In the second year of his professional career, Scotty Pippen Jr. was frustrated. He was 23 years old and tired of being one of best players in the G League. NBA teams were, he thought, collectively overlooking his production with the South Bay Lakers, just like they'd overlooked his production at Vanderbilt.
In January, in a hotel room in Detroit, where South Bay was scheduled to play against the Motor City Cruise, Pippen got good news from his agent: The Memphis Grizzlies had offered him a two-way contract, and with it an opportunity to show he was an NBA-caliber player. Earlier in the season, though, he'd had another memorable conversation, this one with his father, the Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen. (The elder Pippen's name is also spelled "Scotty" on his birth certificate.)
"I was ready to leave the G League, maybe go overseas," Pippen said. "I talked to my dad about that. He thought maybe if it doesn't work out I'll have to go overseas and try to do it over there, but I kind of just thugged it out and stayed and believed in my NBA dreams and I got the call."
Pippen, an undrafted, 6-foot-1 guard, didn't know what the move to Memphis would mean for him. He didn't know that, this season, he'd not only be Ja Morant's backup, but regularly share the backcourt with the Grizzlies' franchise player (in lineups that have outscored opponents by 19 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass). He didn't know that he'd sign a four-year contract in the preseason and, weeks later, record his first triple-double.
"Last year at this time, I was in the G League, just trying to get a spot in the NBA," Pippen said. "And to be here, less than a year later, in the rotation, coming off the bench early and playing well, this definitely is a surreal moment for me."
He said this after a shootaround in Brooklyn last week. Two days later, Morant hurt his hip, an injury that thrust Pippen into the starting lineup, where he will remain on Wednesday when he visits the Los Angeles Lakers for the first time since they cut him in training camp 13 months ago. He is not the only reason that the Grizzlies have overcome a series of injuries to start the season 7-4 (with the best transition offense and fourth-best defense in the league, per CTG), but it's hard to imagine them doing it without him.
In Memphis, Pippen's job is to push the pace, be a floor general and pressure the ball. "I'm super excited he's here," Morant said, describing Pippen as a "big-time playmaker." Memphis big man Jaren Jackson Jr. called him a "terror" on the defensive end. Per 36 minutes, Pippen has averaged 17.1 points (on 62.8% true shooting), 5.9 rebounds, 9.1 assists, 1.4 steals and 0.6 blocks. He has made 48% of his catch-and-shoot 3s.
"He just does everything," Grizzlies center Zach Edey said. "He defends, facilitates, makes shots. He's elite. I don't understand why no one's given him a chance before, but we're glad that he fell into our team."
In Pippen's fourth game in the G League, he shot 2 for 10 and turned the ball over four times against the Stockton Kings. It was a poor offensive performance, but that wasn't the primary reason that Miles Simon, then South Bay's coach, sat him in crunch time.
"He did not guard anybody," Simon said.
South Bay lost the game in Stockton, then went to Santa Cruz, where Simon called him out for a lack of effort on defense and for trying to get it back on the other end: "This is bad defense. These are bad shots. That's not going to work. Do you think you can go do that with the Lakers? With LeBron and AD, are you going to play like that?"
Pippen said no. Simon responded, "Well, then you can't play like that here."
In college, Pippen dominated the ball -- his usage rate was above 34% as a sophomore and a junior -- and earned a reputation as a scorer. In the pros, though, that wouldn't fly. He had to pick up full court, navigate screens and balance his scoring with playmaking for others. In some ways, he had to play more like he did before he got to Vanderbilt -- in middle school and high school, he was not always the best player on his team.
Fortunately, Pippen "was willing to do anything and everything," Simon said. Pippen was on a two-way contract, and it quickly became clear that he'd do whatever it took to stay on the court and get to the NBA full-time.
"He won a lot of games for us, and not just offensively," Simon said. "I know he hit some game-winners, but that dude would stick his nose in there. He was a charge-taker. He wasn't afraid to sacrifice his body."
Jay Huff, who played for South Bay in 2022-23 and has reunited with Pippen in Memphis, called him a "remarkably unselfish" player who could fit anywhere. "He was a great point guard then, he's a great point guard now," Huff said. Pippen does not feel, however, that Los Angeles gave him much of a chance back then.
"They would throw me in the last minute of the game, and emotions are running through your head because you're trying to make the best out of a minute of a basketball game," he said. "It's not really a good judgment 'cause you're basically depending your whole career on the last minute of a game where you're cold and you're trying to get a bucket."
Pippen hardly played for Los Angeles -- of his six total appearances, only one included non-garbage-time minutes -- but he did a lot of "sitting back and watching, just observing," he said. Then-Lakers guard Dennis Schroder remembers Pippen asking him what he was seeing during games.
"I seen a lot of potential," Schroder said. "He deserved a spot even with us, I feel like. He played very well in the G League. He did everything he was supposed to do, but, I mean, we had a lot of talent in that locker room as well, so it was tough."
In the playoffs, Pippen was on Los Angeles' scout team. This meant that, during practices and shootarounds, his job was to help the Lakers prepare by taking on the role of an opposing player. In the first round, he impersonated Morant. Asked what he remembers about this experience, Pippen said, "Not playing and having to wear a red jersey."
After Pippen's rookie season, the Lakers declined to issue him a qualifying offer, then signed him to a training-camp deal and waived him during the preseason. He returned to South Bay, but Los Angeles didn't call him up. It is not easy to be that close to your dream and find it out of reach.
"I just felt like I wasn't getting equal opportunity as everyone else," Pippen said. "Even coming out of college, I had numbers, I didn't get drafted. I didn't really get time my rookie year. And then my second year, kind of the same thing. I was putting up numbers and didn't really get any buzz."
At times, Pippen wondered how his story might have played out if his name were, say, Scotty Smith. "The name, I feel like, sometimes hurts me as well as it helps me," he said. It's not that people compare him to the 6-foot-7 NBA legend, exactly, but "when people see me, they think of my dad," and they may make assumptions.
"I think they just think differently of me," Pippen said. "Like maybe I'm not hard-working, maybe I'm not deserving this opportunity."
The mere mention of this possible perception issue rankles Schroder. "F--- that," the veteran said. "I think there's always those false narrative things, what people are saying, especially when you have a dad who's a Hall of Famer. I mean, it's his own legacy. He is his own man." Schroder, who also stands 6-foot-1, said that Pippen has done exactly what he's supposed to do.
"This is the only chance we have to get on the floor, really, if you're not a Ja or Damian Lillard, Steph Curry, Kyrie, all these guys who can score in a heartbeat," Schroder said. "Gotta bring some toughness. Defensively, picking up full court, changing the game, speeding the game up. And that's what he do. That's the reason why he's playing right now."
Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins called Pippen an "unbelievable worker" and "unbelievable competitor." From Day 1 with the Grizzlies, Pippen understood that they wanted him to set the tone defensively. "He was a guy that we immediately fell in love with because he was picking up guys 94 feet, he was being a disruptor, he was executing game plans, he was creating turnovers," Jenkins said. "He was just wreaking havoc out there."
Since Memphis was severely shorthanded, Pippen wound up starting 16 of the 21 games he played last season and putting up bigger numbers than anyone anticipated. This included a 28-point, five-rebound, six-assist, four-steal performance against the Lakers in April.
Pippen knew that he wouldn't get a ton of credit for what he did late in the season for a banged-up team far from playoff contention, but those games gave him confidence. "I was more so just trying to prove to myself that I belonged here," he said. "Even though we were banged up, I still had to play against real NBA players." That propelled him into the offseason, and a summer league in which he was arguably the best player there. Heading into Year 3, he felt "like I can really do this," he said.
That has become undeniable. Pippen had back-to-back double-doubles in the first week of the season, which is not normal for a backup point guard. On Halloween, after pestering Lillard into an off night in a blowout win over the Milwaukee Bucks, Pippen told reporters, "One of the coaches over there didn't believe in me, so I definitely wanted to show I can play some defense and give it my all." (Former Lakers coach Darvin Ham is on the Bucks' staff.)
Simon said he's not sure why it didn't work out for Pippen in Los Angeles. "I think the Lakers' front office and management obviously did a good job of hand-picking Scotty to be on a two-way and they recognized his ability," he said. "And he did all that he could." He then noted that Pippen seems to have found a good home in Memphis. "Sometimes, it's a blessing in disguise."
Back in the G League, Pippen would sometimes get in his own head and in his own way. When he heard criticism of his shooting, it made him want to take more 3s, he said, but that impulse ended up hurting his percentage. He "battled with trying to please everyone," he said, but, now that he's in a more secure situation, he's past that. Now, he's playing free.
"I know I'm able to shoot the ball well, and I'm not trying to show people I can shoot," Pippen said. "I'm just shooting the right shots, playing the right way, and I think that's genuinely why I'm playing better."
Jackson said that Pippen is "not scared offensively and not scared defensively." He then added, "As a point guard, it's hard, but he's making it look easy."
Pippen didn't get what he wanted on his timeline, but it's all finally coming to him: The role, the responsibility and, slowly, the recognition.
"He's putting a stamp on his name," Schroder said.
