Why Karl Stefanovic’s interview with NBA legend Scottie Pippen is going viral in America

A heartwarming moment in Karl Stefanovic’s interview with NBA hero Scottie Pippen has gone viral after he made a major confession about Michael Jordan.

Pippen appeared to forget his long-running feud with the 61-year-old as he admitted that his former Chicago Bulls teammate is the greatest player in basketball history.

“It’s hard to make comparisons, but was Michael, from where you were playing, the best, the best ever?” Stefanović asked.

“Certainly, I mean, you look at the MVPs that he was able to get,” Pippen told Channel Nine’s Today on Tuesday.

“I think it’s all down to our success as a team,” he continued. “It’s clear that someone is going to take home these accolades. Yeah, he was definitely the best player in basketball.”

It comes after the six-time NBA championship winner gave a very different answer when former teammate Stacey King asked him the same question last year.

Pippen seemed to forget his long-running feud with the superstar as he admitted that his former Chicago Bulls teammate is the greatest player in basketball history

“LeBron (James) will be the best statistical guy to ever play basketball,” Pippen said on King’s Gimme The Hot Sauce podcast in May.

‘And there’s no comparison to him. No. Does that make him the best player to ever play the game? I leave that up for discussion because I don’t believe there is a great player because our game is a team game and one player can’t do it.”

He also told the podcast that Jordan was a “terrible player” before joining the Bulls.

“I saw Jordan play before I came to play for the Bulls. You’ve seen him play. He was a terrible player. “He was horrible to play with,” he said.

“He was all one-on-one, he hits bad shots, and all of a sudden we become a team and we start winning and everyone forgot who he was.”

The Today hosts asked Pippen for his impressions of the ESPN “Last Dance” docuseries, which chronicles the rise of Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

Pippen was reportedly furious with the way he was portrayed on the series, and as a result, his relationship with Jordan suffered.

He surprised basketball fans on Tuesday by singing to the docuseries.

Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls discuss strategy in 1993

Pippen (pictured in Melbourne last week) shocked fans by admitting Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time in an interview with the Today Show on Tuesday

“I thought it was special,” Pippen said. “I thought it was a special moment for us to relive some of the greatest times in basketball history. Even more, get the chance to see what team basketball was really like.

“I think during the pandemic when everyone was at home, it was more of an educational tool to show people how great the game can be when played the right way. When you share the basketball, you can accomplish unlimited things.”

Pippen has previously been critical of the series, saying that Jordan took credit for the Bulls’ success in the 1990s while his teammates were portrayed as small players.

“They glorified Michael Jordan while not giving me and my proud teammates nearly enough praise,” Pippen, 58, wrote in his 2021 memoir Unguarded.

“Michael deserved a lot of the blame. The producers had granted him editorial control over the final product. Otherwise the doctor could not have been released. He was the lead actor and the director.”

As a result, Pippen claims, the documentary felt inauthentic.

“I don’t think it was that accurate in terms of really defining what was accomplished in one of the greatest eras of basketball, but also by two of the greatest players — and you could even put that aside and say, the greatest team of all the time,” Pippen told The Guardian in December 2020.

‘I didn’t think those things stood out in the documentary. I thought it was more about Michael trying to elevate himself and be glorified. I think it backfired to some extent because people got a chance to see what kind of personality Michael had.”

Pippen (pictured in Melbourne) is in Australia this month to take part in an awards ceremony for the country’s National Basketball League and a subsequent speaking tour with former teammates Horace Grant and Luc Longley

Complicating matters further is the romantic relationship between Pippen’s ex-wife, 49-year-old Larsa, and Jordan’s 32-year-old son, Marcus (the couple is pictured).

Complicating matters further is the romantic relationship between Pippen’s ex-wife, 49-year-old Larsa, and Jordan’s 32-year-old son, Marcus.

The couple is said to have been dating since 2022 before splitting earlier this year.

Pippen and Larsa were married for almost 20 years and had four children together before divorcing in 2021.

Pippen is in Australia this month to take part in an awards ceremony for the country’s National Basketball League and a subsequent speaking tour with former teammates Horace Grant and Luc Longley.

The Hall of Famer was a member of all six of the Bulls’ title-winning teams.