Scottie Pippen is a retired American professional basketball player with a net worth of $20 million. Scottie Pippen played 17 seasons in the NBA. During that time he earned $109 million in salary alone. He also earned tens of millions more from endorsements.
Scottie Pippen played nine of his seasons with the Chicago Bulls. He was instrumental in the Bulls winning six of their NBA titles and their record 1995–96 season of 72 wins. He was a seven-time NBA All-Star as well as the NBA All-Star Game MVP in 1994. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History during the 1996–97 season and is one of four players to have his jersey retired by the Chicago Bulls. Pippen is the only NBA player to have won an NBA title and Olympic gold medal in the same year twice (1992, 1996).
| Category | Richest Athletes › NBA Players |
|---|---|
| Net Worth | $20 Million |
| Birthdate | Sep 25, 1965 (58 years old) |
| Birthplace | Hamburg |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 6 ft 7 in (2.03 m) |
| Profession | Basketball player, Actor |
| Nationality | United States of America |
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Contracts And Salary
Scottie Pippen is often regarded as the most underpaid NBA player in history, a claim that is both true and false. Before the 1991 season, Pippen signed a 7-year, $18 million contract extension. Consequently, during the height of the Bulls’ success, while Michael Jordan was earning over $30 million annually, Pippen was making just $2.6 million. Pippen later explained that he agreed to this contract to secure his family’s financial future, having grown up in extreme poverty as one of 12 children, with both his father and brother confined to wheelchairs.
This contract eventually became a source of frustration for Pippen, who felt he deserved a better deal and a contract extension. Interestingly, Pippen’s total NBA salary of $109 million ultimately surpassed Jordan’s $94 million. Most of Pippen’s career earnings came from a five-year, $67.2 million contract with the Houston Rockets before the 1998-1999 season, and he earned an additional $10 million after returning to the Bulls for his final two seasons.
Endorsements
Scottie wore Avia sneakers in his first few NBA seasons but, like Mike, eventually became a Nike man. He would go on to release several signature shoes with Nike, most notably 1997’s Pippen 1.
He also had endorsement deals with Ameritech Cellular TV, Frito-Lay, Visa, McDonald’s, Right Guard, and Coca-Cola.
Early Life
Scotty Maurice Pippen was born on September 25, 1965, in Hamburg, Arkansas. He is the youngest of Ethel and Preston Pippen’s 12 children. Pippen’s mother was 6 feet tall, and his father was 6 foot 1 inch. All of their children were tall, but Scottie was the tallest. Scottie’s dad worked in a paper mill until a stroke paralyzed him on his right side. He lost the ability to walk, and his speech was affected. Scottie led the Hamburg High School basketball team to the state playoffs. He was awarded all-conference honors his senior year. Pippen wasn’t offered any scholarships to college. He started out playing for the University of Central Arkansas. Pippen was 6’1″ as a freshman walk-on. He had a growth spurt and ended up 6′ 8″ tall. In college, he had a per-game average of 23.6 points, ten rebounds, 4.3 assists, and almost 60% field goal shooting.
Pippen was selected in the first round of the 1987 NBA Draft by the Seattle Supersonics. The Bulls were interested in him, but their draft pick wasn’t low enough to get them. The team arranged a trade with Seattle to get Pippen.
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Career
Scottie Pippen made his NBA debut on November 7, 1987, when the Chicago Bulls played their season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers. In 23 minutes, he recorded 10 points, two steals, four assists, and one rebound, contributing to the Bulls’ 104–94 victory. Pippen secured the starting small forward position during the 1988 NBA Playoffs, aiding the Michael Jordan-led Bulls in reaching the conference semifinals for the first time in over a decade. He earned his first NBA All-Star selection in 1990.
In the 1990-91 season, Pippen established himself as a key defensive player and significant scoring threat. On November 23, against the Los Angeles Clippers, he achieved his first triple-double with 13 points, 12 assists, and 13 rebounds in 30 minutes, leading the Bulls to a 105–97 win. For his performance that season, Pippen received NBA All-Defensive Second Team honors. The Bulls triumphed over the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals. Pippen played a crucial role in leading the Bulls to their first three-peat, securing championships in 1992 and 1993 as well.
Pippen was instrumental in the Bulls’ second three-peat, winning the NBA championships in 1996, 1997, and 1998.
In the 1998–99 lockout-shortened NBA season, after being with the Chicago Bulls for 11 seasons, Pippen, the second all-time leader in points, assists, and steals in Bulls franchise history, was traded to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Roy Rogers and a second-round pick in the 2000 NBA draft. From 1998-2003, Pippen played for the Portland Trailblazers. After the 2002–03 season, Pippen left Portland in order to sign with the Chicago Bulls. On July 20, 2003, Pippen signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the franchise. On October 5, 2004, Pippen announced his retirement.
In January 2008, Pippen made a brief comeback to professional basketball at age 42 when he made a tour of Scandinavia and played two games for top Finnish league team Torpan Pojat (ToPo) and top Swedish league team Sundsvall.
Pippen returned to the Bulls on July 15, 2010, as a team ambassador. In 2012, he was named senior advisor to Michael Reinsdorf, the Bulls’ president and COO. Pippen is remembered as one of the most versatile and agile players and, perhaps most notably, as one of the greatest defenders ever. His intense work ethic and athletic physique gave him the ability to consistently make highlight-reel plays, such as applying defensive intensity, forcing a turnover, stealing the ball, and starting a one-man fast break that he would finish with a thunderous slam dunk.
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Olympic “Dream Team”
In 1992, he was named to the original Dream Team for the United States men’s Olympic basketball team, which competed in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. The U.S. won the gold medal, and Pippen and Michael Jordan became the first players to win both an NBA championship and an Olympic gold medal in the same year.
Personal Life
Pippen has been married twice: He married Karen McCollum in 1988. They had a son named Antron in 1987 and divorced in 1990. He married Real Housewives of Miami star Larsa Younan, AKA Larsa Pippen, in 1997. They had four children: Scotty Jr. (2000), Preston (2002), Justin (2005), and Sophia (2008). The couple divorced in 2021.
Pippen also has a daughter, Sierra Pippen (born 1995), with his former fiancée Yvette De Leon, and a daughter, Taylor Pippen (born 1994), with former girlfriend and model Sonya Roby. Taylor’s twin sister, Tyler, died nine days after birth.
His son, Scotty Jr., plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, and his daughter, Sophia, appeared in the first season of “Dancing with the Stars: Juniors.”
Financial Issues?
Over the years, it has been alleged that Scottie has experienced financial problems at various points post-retirement. Some outlets have gone as far as to claim that Pippen was flat-broke just a few years after retiring from the NBA. According to our sources, those claims are greatly exaggerated or even just flat-out lies. That’s not to say Scottie hasn’t had a few financial speed bumps.
The largest speed bump came from a former financial advisor named Robert Lunn. In 2016, Pippen sued Lunn, claiming that the advisor, who came highly recommended by the Bulls, squandered $20 million of his money. Less than a year after engaging Lunn, Pippen learned that the advisor had taken his investments and committed bank fraud. Lunn allegedly gave more than $7 million to a friend with a sketchy history to invest in real estate. The real estate developer declared bankruptcy almost immediately, taking the money with him.
Lunn also reportedly advised Pippen to spend $4 million on a Gulfstream private jet. The jet turned out to be non-working and needed an additional $1 million in repairs to make it air-worthy.
In March 2016, Lunn was sentenced to three years in prison on multiple fraud counts, including forging Pippen’s signature on a $1.4 million loan that Lunn used to pay off personal debts.
Real Estate
In 2004, Scottie and Larsa Pippen bought a 10,000-square-foot home on 2.6 acres in the lakefront Chicago suburb of Highland Park for $2.225 million. Scottie put it on the market in 2016 for $3.1 million. After three years on the market, he lowered the price to $1.899 million. Built in 2003, the home has six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a home movie theater, a sauna, a game room, a brick wine cellar, and a custom-built indoor basketball court with a picture of Pippen’s Chicago Bulls jersey emblazoned on the floor. While it wasn’t selling, Pippen rented it out for upwards of $16,000 a month. In late 2021, the home finally found a buyer for just under $2 million.
Pippen previously owned a mansion in South Florida that was on and off the market for a decade, beginning in 2010, when it was listed for $16 million. At one point, the home was offered as a luxury rental for $40,000 a month.
The Venetian-style mansion is located in Harbor Beach, one of Fort Lauderdale’s most exclusive neighborhoods. It comes with views of a canal that leads straight out to the ocean. The home was built in 2003 and comes with a pool, basketball court, gourmet kitchen, game room, media room, and waterfront views.
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