Former Chicago Bulls star Scottie Pippen says President Barack Obama has a ”smooth game” on the basketball court.
Pippen described playing basketball with the president Tuesday afternoon in a story on the Chicago Bulls website. He played on Obama’s team in an Election Day game complete with referees and a running clock. Pippen and Obama’s team won the game.
Pippen says the president was ”very easy to approach” and says Obama isn’t an overly aggressive player, probably because he doesn’t want to get hurt.
— Reported by the Associated Press
“When he first entered the gym, if you hadn’t looked over to see him, you wouldn’t have noticed,” said Pippen of Obama. “It was surprisingly low key. He just came in and started shaking hands. He’s someone who is very easy to approach.”
It was the first time Pippen had met Obama. The connection was made through a mutual friend, Marty Nesbitt. Obama mentioned that Nesbitt thinks very highly of Pippen.
“He said it was a pleasure to meet me and that he had heard good things about me from Marty,” said Pippen. “I told him, ‘Thank you and I wish you well tonight. But if you want to be a winner this afternoon, you better play with me.’”
— Reported by Adam Fluck of Bulls.com
“We kind of blew them out,” said Pippen. “It should have been worse but we started messing around at the end. The game was close for awhile, but in the third quarter we opened it up. They tried to get back in it in the fourth, but we kept expanding the lead. It was a good game, fun and competitive.”
The Election Day games began when Obama played on the day he won the Iowa caucuses in 2008. They became tradition after he lost the New Hampshire primary to Hillary Clinton on a day in which Obama did not play basketball.
Other participants in this year’s edition included former Bulls guard Randy Brown, currently the team’s Special Assistant to the General Manager, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
— Reported by Adam Fluck of Bulls.com
