Scottie Pippen once owned his own airplane — Air Pip. Seriously. That was the name. I’m not clever enough to make that up.
As I imagine happened to everything ever named Air Pip, the deal went bad. Everything fell apart and back in 2004 Pippen lost a $5 million judgment to U.S. Bank over the deal.
Pippen then turned around and sued the people who were supposed to put together and monitor the airplane deal for him. It’s the American way.
That brings us up to today, and a report in the South Florida Business Journal.Former NBA basketball star Scottie Pippen has won a $2.37 million judgment against a Miami businessman, Craig Frost, and a Miami company, CF Air....
In 2010, widespread media covered a Cook County jury verdict for Pippen related to the deal: He won $2 million in a malpractice case against Chicago law firm Pedersen & Houpt. Pippen alleged the firm failed to closely monitor his plane purchase. Pippen originally sought $8 million in that case.
The final judgment against Frost was recently registered in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. It said Frost had agreed to a confidential settlement in September 2010, but had failed to pay Pippen under the terms of that settlement.What is the lesson here? First, never name an airplane after yourself. After that, not much, save for this — Scottie Pippen basically got his money back on the deal, but a bunch of lawyers got rich (or richer) in the process. I think that pretty much is now the NBA’s labor negotiations will go — we all have a pretty good idea where the eventual compromise will be, but first a lot of lawyers are going to make a lot of money from the negotiations.