Quote Originally Posted by SouBeachTalents View Post
As you know All-NBA isn't based off the playoffs, so even if his play did drop off in the postseason, that doesn't change the fact he would've been a perennial All-NBA player regardless of the team that he played for.

And here's where context is important, even if you believe his level of play dropped in the postseason, he still outscored the opposing teams 2nd option in 18 of 24 playoff series during their title runs, so factoring in his GOAT tier defense and playmaking, he was still very often at worst the 3rd best player on the floor in the vast majority of these series.

It took 67 wins and league favorite status for Pippen or Klay to get All-NBA - this is very telling... Unlike 1st options, 2nd options don't get All-NBA with losing records, so they rely on winning spotlight to appear worthy to the media.

Pippen scored automatic system points and usually shot much worse than any of the main scoring options on either team, so his scoring was usually inferior and less impactful than the opposing 2nd and 3rd options.

And the only guys that Pippen outscored in the playoffs were opposing guards that were underperforming against MJ, otherwise he was outscored by the majority of SF's in his playoff career - this includes Aguirre, Nance, Johny Newman, X-Man, Dominique, Larry Johnson, Penny, Schrempf, Juwan Howard, Rice twice, and many more..

Pippen's true shooting was below league average for every year of his playoff career, except 89', 90', and 01-03' (no burden) or 91'.. 91' was his only viable run where he was a reliable 2nd option, and it was still a pedestrian run compared to the best sidekick runs in history.

The reality is that MJ won his first title with 17.8 ppg from Pippen, which is the same as Mo Williams in 2009, except the Cavs had much better team defense than the Bulls.. So the 09' Cavs had more help on both sides of the ball than the 91' Bulls.

Btw, the only people that compliment Pippen's defense are the media, which includes ex-players in the media - NONE of his SF matchups praise his defense because they all destroyed Pippen... Mashburn dropped 50 in Pippen, while Glenn Robinson, Worthy, X-Man, Rice and virtually every SF in the league scored on Pippen at will - no one was shut down by him.. It's telling because opposing SG's always said things like "if MJ didn't want you to score - you didn't score", but opposing SF's never say anything like that about Pippen... Pippen was a good defender, but his defense got overrated, i.e. the media couldn't compliment his offense, so they got really good at complimenting his defense.