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Scottie

Scottie Scheffler completes comeback, wins BMW Championship

by admin August 18, 2025

Aug 17, 2025, 09:37 PM ET

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — The numbers Scottie Scheffler is compiling have been drawing comparisons with Tiger Woods. The world’s No. 1 player had a Tiger-like moment with the trophy on the line and a club in his hand Sunday in the BMW Championship.

Scheffler’s 82-foot chip on the 17th — the hardest hole in the final round at Caves Valley — landed about 60 feet short and rolled the rest of the way, picking up speed, losing speed and dropping on the final turn. The birdie all but wrapped up another win, his fifth PGA Tour title this year.

It was reminiscent of Woods delivering magic to overshadow his sublime skill, with his chip-in from behind the 16th green at the Memorial and his chip-in for eagle in the World Cup in Japan.

Scheffler already had erased a four-shot deficit against hard-luck Robert MacIntyre in five holes. He was clinging to a one-shot lead on the 17th, a daunting par 3 with a back right pin and water right.

Scheffler was in the left rough, the safe spot, facing a shot that a dozen players had chipped over the green.

“I knew it was just going to be really fast, and do my best to get it down there and give myself a good look for par,” he said. “When it came out, it came out how we wanted to and then it started breaking and it started looking better and better.

“And yeah, it was definitely nice to see that one go in.”

Scheffler closed with a 3-under 67 for a two-shot victory and became the first player since Woods — there’s that name again — in 2006 and 2007 to win at least five times on the PGA Tour in consecutive years.

MacIntyre didn’t make a birdie until the 16th hole but stayed in the game after losing his big lead, mostly when Scheffler began missing short putts.

MacIntyre pulled within one shot of the lead going to the 17th when Scheffler worked his magic and had to settle for another runner-up finish to a memorable shot, just like he did at Oakmont when J.J. Spaun holed a 65-foot birdie putt to clinch the U.S. Open in June.

MacIntyre was in the scoring room when he watched Spaun’s winning putt and applauded it. He was alongside Scheffler at the BMW Championship, staring in disbelief but angry at his poor play off the tee that cost him the big lead early.

“When he’s pitched that in on 17 and then he’s hit the perfect tee shot on 18, it’s pretty much game over just then. You’re playing for second place at that point,” MacIntyre said.

“He’s the better player on the day. I’m just really pissed off right now. Right now, I want go and smash up my golf clubs, to be honest with you.”

MacIntyre made 18 birdies in the first 45 holes of the tournament and only two over the last 27 holes. He closed with a 73 and got some consolation prizes that didn’t mean much in the moment. He cracked the top 10 in the world for the first time, going to No. 8.

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Scheffler’s chip-in elicited the loudest cheer of the day.

The most satisfying shot came on the 15th, when his lead was down to one shot after a three-putt. MacIntyre hit to 7 feet from the fairway. Scheffler was in a deep bunker and hit 8-iron to 6 feet.

MacIntyre missed. Scheffler made.

“That was a really important shot in the tournament, one that I think will fly a little bit under the radar,” Scheffler said.

The season is not over for Scheffler, who leads the 30 players who advanced to this week’s Tour Championship at Atlanta’s East Lake with a chance to become the first repeat FedEx Cup champion since the series began in 2007.

All 30 players at East Lake can win the $10 million first-place check. The field includes Harry Hall, the only golfer who played his way into the top 30 on Sunday, and even that was tense. Hall made bogey on the par-5 16th — the easiest hole on the course — then went long and left at the 17th. He also chipped in for birdie and was safe going up the 18th.

Rickie Fowler was on the verge of getting back to East Lake only to twice miss the green from the fairway on the back nine — leading to bogey on the 14th and double bogey on the 15th, and knocking him out of the top 30.

Fowler finished with a 5-foot par putt. Had he missed, Michael Kim would have been in the Tour Championship. Instead, the 30th spot went to Akshay Bhatia, despite making four bogeys on the back nine and feeling as though he had blown it.

MacIntyre squandered a big chance too.

He showed plenty of grit on Saturday playing in the final group with Scheffler. But on the opening hole, Scheffler drilled his drive down the middle and hit to 6 feet for birdie, while MacIntyre missed the fairway and a 6-foot par putt. It was an early statement.

MacIntyre missed another fairway at the second and made bogey. He went from the fairway to a bunker on the short par-4 fifth, a two-shot swing when the Scotsman failed to get up-and-down for par and Scheffler made birdie.

Then Scheffler took the lead with a wedge to 6 feet for birdie on No. 7.

It looked like it would be a runaway at that point as Scheffler never seemed to miss — except when he had a chance to extend the lead. He missed birdie chances of 5 feet at No. 8 and 8 feet at No. 10. He botched a simple up-and-down at the 12th and three-putted from 18 feet on the 14th. Each chance kept MacIntyre in the hunt.

Then came one chip on the 17th for a knockout punch.

Scheffler, who finished at 15-under 265, has 18 career titles in the past 3½ years since his first PGA Tour title in Phoenix.

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

Esports

How Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams became this generation’s Scottie Pippen

by admin June 19, 2025

Tim MacMahonJun 19, 2025, 08:00 AM ET
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- Joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009
- Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks
- Appears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM

HE WAS A no-star recruit coming out of high school, landing at a small college before a sudden growth spurt. He didn’t register on NBA scouts’ radars until a couple of years later, as success didn’t come immediately even at that level, and then zoomed up the draft boards into the lottery late in the process.

This once unheralded prospect just kept getting better and better after arriving in the NBA, establishing himself as a do-it-all co-star, a perfect complement to an MVP who led the league in scoring. He earned his first All-Star appearance in his third season and hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy — for the first of several times — before hitting his prime.

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It was a heck of a career path for Scottie Pippen, the Hall of Famer who won six titles as Michael Jordan’s superstar sidekick with the Chicago Bulls. More than a few decades later, Jalen Williams seems to be on a similar journey, a blossoming star thriving in the shadow of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have a chance to clinch their first championship in Thursday’s Game 6 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers in large part because of Williams’ performance in the series. The 6-foot-6 Williams has done everything from serving as the primary defender on Pacers star power forward Pascal Siakam to running point while his scoring total has increased in each game, rising to a playoff-career-high 40 points in the Thunder’s pivotal Game 5 win.

Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams have put themselves in that sort of company with their production in this series. They have combined for 291 points in the Finals. According to ESPN Research, the only duos to score more points through five games in a Finals are Jordan and Pippen in 1993, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in 2017 and Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant in 2017.

“He is pretty special,” Pippen told ESPN. “I’m enjoying watching him. I see a lot of me in him for sure. I see a guy rising to be one of the top players in this league. He’s definitely a player that is capable of being able to lead that franchise to multiple championships — him and Shai, of course.”

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams scored or assisted on 103 points in Game 5, the most by a duo in an NBA Finals game in the last 50 years. Zach Beeker/NBAE via Getty Images

PIPPEN WAS IN the final years of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers by the time Williams, 24, was born. But Williams is enough of a basketball historian to be flattered by the comparison.

“I feel like a new-age Scottie maybe,” Williams told ESPN. “I’m not mad at that one at all. I like that. And then obviously Shai gets a little Jordan comparison, so that’s cool. It’s very cool. Any time you compared to somebody like that, you’re doing something right.”

Williams has done a lot of things right since arriving in Oklahoma City as the No. 12 pick in the 2022 draft, one of several selections the Thunder acquired from the LA Clippers along with Gilgeous-Alexander in the Paul George trade that poured the foundation for a potential dynasty.

Williams made an instant impact, finishing as the Rookie of the Year runner-up, and has continued to develop rapidly as the Thunder made double-digit win jumps in each of his first three seasons. He earned his first All-Star selection along with a third-team All-NBA spot and second-team All-Defensive nod this season.

Pippen’s résumé features seven All-Star and All-NBA selections, 10 All-Defensive honors, the six championship rings, a Hall of Fame induction and a spot on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. It’s extraordinarily high praise to put Williams in the same sentence at this point.

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But Pippen doesn’t want to limit Williams to that particular comparison, pointing out that Williams’ potential is even higher because of his scoring ability in this pace-and-space era of the NBA. Williams averaged 21.6 points per game this season — more than Pippen averaged in all but one season of his career, which was 1993-94, when Jordan was on his retirement sabbatical.

“I don’t even want to put a cap on him to say that he’s going to be me,” Pippen said. “I see him being greater, if I can say that. Just because of where the game is today. They have offensive freedom. We didn’t have that. We mostly ran out of a system. These guys have the freedom to shoot 3-balls and things of that nature. Players that are playing in today’s game have a chance to be better than players in the past because of the ability to shoot the ball.

“If this kid continues to shoot the 3-ball the way that he shoots it, I’m not going to sit here and argue with nobody and say that you can compare us. Because you can’t. He wins.”

Williams proudly smirked as the media inquired about his progress as a playmaker in the wake of the Thunder’s Game 4 road win.

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault had used Williams as a point forward in that game, having him serve as Oklahoma City’s primary offensive initiator to ease the burden on Gilgeous-Alexander against the Pacers’ relentless, full-court defense. Williams, the second-youngest player in the league this season to average at least 20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists per game, rose to the challenge. He scored 27 points, keeping the Thunder within striking distance, and set the table for Gilgeous-Alexander’s clutch brilliance as they beautifully executed the two-man game down the stretch of Oklahoma City’s comeback win.

It amused Williams that his performance in a point role could be considered a surprise.

“Well, I grew up short,” Williams said. “So I’ve always been a point guard.”

Williams insisted that the toughest adjustment he had to make in basketball was learning to play on the wing during his first couple of years at Santa Clara. He had sprouted four inches since his high school graduation, his second growth spurt in that range over the span of a few years. He didn’t register as a draft prospect until assuming a point forward role as a college junior, when he averaged 18.0 points and 4.2 assists per game, and then his stock shot up after an impressive showing at the NBA combine.

“I had all the guard skills,” Williams said. “Then when I grew, thank God they didn’t really go anywhere.”

Pippen had a similar ascent at Central Arkansas, where he stayed all four years before going fifth overall in the 1987 draft. Bulls general manager Jerry Krause bet on the talent of a rangy wing with ballhandling skills, floor vision and a 7-3 wing span.

Thunder GM Sam Presti had similar intrigue with Williams, who has a 7-2 wing span, a physical attribute that helped him fill in as Oklahoma City’s starting center during a stretch of the regular season when 7-footers Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein were injured. As versatile and impactful as Williams is defensively, his development with the ball in his hands has fueled his ascension into a star.

“When he started with us, and this has been our approach with most players, it’s not like we just hand them the ball,” Daigneault said. “We put them in the system first, and the guys that are really efficient in the system, they end up banging the door down and show you that they need more. He was in that category.

“We weren’t pushing every button for him, but he just kept showing the ability to take more of a load. His efficiency was not dropping off, and his impact wasn’t dropping off. If anything, it was increasing. Usually when those guys are doing that, they are declaring themselves, and he certainly declared himself.

“Now he is learning all the lessons to be learned in that role.”Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jalen Williams is averaging 31.0 points in his last 3 games. He scored 40 points in Monday’s Game 5 win. Kyle Terada/Imagn Images

WILLIAMS CREDITS THE Thunder’s culture for allowing him to cultivate his game while impacting winning. He isn’t focused on only his individual development, but Williams has worked to grow his game in ways that complement Gilgeous-Alexander, and benefit from the attention paid to the MVP.

As Oklahoma City fans know all too well, a collection of young stars does not guarantee future championship parades. The Thunder’s 2012 Finals team featured three future MVPs — Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden — and never returned to this stage.

But the circumstances surrounding the star trios from the two Oklahoma City’s Finals teams are starkly different. Harden, the Sixth Man of the Year then, wanted a leading role and a maximum contract and got both when he was traded to the Houston Rockets before the next season. Durant and Westbrook won a lot of games together, but they didn’t enhance each other’s games the way that Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams do.

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There’s a clear pecking order for the Thunder now, and that’s fine with Williams and Holmgren, who rival executives around the league assume will agree to lucrative contract extensions this offseason.

“It’s very easy when you have a team that likes to do their role,” Williams said. “And I’m not saying that guys can’t branch out, but just when everybody kind of accepts that role for the better of their team … I know mine. When you just have guys that are willing to do that, it allows everybody to grow and get better.

“I’ve had that, and I think what I got good at was understanding how Shai likes to play and being able to patch my game into something that complements him a lot more and can take the load off of him. A lot of it is self-awareness and at the same time willingness. I don’t think everybody’s willing to sacrifice parts of their game to do that. And he does the same thing. He’ll sacrifice parts of his game to make the team better. He can come down and shoot every ball and I’d slap him on the butt and say, ‘Good shot.’ So for him to be able to trust us, too, goes a long way.”

Williams has boosted his scoring total in each of his three seasons, going from 14.1 points per game as a rookie to 19.1 in his second season and 21.6 this season. His assists totals — 3.3, 4.5, 5.1 — have also increased each season.

“‘Dub’ has made tremendous strides,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “He is one of the biggest reasons why we’re here. Him being able to shoulder what he does every night on both ends of the floor takes a lot of pressure off everyone else around him, including myself. He is a gamer. He is a winner. But he continues to get better in every situation. He is a Swiss Army knife, and he’s only getting better with every game he plays. I’m excited to see where he ends up.”

Pippen had that same sort of steady, significant improvement as the Bulls built toward becoming a dynasty that hung six championship banners in eight seasons. He increased his scoring and assists averages each year through the first five seasons of his career. And he warns that Williams should be expected to keep making large strides.

“When guys go through journeys like that, watch out because the sky’s the limit,” Pippen said. “He is going to be a great player because he still feels unwanted. He’s still got that chip on his shoulder that, ‘They don’t know what they missed out on.’

“It’s nothing you get rid of. It’s a part of you. It’s instilled in you for life. He’s making people think now that passed him up. In the future, you will see that he’ll continue to just get better. He’s going to always keep his knife sharp.”

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Scottie, Rory, Bryson, Oakmont and more U.S. Open storylines

by admin June 12, 2025

Mark Schlabach
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Mark Schlabach
ESPN Senior Writer
- Senior college football writer
- Author of seven books on college football
- Graduate of the University of Georgia
Paolo Uggetti

Jun 11, 2025, 07:12 AM ET

In the nine previous U.S. Opens at Oakmont, only 23 players finished under par. Three of the past champions here had scores over par, and the lowest 72-hole scoring total for a winner at Oakmont was 5 under.

Thanks to ankle-high rough and lightning-fast greens, the most difficult test in golf is even more treacherous on a course with no water hazards and few trees.

“It’s going to be a challenge,” said LIV Golf League captain Jon Rahm, the 2021 U.S. Open winner. “A lot of unfortunate things are going to happen. It’s hard fairways to hit, bad lies, difficult bunkers, difficult greens. It’s going to be a nice test, a difficult test. And I think one of the truest representations of what a U.S. Open is all about.”

Will Scottie Scheffler’s dominance continue as he looks to grab the third leg of the career Grand Slam? Can Masters champion Rory McIlroy fix his problems off the tee, which plagued him in his past two starts? Who are the dark horses who might be poised to lift the U.S. Open trophy Sunday?

World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler has won in three of his past four starts, including his third major at the PGA Championship. Is he the golfer to beat again?

Mark Schlabach: About the only way I don’t see Scheffler contending this week is if he’s wild off the tee, and that didn’t happen in his last victory, at the Memorial. He seems to have figured out whatever was bothering him with his driver in the final round of last month’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club. And, yes, the guy is so good that it might have been a simple case of him aiming the wrong direction.

The world No. 1 golfer has won three times in his past four starts, including that third career major title. He has gained an average of 14 strokes on the field over his past five starts, and that’s going to be nearly impossible to beat if it happens again. He leads the tour in nearly every strokes-gained metric when it comes to ballstriking and driving the ball. He’s ranked in the top 25 in putting. Yeah, good luck.

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Paolo Uggetti: Is the sky blue? Yeah, Scheffler is definitely the player the entire golf world is chasing, and with good reason. Scheffler looks unbeatable. While I do think that this course and setup will require his A-game — he probably won at Quail Hollow with his B-game at best — Scheffler has been trending back to his elite 2024 form the last few months.

I agree with Mark that a shaky driver would eject Scheffler from contention this week, but I’m also curious to see how Scheffler’s putting fares on Oakmont’s vexing green complexes. Scheffler has seemingly fixed that weakness, or at least vastly improved it (he’s a top-20 putter in the world this season), but if he has a hard time seeing putts go in early, I could see him getting frustrated with that and letting it slowly seep into the rest of his game. At Pinehurst last year, the course’s native areas near the fairways appeared to give Scheffler some trouble with their unpredictability. If you squint and try to find a reason Scheffler won’t be able to excel this week, the greens might be the answer.

What’s going on with Rory McIlroy, and do you think he can find his game at Oakmont?

Rory McIlroy has won the U.S. Open once, in 2011 at Congressional Country Club. Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Schlabach: Obviously, McIlroy hasn’t been comfortable on tee since the driver he used to win the Masters was deemed nonconforming in testing at the PGA Championship. He wasn’t a factor at Quail Hollow, where he had won four times, and couldn’t get his drives in the short grass.

McIlroy used a different version of the new TaylorMade Qi35 driver at last week’s RBC Canadian Open — and his results were worse. He used a shorter shaft (44 inches) in an attempt to have greater control of the ball, but he hit only 42% of the fairways. He found only four in the second round, when he posted an 8-over 78. That’s a recipe for disaster at Oakmont.

He’s using a different TaylorMade driver this week, and he feels that he’s in a better place.

While McIlroy will eventually figure things out on the tee, I’m more concerned about his mindset and motivation after he completed the career Grand Slam at the Masters. He has talked openly about how it’s more difficult to go to the practice range and grind for three or four hours. He has talked about how no matter how many more times he wins on the PGA Tour, none of them will match his victory at Augusta National Golf Club.

“You dream about the final putt going in at the Masters, but you don’t think about what comes next,” McIlroy said Tuesday. “I think I’ve always been a player that struggles to play after a big event, after I win whatever tournament. I always struggle to show up with motivation the next week because you’ve just accomplished something and you want to enjoy it and you want to sort of relish the fact that you’ve achieved a goal.

“I think chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half, I think I’m allowed a little bit of time to relax a little bit. But here at Oakmont, I certainly can’t relax this week.”

I think it’s going to be a few more weeks, at least, before we see Rory return with his A-game.

Uggetti: It sums golf up, doesn’t it? One second, McIlroy is on top of the world, having won three tournaments this season, including the Masters to complete the Grand Slam, and the general theory is that he’s now freed up and might just keep playing at a high level the rest of the year. Not so fast.

The fickle nature of the sport comes for even the best. Maybe it’s a swing feel, a putting stroke, or in the case of McIlroy, a new driver, but even a small detail gone awry can derail a proper run of good golf, and it appears that McIlroy is going through that right now.

On Tuesday, McIlroy played 18 holes early and he appeared to go back to the model and specs of the driver he used at the Masters, which is not the newest TaylorMade driver. Maybe that will spark a return of sorts to the kind of golf he played at Augusta. But if he found a way to win without hitting most fairways there, at Oakmont he will not be afforded the same leeway.

What do you expect from defending champ Bryson DeChambeau this week?

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Bryson DeChambeau: Grateful for the year since U.S. Open win

Bryson DeChambeau joins “SportsCenter” to reflect on the year that has passed since his U.S. Open victory and what’s ahead in his golf journey.

Schlabach: I expect him to be right back in the mix. Not to sound like a broken record, but DeChambeau will also have to do a better job of keeping his drives between the lines than he did a year ago.

At Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina last year, DeChambeau found only about half the fairways (57%) off the tee. He can’t do that again at Oakmont. He made up for his inaccuracy by hitting greens and putting brilliantly to win his second U.S. Open, and DeChambeau’s putter is one of the reasons I like him to be in contention this week.

For as long as DeChambeau is off the tee, he is one of the better putters around, which will be a bonus on Oakmont’s diabolical greens.

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Uggetti: DeChambeau has not so quietly been the most consistent major championship player not named Scottie Scheffler over the past two years. In his past nine major starts, he has six finishes inside the top six, including two runners-up and a win. I would be shocked if he doesn’t contend at Oakmont, which presents the kind of canvas that suits his game.

That being said, I’ll be fascinated to see where DeChambeau’s approach game is after that part of his game was arguably what held him back at Augusta and Quail Hollow. During the Masters, DeChambeau hit 60% of his greens during the week, and at the PGA, he lost nearly half a stroke to the field on his approach game.

Sure, Oakmont’s length and rough favors a long hitter like DeChambeau, but if his approach game hasn’t improved (he has new LA Golf irons in the bag this week), it could be another near miss for the defending champion.

How will Oakmont play this week?

Oakmont Country Club is hosting the U.S. Open for the 10th time. AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

Schlabach: I’d be disappointed if it’s anything less than carnage. Each of the past six U.S. Open winners had a score of 6 under or better, and they were a combined 47 under par. That’s not supposed to be how the U.S. Open works.

“I don’t think people turn the TV on to watch some of the guys just hit, like, a 200-yard shot on the green, you know what I mean?” said two-time major champion Xander Schauffele. “I think they turn on the U.S. Open to see a guy shooting 8 over and suffer. That’s part of the enjoyment of playing in the U.S. Open for viewers.”

I walked the course with Scheffler and Gary Woodland on Monday. The USGA says the rough is going to be 5 inches, and it’s juicy and thick. It was pretty wet Monday and Tuesday, but clear skies are forecast through Friday, so the hot weather should dry things out considerably.

I saw the grounds crew mowing the rough on No. 18 earlier in the week. Or at least I thought they were cutting it with push mowers. I’m pretty sure they were only fluffing it up and drying it out.

“I just think it requires patience and discipline,” Justin Thomas said. “If you just get lazy, like on any drive, any wedge shot, any chip, any putt, you can kind of look stupid pretty fast, especially at a place like this.”

If weather forecasts are correct, the greens are going to firm up and get slick, much faster than any greens the golfers have seen this season, outside of Augusta National.

“Anything close to par is what they want here,” Schauffele said of the potential winning score. “The members absolutely love their property, and the members absolutely want it to be over par. I know what they’re rooting for.”

Uggetti: I’m going to pivot the other way on this. I do think Oakmont will be difficult — all you have to do is take a walk around the gigantic property and look down at the luscious grass to know the winner will have golfed his ball all week. And yet I think we often forget both how good these guys really are and also how good the technology they’re playing with is, even compared with what players used in 2016.

The modern game and the modern driver combined with a hyper-emphasis on skill, speed and strength from an earlier age have produced players such as DeChambeau, McIlroy and several of the amateurs who are in the field this year who can drive it a mile. Oakmont is far more nuanced than a simple bomb-and-gouge test, and its intricacies will sift out those who don’t belong. But the game is too deep and too good now, and the USGA far too evolved as a governing body, to expect any kind of over-par finish.

Oakmont will play hard, but it will not be impossible. Not for these guys.

Give us one dark horse to contend/win this week?

Schlabach: Harris English is coming off his best finish at a major, and he is probably a bargain at 100-1 odds. He finished in the top 12 in each of his past four big events, tying for 12th at the Masters, 10th at the Truist Championship, second at the PGA Championship and 12th at the Memorial. He has a nice track record in the U.S. Open, with three top-eight finishes in his past five starts. He will keep it in the fairway, will hit enough greens and is one of the best putters out there.

Uggetti: Does Keegan Bradley fit the bill? He is currently 90-1 odds to win this week, but it wouldn’t completely shock me to see him near the top of the leaderboard come the weekend. The U.S. Ryder Cup captain is a top-15 course fit, according to Data Golf, and it’s mostly due to how accurate he is off the tee. This season he’s top-20 in the world in strokes gained off the tee while also being top-15 in strokes gained: approach. Seems like a pretty decent recipe to make some noise at Oakmont this week and really ramp up the discussion of whether Bradley should be a playing captain at Bethpage.

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

NBA Legend Scottie Pippen Issues Major Bitcoin Call to Community

by admin June 5, 2025

Pippen’s Bitcoin message to crypto enthusiasts
Bitcoin’s on-chain activity surges

Famous NBA player Scottie Pippen has addressed the global crypto community with a message directly related to Bitcoin.

Pippen has become famous in the crypto community recently thanks to his semi-joking tweets about the mysterious Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, allegedly coming to him in his dreams and sharing Bitcoin price predictions with him.

This Bitcoin call came after over the past day BTC has lost nearly 2%, falling from almost $107,000 to $104,630.

Pippen’s Bitcoin message to crypto enthusiasts

“Study Bitcoin,” Scottie Pippen tweeted earlier today. The community showed a mixed reaction to his message. Some users asked Pippen to introduce the community to Satoshi, hinting at his earlier claims of meeting the Bitcoin creator in his dream. Several X users expressed support to Pippen, while many recommended studying not Bitcoin but “your own Self”.

Study Bitcoin.

— Scottie Pippen (@ScottiePippen) June 5, 2025

Similar statements about the importance of studying Bitcoin also often come from Bitcoin influencer and the co-founder of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), Michael Saylor. He claims that it is enough to spend 100 hours studying Bitcoin to understand fully how it works and how it can be used for profitability of one’s company. He claims that this is how long he spent studying BTC before he decided to pivot his company, MicroStrategy, to Bitcoin rails in the August of 2020.

Since then, the company has been purchasing Bitcoin, first using cash on its balance sheet, and then beginning to raise funds through the issuance of securities that can be later converted into MicroStrategy’s stocks, MSTR. By now, Strategy has managed to accumulate 580,955 Bitcoins worth more than $61 billion. This year, Saylor’s company has been raising a lot more funds that before, surprising the community with nearly weekly Bitcoin acquisitions.

Bitcoin’s on-chain activity surges

Major data aggregator company, Santiment, has reported a significant increase in Bitcoin’s on-chain activity, while BTC is trading below the $105,000 level. As of May 29, Santiment reported, a staggering 556,830 new Bitcoin wallets were created – this is the highest value since early December 2023.

📊 Bitcoin’s on-chain activity has seen sharp rises this week as its price hovers just below $105K:

📈 May 29th: 556,830 new $BTC wallets created (Highest since December 2, 2023)

🔄 June 2nd: 241,360 coins circulated (Highest since December 8, 2024)

Growth in a network’s… pic.twitter.com/2DxknVXrKT

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) June 5, 2025

Besides, as on June 2d, Santiment spotted 241,360 Bitcoins circulating in the crypto market – the highest value of this metric since December 8, 2024. It noted that this increase in the on-chain activity is certainly a good sign.

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June 5, 2025 0 comments