Back on March 30, 2021, I published an article titled On Oscar De La Hoya’s Comeback From Retirement. At the time, Oscar De La Hoya, one of the best boxers of the 1990s and 2000s, was planning to make a comeback at age 48, more than 12 years after he had retired after suffering a one-sided loss to Manny Pacquiao, and after which he had acknowledged that he could no longer pull the trigger. Fortunately (in my opinion, at least) Mr. De La Hoya’s comeback was aborted and he decided to stay retired.
While my arguments against Mr. De La Hoya’s planned comeback were grounded in the fact that boxing is dangerous and coming out after a decade of retirement in one’s late 40s is almost always going to be a questionable life-choice, one reason I wanted to publish the article was to share a critique of a potential NBA comeback from 2007. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I will quote the pertinent parts of what I originally wrote back in 2021:
In either 2006 or 2007, there were rumors that the great Scottie Pippen, who had retired from basketball in 2005, was considering a return to the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which were then led by a young LeBron James. Mr. Pippen was nearly 40, and his last season with the Chicago Bulls had been something of an injury-ridden farewell … [Charles] Barkley, a basketball Hall of Fame-inductee like Mr. Pippen, had a bit of an acrimonious playing history with Mr. Pippen that we needn’t rehash in detail here. He weighed in against the rumored comeback idea with wise words that stuck with me. In a sort of open letter to Mr. Pippen on TNT’s Inside the NBA, Mr. Barkley stated, multiple times: ‘You retired ’cause you can’t play no more.’ I think that was the exact quote, but if not, it is close enough.
As a threshold matter, I note that I made two errors (now corrected). Firstly, Mr. Pippen announced his planned comeback in 2007 (to be discussed). Secondly, his last NBA season had been (and remains) 2003-04. Thirdly, Mr. Pippen, having been born on September 25, 1965, was 42 when he flirted with a comeback, not almost 40. But while those details were just slightly off, I stand by my recollection of what Mr. Barkley said about Mr. Pippen’s comeback idea on Inside the NBA. I recall having looked for the exact quote or a video of the Inside the NBA episode where Mr. Barkley offered his take on Mr. Pippen’s flirting with an NBA comeback and having come up empty-handed. I remembered the TV segment that I had watched (at the time) some 14 years earlier, but I could not find proof of it.
I thought of my Barkley-Pippen story when, a few months ago, I was searching for something NBA-related to share in an Emu Café Social post. My search brought me to a website called Basketball Forever. As it just so happened, this website featured near the top of its front page a May 2, 2020 article by Nick Jungfer titled Scottie Pippen Almost Came Out of Retirement to Join Contender Right Before 2007 Playoffs. Having been reminded of the story, I remembered that I had once published my recollection of Mr. Barkley’s negative opinion of Mr. Pippen’s proposed comeback. I decided to once again look for the quote.
As a threshold matter, I decided to look for when Scottie Pippen announced his ultimately abandoned comeback plans. To that effect, I found a February 16, 2007 report on ESPN titled Pippen says he wants to play for contender.
With most of the league’s stars and decision-makers gathering at the All-Star weekend festivities in Las Vegas, Pippen, 41, announced he’s hoping for a late-season return to a contending team – preferably in a warm-weather city – nearly two years after he left the league.
Two days later, Mr. Pippen took a break from his comeback training to participate in the All Star Saturday Shooting Stars Challenge.
We now know that Mr. Pippen announced his comeback plans on February 16, 2007. But when did his former rival and teammate, Charles Barkley, weigh in? While sources are scarce, but I did come up with a few materials.
Let us start with a March 5, 2007 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer titled Stay home Scottie. The following quote comes courtesy of Ron Harper, who faced off against Mr. Pippen as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1988 and 1989 NBA Playoffs before teaming up with Mr. Pippen on the Bulls from 1994-95 through 1997-98, in which time the Bulls won three championships in four seasons. Surely Mr. Harper would approve of his former teammate’s comeback plans?
Charles Barkley summed it up best. He said Scottie retired because he couldn’t play anymore. He feels good now because he’s not running up and down the floor every night. [But] he hasn’t improved in the last 3 years, has he? That’s what Barkley said, and I’m with Barkley.
Ron Harper (February-March 2007)
Apparently not.
Mr. Harper’s summary of what Mr. Barkley said on TV did bring back some memories for me. I now recall that Mr. Barkley was referencing Mr. Pippen’s self-assessment of his physical condition and his description of his efforts to get back into NBA shape.
The Chicago Tribune noted that Mr. Pippen, in announcing his intention to return to the NBA, stated that he was looking to play for a contender and ease into game-shape in the final two months of the regular season in building toward the playoffs. Regarding his health:
‘Being out of the game, my body feels great,’ Pippen said, adding that his body fat is at an all-time low 5 percent and he’s at his top playing weight of about 220 pounds.
Scottie Pippen
I also found a February 28, 2007 article by Chris Sheridan for ESPN titled On the comeback trail: Who wants Scottie?. While it is partially paywalled, the pertinent part is available without a subscription. I quote Mr. Pippen from the article in response to a question about whether he was running five miles per day:
No, I wouldn’t say that. I’m not really a distance runner, but I’m riding my bike a lot, doing substantial distances.
Scottie Pippen
However, in that article, Mr. Pippen stated that he had not yet started on-court workouts.
We are still missing a direct quote from Mr. Barkley. The closest I was able to find was a February 17, 2007 blog post on Tennis X by Sean Randall titled Sampras Slams Current Players…Again. While the headline and the bulk of the article was about tennis, Mr. Randall referenced Mr. Barkley’s assessment of Mr. Pippen’s comeback plan:
Charles Barkley offered his thoughts afterward simply saying, ‘Players retire because they can’t play anymore.’ And for the most part, Charles is correct.
He continued:
Charles added that even though retired players may feel physically better then ever, sitting on the couch is not the same as playing day-in and day-out
This struck me as interesting. It appears from what I was able to find that Mr. Pippen first stated he wanted to comeback on Friday, February 16, 2007, which was the first day of the 2007 NBA All Star festivities. Mr. Barkley’s show, Inside the NBA, usually aired on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mr. Randall’s post was published at 8:36 AM EST on February 17, 2007 (according to the time-stamp), which would have been a Saturday. Based on the foregoing, I believe that Mr. Pippen first discussed his comeback plans on February 15, 2007, which would have been a Thursday – but late enough in the day that the first articles about it were published on the 16th. There was, on February 15, 2007, a double-header featuring the Mavericks against the Rockets followed by the Cavaliers against the Lakers, that would have aired on TNT with Mr. Barkley’s Inside the NBA Show. I will venture that it was during that episode where Mr. Barkley offered his colorful take on Mr. Pippen.
Unfortunately, I was still not able to find a direct quote, much less the TV segment I remembered. I will note that I recall Mr. Barkley, through his own laughter and the laughter of co-hosts Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith, yelling, “Scottie! You retired because you can’t play no more!” That is not on all fours with Mr. Randall quoting Mr. Barkley as saying “players retire because they can’t play anymore,” but there are two possibilities – first allowing that Mr. Randall’s account is probably more reliable than mine since he was writing contemporaneously while I am recalling something I watched more than 19 years ago. It is also likely that Mr. Randall may have referenced the most serious and generally applicable part of Mr. Barkley’s musing on Mr. Pippen in light of the fact he was including the quote in the context of his criticism of Pete Sampras. Secondly, if we assume arguendo my recollection is correct, perhaps Mr. Randall , like Mr. Harper, presented a sort of cleaned up version of the quote. A third possibility is that Mr. Barkley commented on the matter later. There were still articles being published about Mr. Pippen’s potential comeback as late as early March 2007. However, I suspect that my recollection concerns the February 16, 2007 Inside the NBA episode referenced by Mr. Randall (and likely Mr. Harper a few weeks later).
Had Mr. Pippen signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers for a comeback in 2007 (which is the scenario I remember being most discussed), he would have been part of then-22 year old LeBron James’ supporting cast. In April-May of this year, LeBron James led the Los Angeles Lakers to a first round playoff series win at age 41 – and I mean led in the actual ‘led’ sense in that Mr. James led both teams in scoring and assists and was second on the Lakers in rebounding. Is it possible that Messrs. Barkley and Harper were wrong?
Mr. Pippen was a productive starter through his age-37 season in 2002-03 before appearing in just 23 games in his final season in 2003-04. I an inclined to venture that Mr. Barkley was correct when he opined that Mr. Pippen had retired because he believed he could no longer play at a high level. Mr. Jungfer for Basketball Forever quoted Mr. Pippen from when he was considering a comeback as saying that he felt “amazing” after taking a few years off and that he believed he could contribute for 10-15 minutes per night – but as Mr. Barkley noted, Mr. Pippen felt “amazing” in the context of being retired. But the two teams he was most linked with, the 2006-07 Cleveland Cavaliers, which unexpectedly reached the NBA Finals after upsetting the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, and the Los Angeles Lakers, which limped into the playoffs with a 42-40 record behind Kobe Bryant’s second consecutive scoring championship, were challenged enough in the depth department that I suppose one could see Mr. Pippen getting minutes early on in a comeback to see what he could contribute. But given Mr. Pippen’s age, late-career history of back problems, and injury-plagued exit, it is difficult for me to see him having been a significant contributor to Cleveland’s Finals run (the Lakers were headed for a first round exit regardless).
But despite my being inclined to agree with Messrs. Barkley and Harper about Mr. Pippen’s 2007 comeback idea, I will grant that the idea of Mr. Pippen contributing something is more plausible than the idea that Dave Cowens could make a positive contribution with the San Antonio Spurs at age 46 in 1995. If that sounds like a random aside, I promise it is not – for I published an article on that very subject.
