Burrell discusses teammates other than Jordan

Scott Burrell has never been more popular.

His recurring role as Michael Jordan’s verbal punching bag in the ESPN documetary “The Last Dance” has made him a celebrity, with over 200 interviews for 12 different countries over the past five weeks. Not bad for a guy who spent just one season (1997-98) with the Chicago Bulls.

‘The Michael Kay Show’ beckoned on Tuesday afternoon — but not before Burrell was double-teamed for an interview by Hearst Connecticut Media. By now, we’re familiar with Burrell’s thoughts on Jordan’s needling of him during practices, on planes, even on the bench during games. But what are the former UConn star and current Southern Connecticut State coach’s feelings on some of the other central figures of the Bulls’ 1990s dynasty featured in “The Last Dance”?

JERRY KRAUSE

The former Bulls general manager, who passed away three years ago, took a beating during the 10-part series as the guy who broke up the Bulls’ dynasty. Refused to re-negotiate Scottie Pippen’s belowmarket contract. Liked Toni Kukoc a bit too much to Jordan and Pippen’s liking. Got derided by the pair for his short, awkward stature. Burrell was a bit kinder. “I’ll put it this way: I think Jerry did a great job putting that team together.

The sad thing is, he wasn’t alive to speak about the documentary. Do I think Scottie Pippen should have gotten paid? Of course I do. But he did a great job putting that team together. So, it’s tough to get on Jerry Krause. Plus, he’s not here to defend himself.”

Was Krause to blame for breaking up the Bulls?

“Everybody takes orders from the boss, and he was kind of the middle guy,” Burrell noted. “He was put in a tough spot. You have the owner (Jerry Reinsdorf ) on TV saying something kind of different part of the time.”

Not that Burrell didn’t have issues with Krause. Burrell was a free agent after the 1997-98 season, and Krause apparently didn’t do him any favors.

“He side-tracked my career after that year,” Burrell said, “because he was so bitter with everybody.”

SCOTTIE PIPPEN

The Hall of Famer has taken some hits from the documentary, which exposed his refusal both to get surgery during the summer of 1997 (causing him to miss half the season), as well as to enter the final seconds of a 1994 playoff game when the play was drawn up for Kukoc instead of him.

Pippen reportedly isn’t pleased with the doc and hasn’t spoken publicly about it.

“I love Scottie,” said Burrell. “He was a great teammate, a great person, a great player. I think he put himself in a tough situation, when he said in the film about when he took himself out of the game — and I wasn’t there, obviously — but they said he cried and apologized. But in the interview, he said he’d do the same thing over again. I was just confused about that situation.”

DENNIS RODMAN

You could do a 10-part series alone on Rodman, who (among other things) once left the team in the middle of the season to party in Las Vegas for several days until Jordan dragged him back.

“I think Rodman’s awesome,” Burrell said. “I think Phil did a great job of knowing Dennis and all the guys on the team’s personalities. He knew Dennis was a guy who needed time to get away every now and then. He’d let him have his breaks when he needed it, but when he came back, he wasn’t taking that for granted. He was gonna come back and bust his butt and make sure he was in shape and play his butt off on the court every game.”

Burrell added that Rodman’s occasional excursions to Vegas and other placed didn’t bother him or his teammates.

“The team never knew, or really worried about where Dennis was. Because we all had to worry about our roles and what our jobs were. In the locker room, when Dennis wasn’t there, no one ever mentioned it. No one cared, because we all had to worry about our roles and doing our own jobs to the best of our ability.”

TONI KUKOC

The documentary made Burrell out to be Jordan’s favorite target, and that may be true. But not by much.

“Everyone got ridden in practice if they missed up,” Burrell noted. “It wasn’t like (Jordan) never went at Pippen, Rodman. He went after everyone that messed up. But, with editing, they showed me a lot, because I was the new guy.

“But Toni Kukoc was really close to me for a guy he went at every day.”

Jordan and Pippen resented Kukoc because Krause drafted him in 1990 and spent three years trying to get him to come to Chicago. They embarrassed him in the 1992 Summer Olympics and when he first arrived with the Bulls in 1993, long before Burrell’s arrival.

“Obviously, Michael and Pip had a little something against him, because he was Krause’s guy, the Olympics and all that stuff,” Burrell said. “But Toni Kukoc was a bad boy, and never got enough credit for how good he was. He was the third-leading scorer on the team, he came off the bench sometimes, started sometimes. Toni could score the ball. He didn’t play a lot of ‘D’, like they said in the documentary, but Toni could score the ball.”

PHIL JACKSON

When Burrell first arrived in Chicago, he wasn’t playing well and hearing it every day from Jordan. At a team meeting in Sacramento, Jackson singled him out.

“Scott, we know you’re a good player,” the Bulls’ coach said. “We know you’re better than what you’re playing … ‘Forget about Michael. Don’t worry about him, play your game.”

“I think that relaxed me,” Burrell recalled, “especially because he said it in front of the whole team, in front of Michael. I felt better about it, and I knew I was a better player than when I first started there, and it helped me feel more comfortable with the team.”

‘SUCH A NICE GUY’

Burrell noted that he still keeps in frequent touch with Steve Kerr (“a great guy”), Bill Wennington, Ron Harper (who, along with Pippen, kept his spirits up while Jordan rode him), Dickey Simpkins and, yes, Jordan. He doesn’t see or hear from Pippen, and wishes he knew more about Luc Longley, who didn’t take part in the documentary.

“I’d love to hear from Luc. I’ve talked to him a couple of times in the last year, but I didn’t know that there was any friction or anything like that.”

Ultimately, Burrell has nothing but great memories from that one championship season — and continues to live up to his billing as “such a nice guy” that Jordan said of him in the documentary.

“Every single guy on that team, I love,” Burrell said. “We all love each other. We had great team camaraderie, no one argued about contracts. I mean, Scottie had issues with management, but other teams were worried about contracts. This team was just so focused on winning a championship. And we all enjoyed each other.”

CCSU, MARSHALL TO PLAY UCONN

Central Connecticut State, coached by former UConn and NBA star Donyell Marshall, will play UConn on Nov. 28, per the UConn men’s basketball Twitter account. It didn’t specify whether the game would be played in Hartford or Storrs.

UConn is 14-0 all-time against the Blue Devils, but this will be the first time the teams have faced since Marshall replaced Howie Dickenman as CCSU head coach in 2016.