If the modern NBA fan considers The Last Dance a telescope into the Bulls dynasty, they’re missing a key detail. It’s not the Jordans and Pippens, but an underrated role player. Craig Hodges was there when Michael Jordan was touted as a scorer but not a winner when he made ‘The Shot,’ and when Scottie Pippen came on the scene. He spent the twilight years of his NBA career with the Chicago Bulls and won two championships with them. He’s cool with not being involved in The Last Dance. However, he’s taking exception to how his teammates were portrayed in it.

Hodges was on BlackTree TV where the host, Jamaal Finkley, asked if anyone from The Last Dance’s production team reached out to him. Hodges doesn’t mind no one did but he rewatched the 2020 docuseries recently and had feelings.

“The funny part for me is that, you know, that when I look at all my teammates and I’m loving seeing them, man, and just like last night, I saw the one with Horace [Grant] when MJ says that it was Horace who told the ‘Jordan Rules’ [to author Sam Smith]… last week it was Scottie that was selfish because he wanted a great contract for him and his family.”

These were some of the more debatable themes explored in the documentary. Scottie Pippen himself took exception to being called selfish. In his confessionals, he admits that some of his ‘selfish’ behavior wasn’t his proudest moment. However, he didn’t take kindly to his feelings about being underpaid and invalidated.

In 2020 and this time too, Hodges maintains that it’s unfair to call Pip selfish. “We all wanted them,” he told Finkley. “Who doesn’t to this day? So that was kind of odd to me.” 

Hodges understands why Michael Jordan would call Pippen selfish. However, he still finds it unfair. He refers to his team as a “brotherhood” and this behavior doesn’t reflect it. Four years ago, Hodges felt there was a lot unexplained in the documentary. That could also explain the lingering cold war between the two pillars of the Bulls dynasty.

The Bulls’ ‘selfish’ dilemma

Michael Jordan still maintains that he wouldn’t have won six championships without Scottie Pippen. However, everything that went down in between the two three-peats is a whole other story.

Pippen, grossly underpaid throughout his career, demanded a trade in 1997. Referring to that, Michael Jordan said on the second episode of The Last Dance, “I feel like Scottie was being selfish, worrying about himself rather than his word to the organization and his loyalty to the team.”

After the Netflix premiere, that comment infuriated Pippen. He countered it was Jordan who was selfish for semi-retiring in 1993 when it was too late to sign free agents. He followed the documentary with his own biography, where he called Jordan a ‘bad teammate.’

The former teammates have had a frigid relationship since the documentary. Hodges, who began his career in 1982, played with the Bulls from 1988 to 1992. He’d play overseas and turn to coaching after winning two championships. During that time, he was a role player with little contribution but a veteran presence on the team. You can see why he’s more sympathetic to Pippen’s stance.