague about his exact location -- and he wasn't exactly spilling his guts, either, when I asked him to divulge a few specifics about whether he's really planning to return to the NBA, and what conditioning he's doing to get ready.
A sample:
Are you running much? Like five miles a day?
Pippen: "No, I wouldn't say that. I'm not really a distance runner, but I'm riding my bike a lot, doing substantial distances."
Which teams exactly are interested?
Pippen: "I'm not saying."
Pippen says it'll be another week or two before he decides whether to go through with a comeback at age 41 -- an idea that has been ridiculed by some of Pippen's peers who aren't afraid to say they've come to grips with the fact their careers peaked in the 1990s.
Conceding that he hasn't played any five-on-five basketball in months, Pippen said he still believes he's close to getting his conditioning where he believes it needs to be to endure the rigors of back-to-back games. He remains determined to go through with what should be the NBA's most compelling comeback since Michael Jordan came back from his second Bulls retirement and donned a blue-and-black Wizards jersey for the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons.
"I'm not quite feeling ready to get on the court. There are some physical things I want to do to make sure I can get over some obstacles," Pippen said.
Pippen said in an ideal situation, he would be playing 12-18 minutes a night for a championship contender, filling in at either guard spot or at the small forward position. He said he is not concerned about tarnishing his legacy, one that includes six championships as Jordan's sidekick in Chicago.
"There shouldn't be any 'what-ifs' at the end of the day," Pippen said.
Still, there are a lot of "What's up?" questions, so let's try to answer them, team by team.
Here are the teams that have expressed interest or might be interested in signing Pippen:
LOS ANGELES LAKERS If you're looking for an odds-on favorite to be Pippen's landing zone, look no further than the club running the same triangle offense that Pippen can execute in his sleep.
"I'll probably [contact Pippen] when I get back after this weekend," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said Sunday. "I'm sure there are other people out there that have needs like ours with their injuries and they know his experience. I know that he's looking to help a team that's a winning team. He didn't mention us but mentioned some teams that were poised to make a playoff run. I haven't heard from him."
The sense of urgency with which the Lakers emerged from the All-Star break has been tempered by a three-game winning streak, but Luke Walton's lingering ankle injury and Vladimir Radmanovic's snowboarding mishap have combined to leave the Lakers weaker in depth than they already were. Jackson knows as well as anyone that there are limits to how long any team can continue to rely on Maurice Evans as its third option.
It should also be noted that Pippen worked as a tutor/freelance coach with the Lakers during training camp, and his closeness and familiarity with Jackson leaves us believing that by the time March rolls into April, Pippen will be wearing yellow and purple.
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS I've learned that Cleveland is one of the two teams that contacted Pippen's former agent to find out how to reach him.
General manager Danny Ferry is still recovering from the hangover caused by his 72-hour binge session right before the trading deadline in which he tried and tried to find ways to make Drew Gooden's base-year compensation status workable in a multiteam deal that would have landed him Mike Bibby.
"We'll do our due diligence, sort through where we are as a team and go from there," Ferry told me Monday, throwing out the term "due diligence" for the umpteenth time since I saw him outside the competition committee meeting and first broached the subject of whether he'd be interested in playing Pippen alongside LeBron James.
"We're not diving into this deeply," Ferry maintained.
Weather might be a factor, considering that Pippen is hanging out in South Florida right now, and that wouldn't work in the Cavs' favor.
SAN ANTONIO SPURS San Antonio also reached out to Pippen's former agent.
When I reached Spurs general manager R.C. Buford by phone to reveal that I knew this, he was quiet and wishy-washy.
"We're always looking at improving our roster, but we would not speak specifically about trades or free agents," Buford said on Monday, before watching his Spurs disassemble the Raptors by 16.
You can go back a couple of preseasons to San Antonio's unsuccessful attempt to lure Karl Malone out of retirement for further evidence that no geezer is too old to keep the Spurs from making a run at him.
With another of those graybeards, Michael Finley, having only one 20-point effort over the season's first 57 games, you can begin to understand why San Antonio is wondering whether it might be worth a shot to bring in someone with 208 career playoff games under his belt.
Exactly what is motivating Pippen's comeback has been a matter of speculation since he announced his intentions during All-Star Weekend, with one of the legitimate questions being whether he's doing it because he needs the money. This in spite of the fact that he earned well over $120 million from his player contracts and shoe deals over a 17-year career that included seven All-Star appearances.
This much is known: Pippen recently lost a $5.021 million lawsuit in St. Louis over a dispute regarding a private jet Pippen once owned, and he blames a former adviser for an astounding $27 million in investment losses. Perhaps Pippen knew our conversation was leading to that issue, because he cut things off by admonishing me for keeping him on the line longer than expected, preventing him from teeing up on No. 10 and deciding whether to press his bets from the front nine.
So there was no opportunity to press him on the financial issue, or ask what other teams might be interested, or whether he'll be negotiating his own contract or working through an agent.
But Pippen has claimed in recent days that a half-dozen teams have expressed interest, so we'll look beyond the Lakers, Spurs and Cavs and handicap the rest of the field:
DALLAS MAVERICKS A roster spot opened when they traded Anthony Johnson to Atlanta Thursday, but it's a safer bet that the NBA's best team will look to add a center or power forward over the season's final eight weeks.
"Our focus is more on the frontcourt right now. We're certainly not counting anything out, but I'd say the chances of us doing something up front are greater than in the backcourt at this point," general manager Donnie Nelson told ESPN.com.
PHOENIX SUNS You never count out a team that was willing to take fliers on Jalen Rose and Eric Piatkowski, especially with their low level of confidence in backup point guard Marcus Banks.
MIAMI HEAT As Pat Riley has noted, the defending champs are somewhat overloaded with wing players.
That said, they did make a strong run at Chucky Atkins prior to the trade deadline. And with elder statesmen such as Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning and Eddie Jones on the team bus, Pippen would fit right in.
The proximity to Pippen's home is a plus.
CHICAGO BULLS They weren't all that pleased with Pippen a couple of years ago after he signed for two seasons but played only 23 games before hanging it up because of lingering knee and back injuries.
Besides, they are loaded with wing players already and would be looking for a low-post scorer if they were inclined to add someone.
LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS They might not have been in the picture 24 hours ago, but then Shaun Livingston went down in a heap Monday night with a dislocated left knee cap, and suddenly there's now a glaring need for another player who can handle the ball, defend a little and spell Sam Cassell at the point as they try to take sole possession of the eighth spot in the Western Conference.
"I'm looking for a competitive team that has championship capabilities," Pippen said before hanging up, "and I'm thinking in the next week or two, I should be ready to play in the top level of competition. I'm probably there right now."
And with that, he was off for nine more holes.
I'll believe it when I see it, but Pippen -- who said he was even open to the idea of signing a 10-day contract -- sure sounded serious about going through with this. The next two weeks will tell whether it'll truly happen.