MJ was the No.3 highest-earning athlete in 1991 with a total income of $16 million.

After the Chicago Bulls finally got over the Detroit Pistons hump and became NBA champions in 1991, Michael Jordan became a bigger superstar than ever. Later that offseason, Gatorade released its iconic ‘Be like Mike’ commercial.

That ad campaign was a hit, with literally almost everybody in the basketball world wanting to be like MJ at the time. But when reporters asked Jordan’s Bulls running mate Scottie Pippen if he wanted to be like Mike, Scottie expressed his lack of enthusiasm for the idea.

“I’d like his bank account,” Pippen said. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind being him for a day, or maybe a couple of days.”

Just the bank account, not his life

Jordan ranked No.3 in the Forbes list of highest-paid athletes in 1991, with a total of $16.0 million, including $13.2 from endorsement deals. So, to be fair, it wouldn’t have been just Scottie who was interested in his bank account that year.

While Pip was kind of half-joking with that answer, he indeed needed that money. Scottie was the youngest of 12 children, and when he was 14, his father suffered a stroke that paralyzed him for the rest of his life. But other than that, small-town boy Pip wanted no part of MJ’s life.

“No, I wouldn’t ever want to be him,” Pippen continued. “To have to stay in the room all day long, because so many people are waiting outside? To always have the feeling that someone is standing behind you, listening, just recording everything you say and do? No. I don’t know how he does it. I can go out. I can walk around. People come up to me for autographs and to talk, but it’s natural. They see Michael, and they jump. People act as if they’ve seen a ghost. No, I wouldn’t want to live like that.”