Paul Sullivan: The grudge goes on forever — at least when Scottie Pippen is the grudge holder

Scottie Pippen’s back.

The former Chicago Bulls great continued his revenge tour this week, coming out with a memoir criticizing Michael Jordan after doing likewise last summer while promoting his own brand of liquor.

You can read about it in Pippen’s contentious New York Times interview, or watch him Monday in an “exclusive” appearance on “Good Morning, America,” or even pick up your own copy of “Unguarded.”

Or else you can just turn the page knowing this grudge will never go away, and any rehashing is simply redundant and depressing if you’re a Bulls fan.

Ripping Jordan has become Pippen’s raison d’être since the airing of the Jordan-approved documentary “The Last Dance.” If you can’t change the narrative, at least make some money off it.

“The Last Dance” was billed as an inside look at the breakup of the Bulls dynasty, but anyone with a functioning brain knew it would be all about Michael, with subplots on Jerry Krause, Dennis Rodman, Phil Jackson and Pippen. It was a fascinating look at an era we lived through and loved, and had the surprise ending of Jordan claiming they all would’ve returned to go for championship No. 7 had Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and Krause not decided to rebuild.

If Pippen thought he would receive equal billing, he was deluded from the start. It wasn’t that way in real life, so it certainly was not going to be that way in Jordan’s documentary. There were no ads of kids singing, “If I could be like Scottie.”

He was a wingman — and a very good one — but nothing more. It’s amazing that after so many years he can’t accept the fact he was just part of the cast, albeit a significant one.

Pippen claimed Jordan always had the media in his corner. Well, except for the best-selling book “The Jordan Rules” by veteran NBA writer Sam Smith, then a Tribune reporter. The book humanized the Bulls star and pointed out some troubling parts of his personality, some of which was discussed in “The Last Dance.”

When it came out 30 years ago, the controversy was so pervasive it threatened to become a distraction in the 1991-92 season. In one early season game in Milwaukee on Nov. 15, 1991, Jordan had more assists (11) than field-goal attempts (10) in a win over the Bucks. He came into the game averaging 21 attempts per game.

“I wanted to get everyone involved tonight,” Jordan said after. “And I think I was a little creative with some of my passing.”

A reporter asked Horace Grant whether the release of “The Jordan Rules” caused Jordan to suddenly become more generous with his teammates. The Bulls forward shook his head and declined to answer. He then addressed the book by saying “this team has too much character to let something like that bother us.”

The Bulls won their second straight title that year, so it wasn’t as much of distraction as envisioned.

Jordan also had the refs in his corner, as everyone knew. During an exhibition game with the Denver Nuggets in the New Orleans Superdome in ’91, Jordan was guarding Winston Garland. The place was so quiet that every conversation on the court could be heard, and at one point Jordan said “traveling” out loud. The call immediately was made.

“Good call, Mike,” Garland sarcastically said to Jordan.

“I know it,” Jordan replied.

Pippen never got to make his own calls. It must’ve irked him to no end.

Pippen made it clear in his memoir that “Michael and I aren’t close and never have been.” Yet he chose Jordan to present him during his 2010 Hall of Fame induction.

“I can’t think of a better person to do it,” Pippen said back then. “Michael is someone I shared my career with, accomplishing most of what I have accomplished thus far. He was a great teammate, teacher and admirer. I’m excited to have an opportunity to be the first person that he has presented into the Hall of Fame. I figure if anyone deserves to be on the stage with me, it’s him.”

Hard to believe you would ask someone you consider selfish and too self-absorbed to induct you to the Hall of Fame.

In the book, Pippen apparently toned down some of the rhetoric from last summer, when he claimed coach Phil Jackson called on Toni Kukoč to get the shot in the famous 1.8 seconds incident because of racism.

“It was a racial move to give him a rise,” Pippen said. “After all I’ve been through with this organization, now you’re gonna tell me to take the ball out and throw it to Toni Kukoč? You’re insulting me. That’s how I felt.”

The reaction was so negative that Pippen left that claim out of the book.

“I didn’t walk it back,” he told the New York Times. “I just didn’t have it in the book. I said it was probably not right for me to say that about Phil being racist at this stage. It’s water under the bridge now. But at that point in time, based on where I was as a player, the year that I was having, I thought it was a bad move on his part.”

Carrying grudges so long can’t be good for the soul, but if Pippen feels better about letting it out, more power to him.

Maybe his legacy is pointing out he was wronged so many times by his teammate and coach, not his Hall of Fame career.

Pippen’s latest gripes made me think about the classy way Joakim Noah spoke of his career before being fêted at the United Center recently.

“Honestly, I never really cared about that, about worrying about what my legacy is,” Noah said. “That was never really why I played the game and everybody is different. To me it was just being true to who I was.

“I’m somebody who had some really good moments in the NBA. I’m also someone who had some really low moments in the NBA. And I’ve been really happy, I’ve been very embarrassed. I felt a lot of emotions in this game.

“And I’m somebody who has a lot of experience, and hopefully I can share that with the younger generation and just be at peace, just be at peace. It’s never been about legacy or how people remember you. That’s never been why I do this.”

Just be at peace, Scottie. Just be like Joakim.