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No result in this entire database generates more argument than this one.

When the Net Wins formula was first posted on Reddit, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Thousands of comments. Most of them about Scottie Pippen at #9.

Not about Kareem at #1. Not about Duncan at #2. Not about Jordan at #3.

Pippen.

That reaction is the most interesting thing about this ranking and it’s worth taking seriously. The formula put him ninth. The crowd pushed back hard. One of those two things is wrong. This post makes the case that it isn’t the formula.

Net Wins at a Glance

Regular season: 84.8 · Playoffs: +8.5 · Combined: 93.4

Average per season: 4.99 · Peak season: 10.63 (1995-96) · Top-3 average: 10.15

17 seasons. 6 championships. 7 All-Star selections. 10 All-Defensive Team selections. The most feared wing defender of his generation.

Every Season, Laid Out

1987-88: +0.71 · Rookie year, 50-win Bulls 1988-89: +2.33 · Building toward something 1989-90: +5.02 · First elite season, 55 wins 1990-91: +6.90 · First championship, 15-2 playoff run 1991-92: +10.24 · Career peak, 67 wins, second title 1992-93: +6.34 · Third consecutive title 1993-94: +6.47 · Jordan retires, Pippen leads Bulls to 55 wins 1994-95: +3.49 · Jordan returns midseason 1995-96: +10.63 · Season peak, 72 wins, fourth title 1996-97: +9.57 · Fifth title, 69 wins 1997-98: +8.19 · Sixth title, last dance 1998-99: +1.97 · Houston Rockets, lockout-shortened season 1999-00: +4.74 · Portland Western Conference Finals 2000-01: +3.58 · Portland 2001-02: +3.27 · Portland 2002-03: +3.40 · Portland 2003-04: -2.00 · Final season, 23-win Chicago team

Look at 1993-94. Jordan retired after the 1992-93 season. Pippen inherited the Bulls, led them to 55 wins, more than most franchises managed with their best player healthy and took them to Game 7 of the second round. His Net Wins that season: +6.47. One of the best individual regular season performances in the database that year, produced entirely without Jordan on the roster.

The formula didn’t need to know Jordan was gone. It just saw a player whose contributions converted into wins at an elite rate. That’s the answer to the sidekick argument.

The Playoff Case

Six championship runs produce 8.54 playoff Net Wins:

1990-91 (15-2): +1.72 · First title, historically dominant run 1991-92 (15-7): +1.26 · Second title 1992-93 (15-4): +1.54 · Third title 1995-96 (15-3): +1.49 · Fourth title, 72-win season 1996-97 (15-4): +1.28 · Fifth title 1997-98 (15-6): +1.26 · Sixth title

Six playoff runs. Six positive Net Wins contributions. No negative playoff seasons. The formula rewards players whose positive contributions translated into wins in the most important games of the year. Pippen played in 90 playoff wins over six championship runs and produced positive net contributions in every one of those runs.

That is an extraordinary record. It is a large part of why he ranks ninth all time rather than fifteenth or twentieth.

The Objection Everyone Makes

“He only won because of Jordan.”

This is the most common objection and it deserves a direct answer.

Yes, Jordan was the best player on those Bulls teams. Yes, Pippen benefited from playing alongside the greatest scorer in NBA history. Those things are true.

But consider what the formula actually measures. It measures whether Pippen’s individual positive actions, his points, his rebounds, his assists, his steals, his blocks converted into wins at an elite rate relative to his teammates. It measures whether his negative actions, his missed shots, his turnovers, his fouls, were minimized relative to how those actions typically contributed to losses on his specific teams.

The formula’s answer across 17 seasons is consistent: yes, on both counts. His positive contributions converted into wins at a higher rate than the average contributor on those teams. His negative contributions were kept low enough that they rarely showed up in losses.

Jordan doesn’t appear anywhere in that calculation. The formula has no knowledge of who else was on the floor. It just sees Pippen’s numbers relative to his team’s win and loss rates. And what it sees, across 17 seasons, is a player who almost never hurt his team and consistently helped it win.

The 1993-94 Proof

The cleanest way to settle the “sidekick” debate is to look at the one season Jordan wasn’t there.

Pippen led the 1993-94 Bulls to 55 wins. His Net Wins that season was +6.47 his fourth best regular season in the database. For comparison, Kevin Durant’s career average is 3.47. Dirk Nowitzki’s career average is 3.35. Pippen without Jordan produced a season that would be a career year for either of those players.

The formula doesn’t make a philosophical argument about Pippen’s independence from Jordan. The 1993-94 season makes it for you.

What the Formula Misses

The Net Wins formula counts steals and blocks. It does not capture positioning, communication, help defense rotations, or the psychological effect of the best wing defender in the league standing between an opponent and the basket.

Pippen won six All-Defensive First Team selections and four All-Defensive Second Team selections. Ten All-Defensive teams total. That represents a decade of being recognized as the best or second-best defender at his position in the entire league.

The formula sees the steals, 2,307 career steals, fifth all time. It does not see the dozens of possessions per game where Pippen’s positioning prevented a steal from being necessary. His true defensive impact is almost certainly larger than what the formula can measure.

His ranking at ninth, in other words, may actually understate him.

Where Other Lists Rank Him

Net Wins (this formula): #9 ESPN Top 100 (2020): #20 BR All-Time VORP: #16 Bill Simmons Pyramid: #17 BR HOF Probability: 100% NBA 75th Anniversary Team: Named Bleacher Report Top 100: #18

The gap between this formula’s ranking (#9) and the conventional consensus (#17-20) is the largest such gap for any player in the top twenty. Every major system recognizes Pippen as a Hall of Famer and an all-time great. The disagreement is purely about degree.

The Net Wins formula’s position: a player who produces +10.63 in his peak season, +10.24 in his second-best season, never has a negative playoff run across six championship appearances, and produces +6.47 in the season his superstar teammate retires, that player belongs in the top 10.

In His Own Words

“Michael and I were very different players. He was the greatest scorer who ever lived. But I think people forget that I guarded their best player every single night. I set up the offense. I got everyone else involved. I was comfortable being everything the team needed me to be.” — Scottie Pippen

“People ask me what it felt like to play with Michael. I ask them what it felt like to have Scottie Pippen on their team. Because that’s the question most people never think to ask.” — Scottie Pippen, 2021

What Others Saw

“Scottie Pippen is the best small forward I’ve ever coached. And I’ve coached some good ones. He could have been the best player in the league on any other team. I don’t say that to diminish Michael. I say it because it’s simply true.” — Phil Jackson

“Pip was the key to everything we did. He guarded Magic, he guarded Drexler, he guarded Ewing. There was nobody he couldn’t guard. That’s a different kind of greatness than scoring. It’s a harder kind.” — Michael Jordan

“If you put Scottie Pippen on a team with three average starters and two bench guys, they make the playoffs. He was the best player on the floor in every game he played except the ones Michael was in. And even then it was close.” — Charles Barkley

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

Pippen’s placement at ninth is a test case for the entire methodology of this book.

If you think the formula is wrong, you need to say exactly where it overcounts him. Is it the championships? Then you believe championships shouldn’t count. Is it the defensive contribution? Then you believe steals and blocks overvalue defense. Is it the team context that Jordan inflated his numbers? Then you believe the same team context argument applies to every player on this list, including Jordan, Russell, and Bird.

The formula is consistent. It applies the same logic to every player in every era. The gap between Jordan (#3, combined 88.2) and Pippen (#9, combined 93.4) is partly explained by Jordan’s two retirements and his Washington years. By the careers they actually had, not the careers the narrative says they should have had, the distance between them is smaller than anyone has ever publicly acknowledged.

That is the honest, uncomfortable conclusion the Net Wins formula delivers. Scottie Pippen was closer to Michael Jordan than the media, the public, or Pippen’s own contract ever acknowledged.

That’s not a contrarian take. It’s the math.

The full Net Wins database, 295 NBA players and every season from 1946 to 2026, is free at willf123.github.io/nba-net-wins.

Next: Shaquille O’Neal at #6. Subscribe to get it when it drops.

© 2026 Will Fiore. Net Wins formula and all written content are original works. All rights reserved.

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The full Net Wins database, Every season from 1946 to 2026, is free at willf123.github.io/nba-net-wins.

© 2026 Will Fiore. Net Wins formula and all written content are original works. All rights reserved.

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