Scottie Pippen‘s net worth is estimated at $20–30 million as of October 2026. The six-time NBA champion collected nearly $110 million in league salary alone, signed a seven-year contract for just $18 million at the peak of his powers, survived a financial advisor’s fraud scheme that swallowed a reported $20 million of his money, sold a Florida mansion for $10.5 million, and now spends his public hours posting Bitcoin predictions he says came from Satoshi Nakamoto in his dreams.
Scottie Pippen: Quick Facts
| Estimated net worth | $20 million (range: $20–30 million) |
|---|---|
| Profession | Former professional basketball player, broadcaster, entrepreneur |
| Nationality | American |
| Born | September 25, 1965 (age 61) |
| Height | 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) |
| Primary income sources | NBA salary, endorsements, media work, DIGITS bourbon brand |
| Active years | 1987–2004 (NBA); media and business ventures ongoing |
| Last reviewed | October 2026 |
- Early Life and Background
- Education
- Career Journey
- Rise to Fame
- Main Sources of Income
- Salary and Earnings
- Businesses and Investments
- Brand Deals and Sponsorships
- Houses, Cars and Other Assets
- Awards and Achievements
- Net Worth Growth Over the Years
- Social Media Presence
- Personal Life
- Sources & Reporting
- Frequently Asked Questions
Early Life and Background
Scottie Maurice Pippen was born on September 25, 1965, in Hamburg, a small town in southeast Arkansas. He was the youngest of 12 children raised in a working-class household where money was scarce and medical hardship was constant. His father, Preston Pippen, suffered a stroke that left him in a wheelchair. His older brother Ronnie was paralyzed in a wrestling accident in high school. Those two wheelchairs in the family home shaped Pippen’s entire relationship with money — later in life he would describe financial security as something he was desperate to lock down early, a reflex born of childhood hardship.
Pippen did not arrive at Hamburg High School as a future superstar. He stood 6-foot-1 as a junior, played mostly as a point guard, and drew zero college scholarship offers. When the recruiting letters never came, he accepted the only option available: walking onto the basketball team at the University of Central Arkansas, a small NAIA school in Conway, where he started out as the team’s equipment manager. Growth spurts are supposed to end in adolescence. Pippen’s arrived late and kept going. By his sophomore year he had stretched to 6-foot-8, still handling the ball like a guard, and suddenly the manager was the best player on the roster.
That improbable arc — from team manager to NBA lottery pick in four years — is the financial backstory that explains the rest of his life. A kid who grew up one injury away from disaster signed the first long-term contract put in front of him, because guaranteed money meant his family would never go back to Hamburg counting every dollar. Everything about the next three decades of his finances, from the notorious contract to the desperate trust he placed in a recommended advisor, flows from that instinct.
Education
Pippen attended the University of Central Arkansas from 1983 to 1987, playing four seasons for the Bears. By his senior year he was dominating small-college competition, averaging 23.6 points and 10 rebounds per game, and NBA scouts who once wouldn’t have driven to Conway were lining up to watch him. He was selected to play in the 1987 Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, the premier showcase for senior prospects, where his length and defensive range convinced skeptics that the small-school label didn’t matter.
The 1987 NBA Draft made the story official: the Seattle SuperSonics selected Pippen fifth overall, then immediately traded his rights to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for veteran center Olden Polynice and future draft considerations. It remains one of the most lopsided trades in league history. Pippen never played a minute for Seattle, and his four years at Central Arkansas remain a point of pride — the school later named its basketball court in his honor in 2021, a week he has called one of the most emotional of his life.
Career Journey
Pippen’s rookie contract was a four-year, $2.83 million deal — standard money for a mid-lottery pick in 1987, and a fortune to a family from Hamburg, Arkansas. His on-court development outran the deal almost immediately. By his second season he was the Bulls’ starting small forward. By 1990 he was an All-Star and an All-Defensive First Team selection. Alongside Michael Jordan, he formed the most feared two-way partnership of the decade, and the Bulls collected their first three-peat from 1991 through 1993.
Jordan’s first retirement in 1993 handed Pippen the franchise. In the 1993–94 season he led the Bulls in every major statistical category — points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks — finished third in MVP voting, and won All-Star Game MVP in Minneapolis. No teammate has ever carried a Jordan-era Bulls team the way Pippen carried that one. Chicago won 55 games, just two fewer than the season before with Jordan, and the result should have settled every argument about his worth. Instead, it made the contract he had signed three years earlier look even worse.
When Jordan returned, the Bulls completed the second three-peat (1996–1998), including the 72–10 season of 1995–96 that stood as the league’s single-season wins record for two decades. Pippen made his tenth consecutive All-Defensive Team and was named one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players during the league’s 50th anniversary season. He also won Olympic gold with the original Dream Team in Barcelona in 1992 and again in Atlanta in 1996 — the only player in basketball history to win an NBA championship and Olympic gold in the same year twice.
After the 1998 breakup of the dynasty, Pippen was dealt to the Houston Rockets in a sign-and-trade on a five-year, $67.2 million contract — the market correction he had been owed for a decade. The Houston experiment lasted one lockout-shortened season and ended in a public falling-out with Charles Barkley, so the Rockets traded him to the Portland Trail Blazers, where he spent four solid seasons. In 2003 he returned to Chicago on a two-year, $10.3 million deal, played 23 games of the 2003–04 season, and retired in October 2004 with 17 seasons behind him. The Bulls retired his No. 33 jersey on December 9, 2005, unveiled a bronze statue of him at the United Center in 2011, and inducted him into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
One lesser-known chapter belongs in the record: in January 2008, three years after retiring, Pippen flew to Sweden and played three games for the Sundsvall Dragons. The club paid him $66,000 for the appearance tour, and he put up 21 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and two steals in his third game. It was part publicity stunt, part paid vacation — and a small but real line item in his post-NBA earnings.
Rise to Fame
Pippen’s fame has always been double-edged. He was celebrated as the greatest defensive wing of his generation — a one-man wrecking crew, in Phil Jackson’s phrase, who could credibly guard all five positions — and simultaneously defined in the public mind as Jordan’s sidekick. The 2020 ESPN documentary series The Last Dance sharpened both edges at once: it reintroduced Pippen to a younger generation as the indispensable engine of six championships, and it made his 1991 contract the central symbol of athlete underpayment in America.
The contract story is the through-line of his public identity. In 1991, seeking the security he had grown up without, Pippen signed a seven-year, $18 million extension with the Bulls. The NBA’s salary structure then detonated upward. By the 1997–98 season — the final year of the dynasty — Jordan was earning $33.1 million while Pippen collected $2.8 million. The disparity became so notorious that it still resurfaces in every labor negotiation the league holds. Pippen himself has never fully reconciled with the deal; he has described the decision as one driven by fear of returning to poverty, and his ex-wife Larsa has said the financial anxiety shaped the marriage itself.
The second act of his fame has been stranger. After the divorce, the memoir, and a public falling-out with the Bulls, Pippen reinvented himself as one of the NBA’s loudest crypto voices, claiming on X that Satoshi Nakamoto visits him in dreams with Bitcoin price predictions. In 2026, Cointelegraph Magazine reported that Bitcoin billionaire Michael Saylor — after taking Pippen to dinner on his yacht — asked him to stop talking about his conversations with Satoshi. Absurd or not, the episode keeps Pippen in the news cycle in a way most retired athletes never manage.
Main Sources of Income
Pippen’s wealth was built in four phases, and understanding the phases explains why $110 million in career earnings sits next to a $20 million net worth. Phase one was NBA salary: nearly $110 million over 17 seasons, backloaded heavily toward the Houston and Portland years. Phase two was endorsements, which ran into the tens of millions at his peak — a signature Nike line in the 1990s plus national deals with Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa — and then faded with his playing career. Phase three was supposed to be invested capital, and it is where the money leaked: a reported $20 million entrusted to advisor Robert Lunn, a $4.5 million private jet that could not fly, and a marriage that ended in 2021 with a settlement that included half of his Bulls retirement account. Phase four, the one still running, is media and entrepreneurship: ESPN analyst work, the 2021 memoir Unguarded, the DIGITS bourbon brand, paid appearances, and his crypto-adjacent public persona.
The honest accounting is that phases three destroyed a large share of what phases one and two created. Taxes on $110 million in salary already take roughly half off the top. The Lunn fraud, the divorce, the jet, and years of big-ticket spending did the rest. What remains — the $20 million estimate — reflects the assets he kept: investment accounts rebuilt after the fraud case, the proceeds of the 2021 Florida home sale, and ongoing income from media and business.
Salary and Earnings
Spotrac’s contract database puts Pippen’s career NBA earnings at $109,957,430 — a figure most outlets round to $109 million. The year-by-year breakdown tells the real story of his finances better than the total does: roughly 70 percent of that money arrived in the final five years of his career, after he left Chicago.
| Season | Team | Salary |
|---|---|---|
| 1987–88 | Chicago Bulls | $725,000 |
| 1988–89 | Chicago Bulls | $575,000 |
| 1989–90 | Chicago Bulls | $765,000 |
| 1990–91 | Chicago Bulls | $765,000 |
| 1991–92 | Chicago Bulls | $2,770,000 |
| 1992–93 | Chicago Bulls | $3,425,000 |
| 1993–94 | Chicago Bulls | $3,075,000 |
| 1994–95 | Chicago Bulls | $2,225,000 |
| 1995–96 | Chicago Bulls | $2,925,000 |
| 1996–97 | Chicago Bulls | $2,250,000 |
| 1997–98 | Chicago Bulls | $2,775,000 |
| 1998–99 | Houston Rockets | $11,000,000* |
| 1999–00 | Portland Trail Blazers | $14,795,642 |
| 2000–01 | Portland Trail Blazers | $13,750,000 |
| 2001–02 | Portland Trail Blazers | $18,083,564 |
| 2002–03 | Portland Trail Blazers | $19,727,524 |
| 2003–04 | Chicago Bulls | $4,917,000 |
| 2004–05 | Chicago Bulls (retained) | $5,408,700 |
| Career total | $109,957,430 | |
*Lockout-shortened season, prorated. Source: Spotrac career earnings data.
The fact that catches every fan off guard: Pippen out-earned Michael Jordan on the court. Jordan’s career NBA salary totaled about $93.3 million, nearly $17 million less than Pippen’s, because Jordan’s fortune was built on Nike rather than paychecks. The gap between their current net worths — Jordan a multi-billionaire, Pippen at roughly $20 million — is entirely a story of what happened after the uniforms came off.
Pippen’s highest single-season salary was the $19.7 million he collected from Portland in 2002–03, at age 37. He earned more per year on the contract he signed at 38 than in any season of his prime — the market finally paying him, a decade late, what the Bulls never did. His ex-wife Larsa highlighted the irony herself in 2020, tweeting his $109.19 million career total next to Jordan’s $93.29 million during the height of The Last Dance debate.
Businesses and Investments
DIGITS bourbon. In June 2021 Pippen entered the celebrity spirits business with DIGITS, a five-year-old, 92-proof bourbon developed with Dave Phinney’s Savage & Cooke distillery in California. The name nods to his famously large hands — and to jersey number 33. The bottle launched exclusively in Chicago at Binny’s with a $70 suggested retail price, and the brand announced that a Chicago distributor had taken 5,000 cases before tasting it. The Whiskey Wash reported that Pippen, his business partner R.C. Mills, Phinney and master distiller Jordan Via personally worked on the blend, with Pippen involved in labeling and packaging. Revenue figures are private, but the launch put Pippen in the same celebrity-spirits lane as Jordan’s own tequila venture — a quiet rivalry The Last Dance viewers would appreciate.
Media and advisory work. Pippen’s post-playing paychecks have come mostly from television. He joined ESPN as an NBA analyst for the 2016–17 season, appearing about 50 times on The Jump and SportsCenter, and remained a regular on the network’s NBA coverage through the end of The Jump in 2021. He debuted as a studio analyst for the NBA on ABC back on Christmas Day 2005 and did part-time analyst stints for the Chicago Bulls. From 2012 he served as senior advisor to Bulls president and COO Michael Reinsdorf — a role he says he lost in February 2020 after the two sides couldn’t agree on compensation for expanded duties. He announced the firing himself on a 2020 episode of the Thuzio Live & Unfiltered podcast, adding the parting shot that he likes to associate himself with winning.
Memoir. His autobiography Unguarded was published in November 2021 by Simon & Schuster, arriving in the long shadow of The Last Dance — which Pippen felt had underplayed his contributions — and containing pointed criticism of Jordan and coach Phil Jackson. Book advances and royalties for athlete memoirs of this profile typically run into the high six figures, though Pippen’s specific deal terms were never disclosed.
Cryptocurrency. Since 2024 Pippen has been one of the NBA’s most visible crypto personalities. He has repeatedly posted on X that Satoshi Nakamoto — Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator — visits him in dreams and hands him price predictions, including a call that Bitcoin would hit $84,650 on November 5, 2024. The price sat around $67,000 that day but surged past $88,000 a week later, close enough that crypto media treated the dream as a genuine forecasting method. Pippen has since predicted $180,000 Bitcoin, posted “Study Bitcoin” during market pullbacks, and appeared at the Cantor Crypto Conference in November 2024 alongside Strategy chairman Michael Saylor, who later hosted him for dinner on his yacht. Whether any of this converts to actual holdings is unknown — Pippen has admitted he did not buy on his own dream prediction — but the persona keeps him commercially relevant.
The investments that went wrong. Two documented disasters explain a large share of the missing millions. In 1999, on the Bulls’ recommendation, Pippen placed roughly $20 million with Chicago advisor Robert Lunn. Lunn forged Pippen’s signature on a $1.4 million loan and steered client money into failed ventures; he was convicted of bank fraud in 2014 and sentenced to three years in federal prison in March 2016, ordered to forfeit $2.7 million and pay $1.5 million in restitution — including $400,000 to Pippen. Pippen had already settled a related civil suit for $1.5 million in 2007 and recovered $8 million through bankruptcy court after the sale of a South Side shopping mall Lunn had funded with client money. The second disaster was a $4.5 million private jet that turned out to need another $1 million in repairs before it could fly; Pippen sued and was awarded $2.3 million back, according to the South Florida Business Journal. Together, the fraud and the jet account for a reported $20 million-plus that simply evaporated.
Brand Deals and Sponsorships
At his peak Pippen was one of the most marketable athletes on the planet. Nike built a signature line around him in the 1990s — the Nike Air Pippen models and the Air More Uptempo, the shoe with the giant “AIR” lettering that became a streetwear staple — and he fronted national campaigns for Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa. Net-worth outlets estimate his endorsement income ran into the tens of millions across his playing career, a standard multiple for a global star of his era. Unlike Jordan, whose Nike relationship became a billion-dollar equity machine, Pippen’s deals were traditional fee-based contracts: large checks, no ownership, no compounding. When the playing career ended, so did the endorsement income.
The post-retirement commercial work has been smaller and quirkier: the DIGITS bourbon launch, paid appearances, autograph sessions, and the crypto-adjacent content that keeps his social following engaged. Nothing in this phase approaches the scale of his 1990s endorsement peak.
Houses, Cars and Other Assets
Fort Lauderdale mansion. In 2000 Scottie and Larsa Pippen bought an empty waterfront lot in Fort Lauderdale’s gated Harbor Beach community for $1.3 million and built a 13,500-square-foot Mediterranean estate, completed in 2004. The six-bedroom trophy home sat on a double lot with 215 feet of Intracoastal Waterway frontage, deep-water dockage for a yacht up to 190 feet, a home theater, game room, fitness center, wine cellar, pool with a water slide, and a full-size basketball court. It first hit the market in 2009 at $16 million and then spent 12 years languishing through price cuts and a $40,000-per-month rental listing. The Pippens finally sold it in September 2021 for $10.545 million — nearly $5.5 million below the original ask — with Larsa leading the final marketing push that included a video offer of a $1.5 million car collection with the sale.
Highland Park estate. In 2004 the couple paid $2.225 million for a 10,000-square-foot home on 2.6 acres in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. The six-bedroom property featured a movie theater, sauna, game room, wine cellar, swimming pool and a custom indoor basketball court with Pippen’s Bulls jersey logo painted on the floor. Pippen listed it for $3.1 million in 2016; after years of reductions and rental stretches at up to $16,000 a month, it sold in 2021 for just under $2 million — a loss on paper against the purchase price and the carrying costs of a decade.
At one point the Florida estate was offered as a luxury rental at $40,000 per month — a package that included the use of a 55-foot Van Dutch yacht, according to Nest Seekers, the brokerage that finally closed the sale. Even the rental market couldn’t move it for years, a reminder that carrying costs on a trophy property keep draining wealth long after the purchase price is paid.
Where he lives now. Following the divorce, Pippen relocated to Los Angeles, where he has said he spends most of his time. Details of his current residence have not been publicly disclosed.
Cars and the jet. Pippen has never been a headline car collector, though the $1.5 million car collection offered with the Florida home sale suggests the garage was well stocked at his peak. The aviation story is the famous one: the $4.5 million private jet purchase that required roughly $1 million more in repairs to become airworthy, ending in a lawsuit and a $2.3 million court award. It remains one of the most expensive cautionary tales in athlete finance.
Awards and Achievements
- 6× NBA champion (1991–1993, 1996–1998)
- 2× Olympic gold medalist (1992 Barcelona, 1996 Atlanta) — only player to win an NBA title and Olympic gold in the same year twice
- 7× NBA All-Star (1990, 1992–1997)
- NBA All-Star Game MVP (1994)
- 3× All-NBA First Team (1994–1996)
- 8× NBA All-Defensive First Team, 10 consecutive All-Defensive selections overall
- NBA steals leader (1994–95)
- Named one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players (1996)
- Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (2010)
- Chicago Bulls retired jersey No. 33 (December 9, 2005); bronze statue unveiled at the United Center (2011)
- USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year (1996)
Net Worth Growth Over the Years
No public filing tracks Pippen’s wealth year by year — these are reconstructed estimates from published reporting, and they show a fortune that peaked early and was steadily eroded by the fraud, the divorce and the lifestyle.
| Year | Estimated net worth | What drove it |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | $25–30 million | End of Bulls dynasty; $67.2M Rockets contract signed |
| 2004 | $35–40 million | Peak career earnings banked; Portland years paid ~$66M total |
| 2010 | $25–30 million | Lunn fraud exposure; $4.5M jet loss |
| 2016 | $20–25 million | Divorce proceedings begin; advisory role and ESPN income |
| 2021 | $20–25 million | Divorce finalized; $10.545M Florida home sale; Unguarded published |
| 2024 | $20–30 million | DIGITS bourbon expansion; crypto persona; media appearances |
| 2026 | $20–30 million | Anchored at $20M (Celebrity Net Worth); stable but not growing |
Social Media Presence
Pippen runs an active and unusually eccentric social media operation for a 61-year-old Hall of Famer. His Instagram account has roughly 1.7 million followers, mixing family photos, throwback Bulls content and bourbon promotion. His X account, @ScottiePippen, has more than 600,000 followers and functions as the headquarters of the Satoshi dream-prediction saga — the posts that keep him in crypto headlines and, indirectly, in the commercial conversation. He uses both platforms to promote DIGITS appearances and paid events.
Personal Life
Pippen has eight children. His eldest, Antron Pippen, with his first wife Karen McCollum (married 1988, divorced 1990), died in 2021 at age 33. He has twins Taylor Pippen and Tyler Roby with former partner Sonya Roby. With Larsa Pippen — his wife from 1997 until their divorce was finalized in December 2021 — he has four children: Scotty Jr., Preston, Justin and Sophia. His youngest daughter, Sierra, is with former partner Yvette De Leon. Scotty Pippen Jr., a guard out of Vanderbilt, has carved out his own NBA career, including time with the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Larsa marriage dominated the gossip pages for a decade. After a 2016 filing, a reconciliation, and a second filing in 2018, the divorce was finalized in December 2021, ending a 24-year marriage. The financial unwinding kept going long after: in June 2023 a court ordered that Larsa receive 50 percent of Pippen’s Chicago Bulls retirement fund accrued between their 1997 wedding and their November 2016 separation, paid as a cash lump sum — with a clause entitling her to 100 percent of whatever remains in the account if the balance can’t cover her share. Former teammate John Salley publicly defended the award, saying Larsa had been present for the entire marriage. Larsa, for her part, told the Real Housewives of Miami reunion that she received “not a nickel” for six years during the proceedings and had to build her own businesses — a jewelry line, a podcast and influencer work — to support herself. She dated Marcus Jordan, Michael Jordan’s son, from 2022 to early 2024, a relationship that drew relentless coverage given the history between the two families.
Sources & Reporting
Celebrity Net Worth — the $20 million anchored estimate and the real-estate history (Highland Park purchase and sale prices, Fort Lauderdale sale details); page refreshed in 2026.
Spotrac — year-by-year NBA salary data totaling $109,957,430 across 18 credited seasons, including the rookie deal, the seven-year extension and the Houston and Portland contracts.
ESPN — reporting on Robert Lunn’s 2016 sentencing for bank fraud; coverage of Pippen’s 2012 appointment and 2020 departure as Bulls senior advisor.
Chicago Tribune — original reporting on the Lunn fraud case, including Pippen’s $20 million investment and Lunn’s forged-signature loan, cited via WealthManagement.com’s 2016 coverage.
Realtor.com — the 12-year sale saga of the Fort Lauderdale mansion and its final $10.545 million price in September 2021.
Basketball Network — the June 2023 court order awarding Larsa Pippen 50 percent of Pippen’s Bulls retirement fund as a lump sum, and John Salley’s defense of the settlement (2026).
Bravo — Larsa Pippen’s Real Housewives of Miami Season 6 reunion statements about receiving no financial support during the six-year divorce process.
Cointelegraph — the 2026 magazine interview in which Pippen said Michael Saylor asked him to stop discussing his Satoshi Nakamoto conversations; details of the yacht dinner and Cantor Crypto Conference panel.
Bleacher Report — Pippen’s 2020 firing as Bulls advisor via the Thuzio Live & Unfiltered podcast; Larsa’s 2020 tweet on Pippen’s $109.19 million career earnings exceeding Jordan’s.
The Whiskey Wash — the June 2021 launch of DIGITS bourbon with Dave Phinney’s Savage & Cooke, including the 5,000-case Chicago distributor commitment and $70 pricing.
Sports Business Journal — Pippen’s earlier 2007 civil settlement with Lunn ($1.5 million) and contemporaneous reporting on the advisory relationship.
Reporting window: career records and court documents span 1987–2024; financial and lifestyle reporting reviewed from 2016 through October 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Scottie Pippen’s net worth in 2026?
Scottie Pippen’s net worth is estimated at around $20 million as of October 2026, with reasonable published estimates landing between $20 million and $30 million. The spread exists because net worth is what someone kept after taxes, spending, investments and divorce costs — not what they earned. Pippen earned nearly $110 million in NBA salary alone, but a fraudulent advisor, a costly divorce and years of big-ticket spending absorbed most of it.
How much money did Scottie Pippen make in the NBA?
Spotrac’s contract records put Pippen’s career NBA salary at $109,957,430 over 17 seasons with the Bulls, Rockets and Trail Blazers. About 70 percent of that arrived in the last five years of his career, after he left Chicago. His single biggest contract was the five-year, $67.2 million deal he signed with the Houston Rockets in 1998.
Did Scottie Pippen make more money than Michael Jordan?
In NBA salary, yes. Pippen’s $109.96 million in career earnings exceeds Michael Jordan’s roughly $93.3 million, because Jordan’s fortune came from Nike equity rather than paychecks. Their current net worths tell the opposite story: Jordan is a multi-billionaire while Pippen sits near $20 million — the difference is entirely what each man did with the money after basketball.
Why is Scottie Pippen’s net worth so low compared to his earnings?
Three documented events did most of the damage. He entrusted a reported $20 million to advisor Robert Lunn, who was convicted of bank fraud in 2014 and sentenced to three years in prison in 2016. He paid $4.5 million for a private jet that needed another $1 million in repairs to fly. And his divorce from Larsa Pippen, finalized in 2021, included a 2023 court order awarding her half of his Bulls retirement fund. Taxes on $110 million in salary took roughly half before any of that.
What was Scottie Pippen’s worst contract?
The seven-year, $18 million extension he signed with the Bulls in 1991. Signed for family security just before NBA salaries exploded, it left him earning $2.8 million in the 1997–98 season while Michael Jordan made $33.1 million. It is widely considered one of the most lopsided deals in sports history and became a central theme of ESPN’s 2020 documentary series The Last Dance.
What happened to Scottie Pippen’s financial advisor?
Robert Lunn, recommended to Pippen by the Bulls, received about $20 million of Pippen’s money for investment starting in 1999. Lunn forged Pippen’s signature on a $1.4 million personal loan and diverted client funds to his own debts. He was convicted of bank fraud in 2014, sentenced to three years in federal prison in March 2016, and ordered to forfeit $2.7 million and pay $1.5 million in restitution, including $400,000 to Pippen. Pippen had separately settled a civil suit against Lunn for $1.5 million in 2007 and recovered $8 million through bankruptcy court.
What does Scottie Pippen do now?
Pippen works as an occasional basketball analyst, promotes his DIGITS bourbon brand (launched in 2021 with Dave Phinney’s Savage & Cooke distillery), makes paid appearances, and has become one of the NBA’s loudest crypto voices — claiming on X that Satoshi Nakamoto visits him in dreams with Bitcoin price predictions. He lives in Los Angeles.
How much did Larsa Pippen get in the divorce?
The full settlement was never made public, but court reporting shows two concrete pieces: the divorce finalized in December 2021, and a June 2023 court order entitling Larsa to 50 percent of Pippen’s Chicago Bulls retirement fund accrued from their 1997 wedding through their November 2016 separation, paid as a lump sum — with a clause giving her up to 100 percent of the remaining account if the balance can’t cover her share. The Fort Lauderdale mansion, sold for $10.545 million in September 2021, was also part of the marital property unwinding.
Final Thoughts
Scottie Pippen’s financial story is the rare sports-money tale where every number is documented and the moral is unmistakable. He did the two things athletes are always told to do — he signed for security and he hired a recommended professional — and both cost him dearly. The $18 million contract gave his family certainty and cost him perhaps $50 million in market value. The trusted advisor turned $20 million into a federal fraud case. Yet the $20 million he holds today is still more than most Hall of Famers keep, and at 61 he has built a second act out of bourbon, television and the strangest Bitcoin commentary in sports. The money story isn’t a tragedy; it’s an audit — of what guaranteed contracts, bad advice and an expensive divorce actually cost, line by line.
Published on October 9, 2026. Last reviewed October 2026. Found an error? See our corrections policy.