Scottie Pippen: NBA Bubble Not Real Basketball

Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen says that the NBA’s Orlando bubble isn’t real basketball. The Chicago Bulls legend told the Business Insider the lack of pressure and distractions detract from the challenge.

Well, I’m going to be honest. It’s not NBA basketball,” said Scottie Pippen.

“It’s not the hard grind, it’s not the travel, it’s not the fans, it’s not the distractions. Really, to me, it’s pickup basketball. It’s going to the gym. Yeah, you already got your team. Y’all practicing together. But it’s a more of a pickup type of basketball game, because there’s no fans in the stands. 

“So there is no distraction. There’s no real noise. There’s no pressure on the players, you know. Prime example: I looked at Rondo. Rondo ain’t made three pointers in his whole NBA career. Now, all of a sudden, he’s in a bubble, he’s probably a 50% three point shooter. I haven’t even checked the stats.”

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But that’s just something that I consider making the game so easy, because Rondo can’t score inside of an arena, when you got depth perception,” Scottie Pippen added.

“Like, there’s a whole lot of things that make the NBA hard. The bubble makes the NBA easy to me. There’s no travel. That’s the killer itself. So you’re sleeping in the same bed every night. You’re walking to the gym, you’re not having to go with a 25 to 50 minute bus ride to an arena.

“You’re not having to probably even sit in the arena for two hours before the game, talk to the media, deal with all the outside stuff that they’re trying to pull you in to make some distraction and, you know, throw the team in a loop. So it’s a different game, but it’s very entertaining.”

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League personnel had noticed the increased quality of play resulting from eliminated travel and more opportunity for recovery.

“We’re seeing the benefit,” Portland Trail Blazers president Neil Olshey said earlier in September.

“I think this is consistent across the other teams is you can get treatment right after a game. The time that you would normally be spending in a visiting arena getting showered, getting changed, getting on the bus to the plane and then the altitude affecting swelling — and all that’s eliminated.”