Scottie Pippen Calls out Charles Barkley, Questions His Toughness

Scottie Pippen has a problem with Charles Barkley. In an interview with GQ, Pippen touched on a number of different topics, including his feud with Barkley. This started in 1999 when both were members of the Houston Rockets. Pippen wanted out after playing with the team for one season, and Barkley wanted an apology for not being committed. Pippen called Barkley “selfish” and said he “wouldn’t give Charles Barkley an apology at gunpoint” and “if anything, he owes me an apology for coming to play with his sorry fat butt.”

This remark led to Barkley saying: “As you know, I always carry a gun with me, so there’s a chance. If I get arrested for murder, then you know he didn’t apologize.” Tyler R. Tynes of GQ asked Pippen about this, and it led to the Chicago Bulls legend firing back at Barkley.

“I wish he woulda went through with it,” Pippen said. “I never apologized to him, but I’ll tell you what: He only got arrested for throwing some little white guys out of a window. I ain’t never seen him fight a Black man unless there were referees around. He plays his role like he’s tough. I don’t know nobody he done whooped. Go back and check his record. Did I apologize to him? I told him to get me the hell out of there. That’s what I recall.”

The reason Barkley was even mentioned in the interview was Pippen talked about his legacy despite not winning a championship. “You can sit here and argue that Charles Barkley was a great player,” Pippen stated. “But he gets diminished why? Because he never won. He never was on a winning team. So when he sit up on that stage with Shaq and Kenny, they can diminish him at any moment. As great of a player as he is, they can make him the size of a period. Kenny Smith can make himself bigger than Charles Barkley on that stage because why? He won. Yeah, Charles in the Hall of Fame, but when you talk about success in winning, you don’t speak of Charles Barkley’s name.”

When Pippen and Barkley were on the Rockets in 1999, the team lost the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. Pippen joined the team after winning six championships with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Barkley did play for the title once in his career as he led the Phoenix Suns to the NBA Finals in 1993. The Suns lost to Pippen, Jordan and the rest of the Bulls.