On Tuesday, retired Chicago Bulls legend Scottie Pippen joined Rachel Nichols' “The Jump” on ESPN to discuss certain NBA topics. When Nichols began to discuss Toronto Raptors star shooting guard DeMar DeRozan's claims that he and Kyle Lowry didn't speak to one another during Lowry's first year with the team, Pippen said that he did pretty much the same thing with Bulls legend Michael Jordan too.
“It's pretty common. When you're on the court with guys so much and when you're traveling so much with them so much year round, you kind of need that space to yourself when you get off the basketball court,” Pippen said. “I played with two guys that I was in that same situation. My first few years with Michael Jordan, I never hung out with him. I never had his phone number. He was at another level when I came into the league. Michael Jordan was already a megastar when I came into the NBA. There was no bonding or a relationship for my first almost two years there.”
A video clip of the interview, which was posted to Nichols' official Twitter account on Tuesday afternoon, can be viewed below:
From #TheJump: DeMar Derozan says on the Woj pod that he and Kyle Lowry barely spoke their entire first season together. Not only is @ScottiePippen not shocked – he says it was the same for him and Michael Jordan at first. pic.twitter.com/aQDCEK1tRg
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) January 9, 2018
As a guest on ESPN NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski's podcast Woj Pod, DeRozan said that his first year with Lowry in Toronto involved almost zero social interaction between the two players.
“My first year with Kyle, [we] didn't say a word to one another,” DeRozan said. “We didn't speak. We didn't have a conversation. We didn't hang out. We didn't go eat. We didn't sit next to each other. I didn't have his phone number.”
This just goes to show that sometimes friendships take a lot of time to develop, as with what happened with both DeRozan and Lowry as well as the legendary pair of Jordan and Pippen.
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